Members surfrockbmxer1 Posted December 25, 2009 Members Share Posted December 25, 2009 So i have the fortune of playing with a very wealthy guitar player. We wanted some lights for our live show so he threw out a few grand and bought us these Martin Mac 300 lights. Sounds great right? Well we have no idea what to do with them. Would someone kindly give me an idiots lesson or some direction of what to do with these. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members soundlight Posted December 25, 2009 Members Share Posted December 25, 2009 How many units do you have? Do you have a controller? If so what is it? Do you have truss or stands to hang the lights on? Do you have the necessary cabling? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members surfrockbmxer1 Posted December 25, 2009 Author Members Share Posted December 25, 2009 We have 2 mac 300's. We don't have a controller. Didn't know we needed one. We also don't have any cables for lights. We're completely in the dark with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BillESC Posted December 25, 2009 Members Share Posted December 25, 2009 Where are you located? Mac 300's are a very versatile fixtures with a lot of features but require a control system, either hardware or software. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members soundlight Posted December 25, 2009 Members Share Posted December 25, 2009 Do you have any other lighting whatsoever? MAC300s are great, but normally you get a basic stage wash of other fixtures before you start looking in to advanced stuff like MAC300s. You'll need a controller for them, either software or hardware as Bill mentioned. You'll also need DMX cables to connect the controller to the fixtures. These cables are cheap and easy to come by. Do you sequence anything live with your show or do you already use a computer for anything else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members surfrockbmxer1 Posted December 25, 2009 Author Members Share Posted December 25, 2009 I live in northwest Florida. We have no hardware and probably no software for them. No other lights either. Just these. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gjb3 Posted December 25, 2009 Members Share Posted December 25, 2009 Here's what you should do: 1. hire Soundlight to be your lighting consultant/LD 2. buy a few grand worth of truss and wash lights as recommended by your new LD, including a good controller 3. have your new LD program everything for you 4. have your new LD train a junior LD to operate the light show at your gigs. Soundlight's resume' can be found on youtube. It'll take you about 30 seconds to make that call. PS - Soundlight, I want a finder's fee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BillESC Posted December 26, 2009 Members Share Posted December 26, 2009 Or hook up with a good equipment dealer, one that will take the time to explain how things work and what your options are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rimmer Posted December 26, 2009 Members Share Posted December 26, 2009 So i have the fortune of playing with a very wealthy guitar player. We wanted some lights for our live show so he threw out a few grand and bought us these Martin Mac 300 lights. Sounds great right? Well we have no idea what to do with them. Would someone kindly give me an idiots lesson or some direction of what to do with these. I've used a load of Mac 300's over the years. Simple small but heavy moving head wash lamp. Not totally bright but pretty bright even by todays standards. They can be looked at as a standard DMX interfacing moving head with the usual array of channels that control all the usual facilities that any moving head offers. All moving heads are the same in this respect. The only thing I don't really like about the Mac 300 is they don't do Red very well. Other than that, a pretty solid wash light/moving head (in some ways a flexible par can replacement). A half decent, at best, fixture from a company with a sometimes good or very bad track record.. Clean the lamp and optics regularly (with isopropanol alcohol or similar) and don't touch the lamp with your fingers as it will die and they are not that cheap... Rimmer p.s. I can't remember the operating system in the 300's but there is a chance (and I should really check this) that they can do the same DEMO mode that the Mac 500/600's do. Put them in demo mode after restricting the pan and tilt range (it's in the 500 menu somewhere). This makes the Mac500's very good for a straight party/dance floor situation. Maybe the 300's do the same but I can't remember. Something to check out.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jamesewells Posted December 26, 2009 Members Share Posted December 26, 2009 I live in northwest Florida. We have no hardware and probably no software for them. No other lights either. Just these. Are you in the Panhandle? I'm in Tallahassee... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members surfrockbmxer1 Posted December 26, 2009 Author Members Share Posted December 26, 2009 I'm in Fort Walton Beach, FL. About 2 hours from Tallahassee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kazak Posted December 28, 2009 Members Share Posted December 28, 2009 My advice would be to return the Macs if possible. For the price of two of those you could get a very decent, very comprehensive lighting and control system that would add a great deal to your band. Here is my setup, that cost a good bit less than 2 Macs. And hire soundlight is the best idea! He was amazingly helpful to me. Read his Basic Lighting Guide first! http://www.youtube.com/user/OpenMicRecording#p/u/5/zf9QIBxReNM http://www.youtube.com/user/OpenMicRecording#p/u/2/VkB5SFpMB3M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members surfrockbmxer1 Posted December 28, 2009 Author Members Share Posted December 28, 2009 Kazak i really like the look of those lights. That's pretty much what we're going for. I don't think we can use such an elaborate back rig though.....i don't know what the technical term is. We need something extremely portable as we play different bars every weekend. I love how the lights changed colors and pattern to the rhythm of the song. Can we achieve that with out a light tech? I'd like to use some sort of footswitch or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rimmer Posted December 28, 2009 Members Share Posted December 28, 2009 My advice would be to return the Macs if possible. For the price of two of those you could get a very decent, very comprehensive lighting and control system that would add a great deal to your band.Here is my setup, that cost a good bit less than 2 Macs. And hire soundlight is the best idea! He was amazingly helpful to me. Read his Basic Lighting Guide first!http://www.youtube.com/user/OpenMicRecording#p/u/5/zf9QIBxReNMhttp://www.youtube.com/user/OpenMicRecording#p/u/2/VkB5SFpMB3M I didn't check the videos but you sentiment about selling on the 300's isn't a bad idea. Possibly what I would do as they could sell for a good amount depending, if you selling them to the right seller.. Best of luck Rimmer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kazak Posted December 28, 2009 Members Share Posted December 28, 2009 Hey surf, thats a whole lot of questions, and all ones that we are going through constantly. The show in the first video is fully programmed in DMXIS running as a plug-in in Cubase on a MacBook Pro, and in my humble opinion is unquestionably the way to go. I have tried a lot of different ways to achieve what I think is an acceptable result, and will continue to experiment with anything and everything available. I tried a hardware controller (Obey 70) and got frustrated very quickly. DMXIS will run on almost any laptop and can be controlled by a foot-switch, but to get a properly synchronized show, without a dedicated LD, playing to a click/backing track is pretty much a requirement. My situation is a little different from yours, as I am providing a promotional video service to musicians for which I charge them a very reasonable fee, and it is therefore focused heavily on the video results. My system is quite specifically tailored to that requirement, for instance I am using Chauvet ColorDash Accents in stead of the traditional par 56 or 64s. What I have found is that balance is very important, and the Accents do not overpower the ADJ X-Scans or Chauvet Q-Spots that would be drowned by LED par 64s, but still provide the desired overall effect. If you keep the Martins I think you would be able to use par 56s without overpowering them, but then you will need some powerful (read expensive) scanners to go with them. Scanners IMHO have the huge advantage of speed over moving heads, and are easier to synchronize. BillESC also has some amazing LED bars that I lust over frequently, which I think would work too. There is really no substitute for doing a whole lot of homework before getting into all this, and I would strongly reiterate that you read soundlight's Basic Lighting Guide (which can be found right here on the forum for free) from cover to cover a few times. No question, it has saved me a lot of time and money. (Thank you again soundlight for your generosity.) Another point to take into account is the amount of available electrical power at your various gigs, I went with all LED because of this. My whole rig draws around 600 watts which means I can use just one outlet with power to spare. Spare yourself the hassle of getting your rig to a gig only to find you cannot use it, because of insufficient power. I am about to take the next step and move up to doing full bands, so I am currently researching all that will be required to do this, and will be posting videos as soon as I can. Also I would suggest that without a dedicated lighting director, some members of the band will be doing some (read a lot) of extra work when getting to the gig. We time our set up of all three systems (video, audio and lighting) every time we go out, and while it improves each time, it does take a while to get things right. Having said that, it is undoubtably worth it as we always draw a crowd. Good luck with your lighting endeavors! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members surfrockbmxer1 Posted December 29, 2009 Author Members Share Posted December 29, 2009 Thanks for another good post Kazak. Our band met with a lighting specialist today and he's setting us up with a laptop controlled setup of some sort. We also signed up for a training course. Hopefully we can slowly start making some sense of our lights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members surfrockbmxer1 Posted January 3, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 3, 2010 Well we used our lights for the first time this weekend in two clubs. Both clubs have overheard LED parcans so we bought a martin usb light jockey and controlled the lights with our laptop. It was a lot of fun and got a great reaction from the crowd. We also bought a good fog machine and that added quite a bit as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kazak Posted January 4, 2010 Members Share Posted January 4, 2010 Glad to hear that all went well. Are you using fog or haze, and did you get any pictures or video, would love to see those bad boys in action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members surfrockbmxer1 Posted January 4, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 4, 2010 I believe it was fog. Seems like a pretty good one. I think our guitarist dropped $200 bucks on it. It's a chauvet, it's dmx or footswitch controllable and the fog chamber glows blue. I'll have some pictures in the next day or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rotebass Posted January 6, 2010 Members Share Posted January 6, 2010 Or hook up with a good equipment dealer, one that will take the time to explain how things work and what your options are. Hit the nail on the head there, what kind of dealer would sell Mac300s to someone and not take a minute to find out what gear was already being used? Answer: A crappy one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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