Cheap upgrade

[IBelieve2010]

Looking for other ideas about a church upgrade. Right now they only have 8 ellipsoidals and a bunch of par cans and are looking into getting some LED's. They are switching from an outdated NSI board to a computer running a software through a DMX interface. I am just taking some opinions of others who might of been in the same situation and what they did, and of course keeping it on the cheap side.

 

[wolfman005]

Define Cheap. What exactly are you looking to do? Accent lighting? Top lighting? Front Lighting? What kind of software will you be using?

Note that unless you put down some serious cash, you won't find an LED par that can compete with a halogen par.

Post some more information and people can start to get a better idea of what your trying to accomplish.

 

[IBelieve2010]

Looking to accomplish front lighting and some accent lighting with a budget around $2000. I know that we won't be able to get the best quality with that money but it is more for the interim as we will probably be moving venues soon. We will be using martin PC software so we can eventually move to one of their boards eventually.

 

[wolfman005]

I'd get some Source Fours for front lighting. LEDs don't have very good color rendering on skin tones.

If you just want some basic up lighting via LED Pars, you can probably get by with an Chauvet Pro series or Elation par can. Make sure you get Tri or Quad color LEDs.

I think whatever you buy you should plan on taking it with you to your new venue.

What kind of throw distances are you looking at? Some pics or diagrams would help if you have any handy.

 

[TheaterEd]

With that budget, I don't think LED front lights are going to happen. Collaborative Articles:Gafftaper Method | ControlBooth
Worth a read if you haven't already.

 

[robmerow]

Take a look at some of the Blizzard pars. They're not theatrical grade, but sound like they'd be in your ball park for price +purpose (and they're a step up in terms of quality as opposed to getting some CHinese LEDs of ebay, which alot of churches end up doing with a $2000 budget.) Perhaps 6 of these? You can always add holographic lenses to widen the beam. ToughPar Fab5™