Decent, basic lighting

[bassguppy]

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm doing.

 

 

I just picked up 4 Chauvet Colorsplash 200B's for wash and plan on getting 6 to 8 conventional PAR's for performer and backdrop lighting (3 piece band). I may add a couple LED Par38's eventually. All lighting on 2 trees at each front corner.

 

The conventionals will probably always be on. The 200B's colors may be switched occasionally every few songs. Not looking for a spectacular light show with flashing lights, strobes, etc.

 

I'm thinking a Chauvet Obey 40 or 70 controller or should I consider software (already have a good laptop)? If the conventionals are always on will I need dimmer packs? Should I get them anyway? I'm one of the performers so the controller or laptop will be on stage and I only need and want to change every few songs.

[bigjd]

I would suggest reading the Band Lighting sticky at the top of the page,that'll get you most of your connection questions answered quick.

Theres a number of us that use different software programs to control their lighting from stage in different ways.

Im use Freestyler myself, but there are others too.

I'm sure each has it's strong points and weakness ,so it might be better to ask about specific softwares that you are considering.

[Plan-B]

My thoughts are that if your only controlling a few 200b's and dimmer packs a very basic (cheap) hardware controller will fit the bill. The obey 40 would have more then enough channels. Down side being it lacks the all the options, memory and upgrade potential of software but will still control all you mentioned above and maybe more. Upside is a cheap controller will probably be more road worthy then an expensive laptop.

[doug_h]

I was in a similar situation a while back. The singer picked up these nice new led pars and it became my job to figure out how to make them work. I already had an old laptop, so I put all our break music on there and loaded freestyler for the lights with a velleman dmx interface and programmed a bunch of scenes. I had an old midi foot controller and had to install midi ox/midi yoke to convert the program changes to midi notes and now we have a foot controlled dmx light show on the cheap. This has been working without any problems for the last 1 1/2 years.

[TrickyBoy]

Three things:

 

1. Yes to reading Basic Lighting guide in the sticky. I found it invaluable.

2. I agree about the Obey 40. It's cheap, easy to program and simple to use and more than powerful enough for your application.

3. Yes to dimmer packs. I'm assuming that you will have gels on those PAR cans. You're not going to want every color on all the time. Even if they are all the same color, you're still going to want the ability to increase/decrease the amount of lighting on the stage.