Portable Light Board

[Charc]

I've been trying to do something about the poor event lighting at my school, and after Friday, I'm determined to figure something out. On Friday we had a "Coffeehouse". Coffeehouse is basically where bands, singers, poets, etc. from the school perform. It's in intimate setting in a student lounge type area. Everything was pretty lackluster. Audio consisted of lots of individual amps, 6-8, one for each instrument / microphone. I was saddened by the quality of the audio set up. The school has a nice small sound board we can use in coming shows. I'd like to pose a secondary question here. I know next to nothing about audio. But it seemed to me that we should have each mic/instrument on a separate channel on the sound board, and then just output to one amp/speaker s.l and s.r.. Are there any cons to this set up?

Anyways, back to lights. Lights for this show consisted of light spilling out of the building's vestibule, one rotating police style light, christmas lights strung around the 2 walls, and whatever light came through the the bay windows off the major road behind the actors. I've been debating in my mind how I can get more lighting there. The acts are barely visible, as all the lights were out. I really don't know enough about the power needs of lights to make any decisions right now. The only power I'll have access to is standard 3 prong outlets. I assume this won't be adequate for lighting needs. But I need to figure something out. It'd be nice if I could get 6-8 instruments, and some kind portable control board and dimmer unit. Manual control is preferable, and cheap. I've only ever seen one in my life. Any suggestions on portable set-ups? Low cost of course. And how to get lighting in this situation, because now it's pretty much useless.

[SHARYNF]

Led Pars are dropping in price every day it seems, and they have build in color mixing and dimming ability and draw minimal power.
elation makes an inexpensive dmx controller the scene setter 24 that goes pretty inexpensively

Sharyn

[soundlight]

Lights:
Get some of these (8 would be a good number):
http://www.wiedamark.com/index.asp?P...OD&ProdID=2015

And this:
http://www.bulbamerica.com/products/3514

The LED cans have 4 channels each (Red, Green, Blue, master/strobe). So, if you get 8 cans, address them in pairs (2 cans get the same channeling, so that you can have 4 directly addressable groups of 2 cans each). If you want to have individual control over each can with an 8 can setup, you have to get the bigger AMDJ board that has 48 faders.

For sound, bring all your inputs in (1 channel each), and send out a master left and master right signal to your left and right main speakers. That's just the way to do it.

[Charc]

So, how would I set this up. No dimmers?

[Radman]

Originally Posted by charcoaldabs

So, how would I set this up. No dimmers?

Aye, no dimmers. Each can draws 30 watts. We're going to assume your outlets are 15 amps. So figure we can do about 1200 watts on a 15 amp circuit... Hehe you can put all 8 cans into the same plug and still make coffee. Mwahahaha...

[mbandgeek]

you can check out some of the Chauvet products, They now make 4 channel dimmers for about $100.

This is eventually the way that i am going to go, when one of the school bands starts doing gigs.

[mbandgeek]

Originally Posted by soundlight

Lights:
Get some of these (8 would be a good number):
http://www.wiedamark.com/index.asp?P...OD&ProdID=2015
And this:
http://www.bulbamerica.com/products/3514
The LED cans have 4 channels each (Red, Green, Blue, master/strobe). So, if you get 8 cans, address them in pairs (2 cans get the same channeling, so that you can have 4 directly addressable groups of 2 cans each). If you want to have individual control over each can with an 8 can setup, you have to get the bigger AMDJ board that has 48 faders.
For sound, bring all your inputs in (1 channel each), and send out a master left and master right signal to your left and right main speakers. That's just the way to do it.

I personally feel that Led products are great, but for the cost you can buy 4 par 38's and I think that buying conventional fixtures will give you the same result for less money.

[soundlight]

Originally Posted by mbandgeek

I personally feel that Led products are great, but for the cost you can buy 4 par 38's and I think that buying conventional fixtures will give you the same result for less money.

At which point you have to buy dimmers, gels, and lamps for the fixtures. Still might be cheaper to go with the conventional PAR38's, but the fact that you can put 8 of them on one circuit, control them without dimmers, and won't have to buy replacements of anything unless you run those cans for 10 years straight.

[zac850]

As was stated, LEDs were perfect for what you need. You have no power, and I assume whatever wall outlets you have are being shared by everyone else in the area. So, LEDs are great.

Don't expect any of these LED PARs to be as bright as a conventional PAR 38, but it sounds like it will work well for you.

No dimmers. Simply plug the lights into the wall, and daisy chain the DMX from fixture 1 to fixture 2 and so on. Address the fixtures as soundlight suggested, and have fun!


Also, with your sound set-up, musicians get antsy about microphones and amps and such. If your going to take the mics to a board, make sure theres at least one monitor on stage for them to hear themselves sing. I think its an ego thing for them.

Also, what kind of music is being played. I would suggest not taking guitars and instruments to your console unless you really need to. If you do, don't DI the guitars, put a mic in-front of their amp. Gives a better guitar sound.

[Charc]

I've never had to set up a board/system before so I don't really know much.

That Scene Setter board looks pretty good. Those Weidman parcans also look good. I'm not sure exactly how to daisy chain these, and set up everything. What is the link between the board and the instruments?

And I've never really understand the whole DMX deal, addressing stuff, or any part of it.