New Equipment

[marcusianl]

Good afternoon everyone,

I was informed recently that my school was opening up the revenue from rentals for the student technicians who run our auditorium (including myself) to purchase lighting and sound equipment for the space. I'm mostly interested in getting some new lighting stuff because we just got a brand spanking new sound system in January. They renovated the lights as well, but really all they did was replace our ancient fixtures with modern equivalents and put in a new rack. Right now we're equipped with about 40 Source Fours (19 and 36 degree), 25 or so PARnels, 6 striplights, and 7 3-box cyc lights. The school already put in for one new followspot to replace our two 15+ year old Comet's (only one is functioning), which although they've served us well are in pretty bad shape. We have an ETC Express board and a Sensor+ rack. We've got barn doors for our PARnels and plenty of gel and gobo frames. What are some pieces of equipment that we should look into for a high school budget of a few thousand dollars? I was thinking about maybe some color scrollers or gobo rotators, but no one knows how to program intelligent lights and I'm not sure but from what I've read getting into automated lights of any kind requires DMX controllers and a virtual desk and what not (please correct me if I'm wrong in that).

Theatre Size: 700 seats
Distance from FOH Cove to Stage Floor: ~25 ft horiz. ~30 ft vert.
Stage Floor: 42 ft w by 25 ft d
Proscenium Height: ~20 ft

Thanks,
Marcus

[Les]

You shouldn't have any trouble running simple things like gobo rotators and color scrollers with an ETC Express. It is a DMX board. You would start running into problems with actual moving heads though. Keep in mind that you will need to have access to DMX wherever you plan to use DMX toys. They may not have added DMX outputs around your space. If not, you could run a cable straight from your board (second universe 513-1024). It really depends on where your board is and whether or not you can safely get the cable where you need it. Barring any practical complications though, DMX toys do sound like a good idea. They can do wonders for your designs when used wisely.

If you have empty dimmers available, don't rule out more instruments. Maybe a handful of real fresnels or a couple of Selecon Pacifics! You might look into a good haze machine too.

[kiwitechgirl]

I'd definitely be looking at getting some fresnels - Selecon's Rama is my fresnel of choice but there are plenty of options out there. Another useful little piece of kit is Rosco's ImagePro - it allows you to put acetate gobos into a Source 4 without them melting so you can project custom coloured images easily - of course, you can put an acetate straight into a Selecon Pacific, but seeing as you have Source 4s already, it could be useful.

[marcusianl]

Thanks for the tips. I'll talk to the admins and see if we can get some Selecon fixtures and maybe one color scroller just to try out. Since you mention DMX ports, I realize that there are only two in our space: one at the rack and the other in the booth where the board is located. If I were to put the toy on an instrument on the electrics it wouldn't be a problem to run cable, but if I want them in our FOH catwalk that would be difficult. Are there any signal decay limits on the length of DMX? I'll double check our schematics also to see if maybe they wired DMX lines and just didn't point out the ports to us? I doubt that's the case but it's worth a look.

-Marcus

[shiben]

I doubt there will be an issue with the length of the DMX line, unless its like thousands of feet of run. Ours runs from our FOH position on one side of a basket ball court to the rack in the basement of the other side of the arena, and it works fine for us.

[NickJones]

Yeah, DMX goes a long way, Kiwitechgirl touched on the Selecon Pacifics, and the Rosco Image Pro, I'm a massive fan of the Selecon Pacifics, for a number of reasons: They look like a ray gun. They have interchangeable lenses. You can print your own gobos. The Rosoco Image Pro does a similar thing, but it fits into the iris slot, and therefore the image is no where near as clear or as sharp, and they melt faster. For the price of a Pacific, it's worth it.

Moving heads can be a big hassle, they cost a lot, they often need repair, maybe consider something simple and fun, like a Rosco I-Cue. Check out the site Here. These are relatively cheap, and cool & fun.

Colour scrollers are also cool, so maybe check out something like that, or a SeaChanger.

Another followspot of the same type could be great, as if you have two different ones, then they can look different.

If you have cash to spend, but nothing you want to spend it on, don't just waste it.

Hope I helped,
Nick

[JChenault]

Depending on how many dimmers you have - I would first consider just getting some more conventional units. Be they more Source 4's or Fresnels. I would also recommend looking at some Source 4 barrels. A few 50 degree barrels would give you a bit more flexibility.

When you do a show in your space - do you wish you had an extra fixture or six? If so that should ( IMHO) be a top priority.

good luch - have fun

[marcusianl]

Originally Posted by NickJones

Moving heads can be a big hassle, they cost a lot, they often need repair,

For those exact reasons I'm going to stay away from moving heads. I'm designing our fall show and we looked into renting a couple but when I realized how much of a pain they would be to work with and how long they would take to program I said no way. Plus they would have used up my entire lighting budget for the show. I don't know what the policy is on buying equipment outside of ETC because they did our install and I think the county approved supplier was instructed only to sell us ETC instruments or something. I'm going to look into that. From what I've heard about the Selecon line of instruments they seem pretty much awesome.

How do Selecon Pacifics come in price-wise with Source 4's?

[Les]

As far as your 2 DMX ports go, they could be DMX-IN meaning they would be opposite what you'd need to run any DMX equipment. DMX inputs would be for lighting consoles, RFU's, etc...). That's just speculation though, every venue is different.

As far as the Selecon prices go, they are a little higher.

Here are a few prices from Stage Technology:

Selecon Pacific 5º Fixed Beam Ellipsoidal $1,292.00 EA
Selecon Pacific 20º Fixed Beam Ellipsoidal $494.00 EA
Selecon Pacific 30º Fixed Beam Ellipsoidal $494.00 EA
Selecon Pacific 40º Fixed Beam Ellipsoidal $494.00 EA
Selecon Pacific 50º Fixed Beam Ellipsoidal $494.00 EA
Selecon Pacific 90º Fixed Beam Ellipsoidal $568.00 EA
Selecon Pacific 5.5º-13º Zoomspot Ellipsoidal $872.00 EA
Selecon Pacific 7.5º-19º Zoomspot Ellipsoidal $872.00 EA
Selecon Pacific 12-28º Zoomspot Ellipsoidal $558.00 EA
Selecon Pacific 14-35º Zoomspot Ellipsoidal $558.00 EA
Selecon Pacific 23-50º Zoomspot Ellipsoidal $558.00 EA
Selecon Pacific 45º-75º Zoomspot Ellipsoidal $642.00 EA

Please note that these prices may not actually represent "street" prices.

[gafftaper]

If you are going to buy Selecon in the US the most logical thing to do is go with the 23/50 zooms with the 575w/750w caps.

Production Advantage's online pricing is what I always use for a guideline. They currently have the zooms at $482. P.A.'s pricing is a good indicator of what most of us can expect to pay in a package bid price. Buying in large volume you will probably beat P.A.'s price by a few percentage points. If you are only buying a few fixtures you are going to find it to beat P.A.'s prices unless you've got a great relationship with a dealer (which hopefully you are all working on developing). P.A. also makes it easy compare about what you should expect to pay by giving you a nice .pdf pricelist page.