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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!
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!