Advice on Equipment upgrades

[Builtkarr]

Hey Controlbooth!

I've been a member for a few years now with very few posts, however I have read a number of threads that have helped me through a good amount of issues that have come up during that time. I have now moved to a different theater and am the theater manager / TD of a high school program and would like to actively get feedback if possible. We do two shows a year. We just finished the first show. My predecessors have been sound people and the facility is fine on sound at the moment. Lighting has been ignored through the years though.

We have an etc express board, a few altman fresnels, about 20 S4's, about 20 color commands, challenged lighting positions, and about 90 dimmers. This theater has had a high level of tinkering done in the past with "multi" 7 circuit snakes wire nutted together, unused floor pocket circuits rerouted to different areas, and extension cords powering color command power supplies running the length of the stage.... I could go on but I'll save that for another post.

I would like to work on upgrading the lighting equipment. My question is does the community have any suggestions for vendors of lighting equipment that sell quality equipment at a decent price? Perhaps specifically for Northern California? My budget is not big. I don't have a definite number anyway, but I've been told to assume 10k a year. Total. That's for all theater needs. I might be able to justify one year of all of that going towards lighting, but then I would have to make sure and reinforce all the other areas after that happens to make sure everything else stays maintained.

Needless to say, I will have to piecemeal any plan together over multiple years of careful planning. I would love to see a chain motored truss 10ft back from the existing FOH position. The seats are fixed so it would have to be chain motored in order to focus and change plot as this new position would be over the seating. The current FOH position only has 12 circuits and is so high and close to the stage you can only use the instruments to light the apron and a little bit of the DS area. Having an additional position farther back in the house with an adjustable height would go a long way to improve front light. It would have to be electrified...I'm thinking dimmer bars that I can buy off a local theater. 3 dimmers per stick totaling 15 dimmers. Would still need to get 3 phase power to this position...

I would love to upgrade the lighting console. Ion would be spectacular, but I have no movers for it. The most complicated lighting I have are the color commands, 2 technobeams, and I just ordered 2 icues from 4wall. So I feel like an Element would be sufficient as I slowly add movers when I can afford them. As opposed to investing in a high end board that I can't fully utilize.

Anyway this post is getting pretty long and you get the idea. Have any of you been / currently are in this situation? If so what suggestions/tips do you have for me to help get the kids here a better technical lighting experience? Also if you have leads on some gear that would help get me into the 21st century let me know.

Thanks for the help!

 

[chawalang]

You should contact a theatrical consulting/ project firm. Tell them what you have for a budget and what you want to accomplish. Texas Scenic comes to mind but I am sure that members in California can steer you in the right direction.

 

[Michael K]

Musson Theatrical is one of the bigger suppliers in NorCal, they're located in San Jose. I think there is also a supplier in San Francisco and another in Sacramento. I'm not sure about southern Oregon, but there must be a supplier up there for the Shakespeare festivals.

Knowing what county or city you are located in would help us give you more specific advice.

 

[robartsd]

I've dealt with Sacramento Theatrical Lighting. Personally I've only purchased consumables (lamps, gels, gobos) from them; however, I believe my organization (a church where theatrical equipment is used for occasional religious pagents, never for worship) purchased our dimmer pack and control board from them in the early 90's and rented lighting from them for our larger shows prior to that. A friend working for a small event production company recommend Monkey Glue (also in Sacramento) for production needs; I believe they also do both rentals and sales, but they seem more focused on events than theater.

It sounds like in addition to a better front light position you're looking to run circuits (dimmed, non-dimmed, and control) to the possitions that you need them. 90 dimmers is probably all the dimming you'll ever use: your conventional inventory doesn't sound all that big and LED/movers are the future. Does your dimmer rack have constant power or switched modules available? I'd try to find a way to get the wiring you need done in conjunction with the new front light position in one year's budget and not worry about the console or fixtures that year. I'd take a good look at the cost effectiveness of routing existing dimmer to the new position vs. just running power and data to new dimmer bars there. It might even make sense to run the wiring for control now but invest in data distribution later.

 

[CraigV]

Now, I don't want to ruffle any feathers, but STL is way overpriced IMO. I was on a crunch timeline and needed one 3-pin to 5-pin DMX adapter and one 5-pin to 3-pin DMX adapter. What I was sold was something I could have ordered online for at most $20 total. They sold it to me for $50. Maybe their prices are better with items that are in higher demand.

But I do agree that LED and movers are the future, and that does mean dedicated ND circuits. At the high school level, I think it's safer to set up dedicated circuits as such out of the dimmers themselves. You can also set most boards to register certain channels as ND.

 

[JohnD]

Do take into consideration that a dimmed circuit at 100% IS NOT the same as a constant current circuit. Fixtures with internal power supplies don't like the weird waveform from dimmer circuits.

 

[CraigV]

I've never had a problem using Sensor, Leprecon, or American DJ dimmers. How can you tell if a dimmer is going to have a weird waveform?

 

[Amiers]

I've never had a problem using Sensor, Leprecon, or American DJ dimmers. How can you tell if a dimmer is going to have a weird waveform?

All dimmers have a "weird waveform" and should only have conventional fixtures plugged into them.

Anything with a PSU generally doesn't like the waveform and requires a steady feed of power.

Yes you can plug in anything and yes it will work until it doesn't.

 

[JVTD]

I would recommend focusing on Infrastructure, mainly because lighting instruments can be purchased in smaller numbers and still be useful. You can't really buy and rig a truss then not supply power to it. As for getting 3 phase power to it See if there is Electrical work being done in the building at some point in the year. Perhaps they could add it on to an existing project. Some districts also have an in house Electrician too.

 

[Builtkarr]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone! I agree that investing in infrastructure the way to go. I also agree that LED movers are the future of lighting. That investment will be pretty heavy since we have none, but i'll get it going piece by piece. Since I don't know how much money will be approved I'm gathering a quote wishlist to take to Administration for our budget meeting. If things need to be cut I'll let the instruments and new board go in order to make the infrastructure the top priority. We'll see how it goes.

As far as power, and control are concerned at this new position, I'm checking to see if we have a house electrical contractor to discuss options for dimmed, ND power and other power needs going to this position. I've also reached out to a rigging company and started sourcing truss options. I'll keep you updated as to how things work out.

I have a question about DMX. I've been looking around and have been intrigued by the prospect of wireless dmx using transmitters and receivers like show baby. I'm wondering what people think that have used it. Does it work well without signal cutting in and out? I feel like wireless dmx is a good option for this new position to keep the amount of cable runs at a minimum.

 

[RC4Wireless]

I apologize for this shameless self-promotion, but we really do have the best thing right now for wireless DMX:

If you're operating in the USA (or Canada, Brazil, Singapore, Australia) consider our RC4Magic-900 wireless DMX system, which does NOT operate in the 2.4GHz band, and provides 4x the range (or more) of any other system on the market. Among other things, it is used at Madison Square Garden and is going into MJ1 (the Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson show) in Las Vegas later this month.
http://www.theatrewireless.com/product-category/rc4magic-900mhz/

The RC4Magic-900 DMXio is comparable in size to a sh*w b*by. We also have a tiny receiver, the DMXmrx, that is barely large than a matchbox. It's new and not listed on our website yet. It will appear there soon, but is actually available now. It's the same size as out small 2-channel wireless dimmer, the DMX2dim.

Thank you for your time.
Jim
RC4

 

[JVTD]

I just purchased 5 of the show babys as my school is starting to upgrade our ancient strip lights to LEDs. They have worked great, and I have not had any issues with them. I definitely recommend them. An alternative is to have cat 6 cable run up to your new position and use Artnet or any other DMX over Ethernet solution. If you have an in house guy see if they will do it when they run the electrical up there.

 

[RickR]

The biggest problem with wireless DMX is cost. The better systems are usually far more than running some wire. I've used Show baby's several times in similar situations. They work well and easily.

 

[RC4Wireless]

Of course, a pair of transceivers is more expensive than a DMX cable in many cases. But is this true when it's several thousand feet of cable that needs to be hidden, perhaps inside walls? CAT5/CAT6 cable is inexpensive; but time/cost for planning, opening and closing walls, testing and troubleshooting, etc., may end up vastly more expensive than wireless transceivers. It depends on your specific situation.

There is value in portability, as well. You can take your transceivers anywhere you go -- between rooms in your facility, or between gigs around the world. (By the way, that situation is where RC4Magic is superior to the other system mentioned in this thread -- an RC4Magic system will never communicate or interfere with any other, regardless of ID settings, because every user and project are assigned unique private system IDs. Not the same 1, 5, or 6 non-unique IDs for every user in the whole world.)