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Noob needs lighting.


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Hi, I usually hang out in HCAF but I need lighting advice. We've got a clear idea of what we want to do but not totally certain how to achieve it.

 

Right, my band is a Prodigy tribute, we run the main programming from Ableton Live. First of all, could we use ableton to trigger a DMX controller, or even another laptop running software? Will this be hard/expensive (not counting the cost of a third laptop as we're looking to upgrade our master laptop soon anyway).

 

We're having a new backdrop made up to match The Prodigy's backdrop and want to be able to light that, and change it's illumination throughout the set. We're also building up some "johnny 5" heads, which are basicly glorified lampshades which will house LED Par cans to light up their eyes in different colours. We're planning 3 "Johnny 5" heads, and for our purposes, we'll probably be cool with their eyes changing to the same colour as eachother.

 

We also have a DMX strobe, which we might double up on. Til now we've been using a mains switch to control it but it'd be cool if it/they could be incorporated into an automated show.

 

Would those LED flood/strobes be good as a colourwash? I'm pretty sure we can get away with using venue's own front of stage lighting for our faces, but would be good to get our own washes and maybe some proppa strobing effects going on. We'll probably add some moving spots or scanners at some point too. Which would people recommend? We've hired moving heads a couple of times before but just used their internal sound/light setting and gotten them in sync. They worked great but they sorta carry on going between tracks if the MC is talking and stuff. Is it really hard to get them to do their thing if you have to program them yourself?

 

The other biggie is that we bought some audience blinders....unseen and we have no clue what to do with them. They each have 6 1000w lamps, but we have no controller, no cables (the sockets are massive with a million pins..) and just no hope of ever using them.

 

I have heard from many places that you could use you're normal garden floodlights, which would deffinitly have the right brightness effect, and hook them up to DMX dimmer controls so they too can be incorporated into the show.

 

Is this true? Can it be done? We're thinking of the LED route as we've been told alsorts about power draw and lamp life, with these things they're deffinitly not gonna draw 12000w per flash and if the bulbs go, it's a trip to B&Q for a new one, not god knows how much from a lighting specialist.

 

Anyway... Here's a couple of links to some recent Prodigy footage to sorta show you what we're trying to achieve...but on a smaller scale. Ignore the bad sound but watch in HD, the picture qualitly is quite good!

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=t0khjbvyRzU

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=djmq-rrzTkw

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OGGZW-iNaP4

 

You can see the backdrop and how it's lit up, and the "Johnny 5s". Anything we're missing here in terms of getting something similar going? Any tasty little effects there???

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Well the one's we've bought are gonna be sold on cos, like you say...too much draw and to get lamps, cabling, dimmers and everything will cost the best part of a grand.

 

That's why we're thinking, can your normal outdoor floodlights be hooked up to some kinda DMX Dimmer thingy to do the job? I've heard of people doing it but I'm still not 100% on HOW?? Do these dimmers exist??

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can your normal outdoor floodlights be hooked up to some kinda DMX Dimmer thingy to do the job? I've heard of people doing it but I'm still not 100% on HOW?? Do these dimmers exist??

 

Yes...

 

I use the following;

p28616h-e3f3b2a5e61ec332f8ba6be6745c100e

and

homedepot_work_light.jpg

(painted black)

Cheap, cheap, cheap... But functional...

Rough video of what 250 watters look like...

I moved up to 500 watters...

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Yeah I've been told that. will 1 dimmer pack be enough to control them all?

 

 

Not for long full-on use... Blasts only, sure thing...

 

I run both 500 watters on one pack... But I also make sure I'm on fresh circuit from everything else I'm running... With the dimmer pack I showed you, it can be configured that all four channels act as one, so your four 250watt fixtures would plug into each of the four "outlets" channels... This will help you avoid popping any individual fuses... If you tried plugging 1000watts of light into one outlet, you'd most likely blow the internal fuse...

 

Of course you are in the UK, so I have idea what you deal with for electricity and such...

 

Good luck with everything!

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Ah....I don't think we'd be wanting to go any more than either two 500w floods or four 250s,

 

So they'd each have a power outlet, but they'd be controlled as if they were all just one massive blinder? Would that only need one DMX channel then?

 

Thanks for the PM too, I'll deffinitly check out all your stuff. It's late here so I'm off to bed! HAHA

 

:thu:

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Slowly getting my head around this....slowly....

 

So....Been looking into scanners and stuff...seen a set of 6 of those Smart scanners, they're cheap (at the moment) and I've watched some youtube demos of them, they look more than adiquate for what we need.

 

OK, so each one is a "Fixture" right, so you have to assign an address to it which is 16 channels appart from eachother??? Is that correct?

 

Does it need to be 16 all the time or say, I've seen things that use eg. 5 dmx channels, 11 dmx channels and so forth.... would you start your 5 channel fixture at address 1, then your 11 channel fixture at 6, then your next at 28...or do they need 16 between them regardless?

 

Also if you wanted 2 or more lights to be controlled exactly the same, can you use the same address? For example, We want to control all three of our "Johnny 5's" together, same colour at the same time. They're each gonna have an LED par can inside. So do I just set all three to be controlled at address 1 or have I just got this totally wrong?

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Also if you wanted 2 or more lights to be controlled exactly the same, can you use the same address? For example, We want to control all three of our "Johnny 5's" together, same colour at the same time. They're each gonna have an LED par can inside. So do I just set all three to be controlled at address 1 or have I just got this totally wrong?

 

 

Yep. If you set the DIP switches on identical fixtures to the same address, they will all respond in identical fashion.

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Oh?? SO software makes it even easier? Great cos we're ultimatly gonna try and run software from a laptop, triggered by ableton....on another laptop.

 

Which er....actually brings me to....can ableton from one laptop trigger lighting software from another laptop? If so is it easy to do? We don't want the lighting software running on the same one.

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