Church Lighting Upgrade - 2nd try

[Searchlight]

Hi all,
I posted last year about upgrading the lighting in our church (http://www.controlbooth.com/threads/church-lighting-upgrade.34160/) -- thanks to all who responded! We ended up not being able to do it then but are moving forward now. We do one drama per year, at Christmas. The other 51 weeks of the year will just be white light for services. We are looking to buy used PAR cans for wash and perhaps a few ellipsoidals if we can stretch the money that far.

At the moment, I'm looking for ideas on how to control everything. Currently, lights (4 outdoor-security-style PAR38s) are managed by whoever is running the sound board. We probably will not have a separate person to run lights, so we should keep the controls pretty simple for normal Sunday usage. For the Christmas drama, it would be nice to be able to have a stack of cues we could roll through.

We will never have a need for moving lights, so that allows us to think about older conventional boards in addition to newer low-cost options. The budget for control has to be well under $1000, and probably under $500. Options in no particular order:
Chauvet Stage Designer 50 (new)
Encore XL (used)
Expression 2x (used)
DMXKing USB-DMX with some simple software (StageConsole?)

I know there's more bang for the buck with software, but I also think we probably need a physical control to turn the lights on 51 weeks out of the year. Maybe two systems, one for normal usage and one for drama? But then I saw the used options and thought maybe we could answer both needs there. With the used options, what do I need to know about the reliability and fix-ability of the older ETC and Colortran/Leviton boards? I see them used in our price range, but that does us no good if fixing them costs $2000 if something goes wrong.

I'd welcome other control suggestions, the list above is just what I have so far.

I'd also welcome thoughts about the various used equipment dealers (good or bad) and how to deal with them.

Thanks so much!

 

[TheaterEd]

I lean towards a PC software solution for you. It doesn't seem like your going to ask too much of your lighting controller, and you won't have to worry about it breaking down as you would with a used board.

I volunteer for a community theater that uses MYDMX
The software is very basic and easy to use once you figure it out. I know there are better PC solutions that someone will be along to point you towards, but this is the only one I personally have worked with, and I don't mind it.
You can download the software for free if you want to try it out.

 

[Bubby4j]

Like TheaterEd said, MyDMX is very simple and basic. If you find it too limiting (I do) you might look at QLC+ or Freestyler.

 

[woolycd]

We've been using an Elation Scene Setter for special programs at our church for 9 years. It works great with a low channel count (24, or 48 with the larger board). I've never run cues on this board but there are some tricks I use by setting up my general looks as scenes. I've now started using some old LED fixtures and we’re quickly running out of control channels on this board.

I also volunteer at the local high school where they have an Express 48/96 with 192 control channels available and we’re incorporating some LED fixtures in their next show, see http://www.controlbooth.com/threads/operating-leds-on-an-express-48-96.36520/. You can use more multi-channel fixtures but I don’t have the capacity for 12 LEDs operating in full 9 channel mode. I’ll either use the 5 channel mode or use a 6 channel fixture personality while running in 9 channel mode.

My son has started using Martin M-PC for his mobile DJ business. When paired with a DMX dongle, you can control one universe using the free version. It has a steeper learning curve but you can have it setup with a midi controller and/or touch screen display to bring up preset scenes. Even I can operate it once it’s programmed. My son just got me the ENTTEC DMXPro Mk2 DMX dongle and I plan to control the church Christmas show with using M-PC.

If you plan to use multi-channel fixtures such as LEDs, get something made to control multi-channel fixtures with as many channels as you can afford. Good software with a DMX dongle is most likely your best option.

 

[MarshallPope]

In your situation, I would lean more towards MagicQ for Christmas and special occasions and a <$200 DJ-type board for normal Sundays.

 

[Searchlight]

Thanks for the responses! I'm surprised not to have anyone at all say to go with the used Colortran or ETC.

So far, the Chauvet Stage Designer 50 is the only $200 DJ board I have found with 48 dmx channels and the ability to assign multiple channels to a fader. Those seemed to be valuable features -- are there other inexpensive boards I should consider for the normal Sunday usage? I would think we would have 3-4 looks max that we would like to program and then recall. I don't think we will have more than 24 fixtures to start with, I am just thinking for the future in noting the 48 channels.

Thanks!

 

[DrewR]

Don't buy a leviton board, we have one at my school, we rent a hog for all of our shows, we also use movers but overall, I think leviton boards are really bad. Just my 2 cents

 

[TheaterEd]

I am just thinking for the future in noting the 48 channels.

Seems like you aren't thinking very far into the future. If you move to LED's those channels will be gone in no time. Are you dead set on having a physical board?

 

[Searchlight]

I was responding to the previous post that suggested a $200 DJ board for weekly use and software for the Christmas drama. The only possible use for color in our case is the Christmas drama, the regular services will be white light only. So for white light, I would think 24 fixtures really ought to be plenty? But 48 certainly seems more flexible.

As to a physical board, we won't have a dedicated board op, so any of a bunch of people will need to be able to turn on the platform lights. It seemed like it would be easier to teach them all "hit this button" or "move this fader" rather than "boot the computer, then click here with the mouse".

 

[TheaterEd]

I was responding to the previous post that suggested a $200 DJ board for weekly use and software for the Christmas drama. The only possible use for color in our case is the Christmas drama, the regular services will be white light only. So for white light, I would think 24 fixtures really ought to be plenty? But 48 certainly seems more flexible.

As to a physical board, we won't have a dedicated board op, so any of a bunch of people will need to be able to turn on the platform lights. It seemed like it would be easier to teach them all "hit this button" or "move this fader" rather than "boot the computer, then click here with the mouse".

I understand now. Thank you for clarifying. 24 channels should be more than enough to get a face wash. Still, a little LED top and back light couldn't hurt the Sunday service right

One thing to consider is that more and more people these days are comfortable working with a computer, but many are still intimidated by a light board. That is one thing I like about the MYDMX program. I have a basic show saved to the desktop with nothing else. All they have to do is click it and the lights will come on. Then click the blackout cue when they are done.

Your mileage may vary, just sharing my experience with presetting lights for people who don't know what their doing.

Good Luck!

 

[robartsd]

You also might consider architectual type controls that could just save your "looks". You'd program the looks in with your software solution and save them to the architectural control system. The everyday users would just turn on the lights by pushing a button. Probably a little more expensive than a DJ board, but the preset controllers usually handle a full universe.

 

[RileyChilds]

I actually think a a NSI/Leviton console would make a lot of sense if you are going for a basic wash, the boards themselves are made to last, our daily driver is a NSI MC7524 that was installed new in the early 90's and it still works like a champ! Like you would I supplement the 7524 with M-PC and Chamsys MagicQ for more flexibility.

Also are we still talking about Dimmers? Packs from Lepercon like the ULD series or maybe their LDS stick dimmers would be a perfect fit. If you can afford it though I would go with NSI/Leviton 2048 dimmers, they are what we use and they were installed new in the 90's and they still work like a champ and have maintained a good curve over the past 20 years, we are just now having to replace some of the dimmer modules.
I volunteer at a Church affiliated with my school and the above setup is what we have.

 

[llburg]

I would really discourage people from the Chauvet Stage Designer 50. It's extremely unintuitive. For example- just to enter record mode you press and hold Record, then press a bunch of bump buttons in sequence. The must have been a better way.

 

[Catwalker]

I would agree with all who have suggested MyDMX. It's very intuitive, and allows for easy adjustment on the fly.

 

[Pete Chirpich]

Hi searchlight!
I am in a similar situation at our church as well. We do theatre performances in spring and do some basic special lighting for Christmas and Good Friday services. Other than that the lights each Sunday are usually the same. I say usually because we do have some LEDs and I like to change the colors for the sanctuary on some of them to "change it up" a bit.
Anyway, I have a dmx king USB dongle and tested a ton of software. I am just learning lighting from our awesome lighting guy we hire for the musicals so I learned on the etc express. He was very good about explaining channels, cueing,etc so I am slowly getting the terms. When evaluated I tried to see how,simple it was to not only turn on lights individually but as a preset of lights. Also how easy was it to create and modify a cue as well as run the cue. The 2 I narrowed it down to were Martin M-pc and light factory. I really grasped light factory and for our musical last year we used it.mi did the rental mode as we would not spring the $500.00 tag. It worked very well, we rented some LEDs, added dimmer packs,had some movers-and all were simple to setup and control and set to cues. I also had to use audio effects, like a lion roar, door closing,and my favorite a thunderstorm with lightning flashes. All were set in a cue and ran well. So I really liked light factory and still do. Budget wise we have not purchased lf so I started back with m-pc. I am grasping it better now and have it setup to auto load when we power on the computer, and when it auto loads, I tell it a cue to run. That cue is our standard weekly light setup. Works great! I also am testing a timed option that will auto start the lights using a cue and will auto turn them off as well. This option works well, but may freak out the people who need the lights, so I may just move back to manual control.
1 thing on m-pc I am not sure I like is when a cue is running it is hard to stop it. For example, if I have 8 of our 12 lights in the cue running, and I manually turn 3 more on, it works. When I stop the cue from running, it keeps my other 3 on. Probably just me and a learning curve.
I would recommend testing light factory ( you can download and test for free and if you have a dongle, can output for 30 minutes at a time). Also check m-pc as it is free and may make sense as well.
Hopefully my rambling makes sense and is of some help!
Pete


Pete chirpich
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[gafftaper]

I would go back to the powers that be and ask to change to a two phase plan. Go with a really cheap PC solution like MagicQ or DMXis for a couple years. While you save up for something in the $2k-$3k range like a Smartfade ML or Pathway Cognito which will more than handle all your needs and have room to expand to run LED's or to use a couple of rental movers at Christmas. Also in that time in between you will get a better feel for what your control needs really are. I have found that once a church get's started installing theater lighting, they find that they really like the look and within a couple years people grow more and more supportive of adding more lights.

 

[Timothy A. Samuelson]

I'm hopping on the bandwagon on this one. A simple PC solution is the way to go. MyDMX is great, but MagicQ is even better in my opinion. Download some trial softwares and see where they take you.

 

[AsherSB]

I would check out the scene setter 24, I use it to run 4 led pars paired with 12 to 16 other par cans plugged into two four channel dimmers. Each channel holds 2 lights, and all of the leds are on the same channel, so they only use 3 faders. The setup works pretty well, is easy to learn and reliable, not to mention cheap.