quiet moving heads

check out the elation's. I know their 700 watt spot is quit and their 250 and 575's are also quiet. The Robe 250's and 575's are also quiet.
 
IMO the VL 1000 is one of the quietists, full function fixtures out there due to its externally mounted, fan-less ballast -- yes, fan-less. They can mbe rack mounted and all stored together if necessary, or truss/pipe mounted. The VL 1000 lacks a few bells and whistles that you'll find on the 2500 series or the 3000/3500 series, however, as a moving fixture for theater, they can't be beat. They blow the S4 Revolution out of the water.

I've had good luck with the VL 2500 in terms of noise suppression, unless of course they are doing dual rotate, strobe, and movement at the same time. However, I'm hoping that whenever I'm doing that, there's enough noise on stage to cover the MLs.

Spring Awakening has about 2 dozen or more VL 1000 AS fixtures on their install -- I never heard a thing the entire show, even from their scrollers, which was impressive.
 
Trick is during any loud parts (such as aud clapping) get the scrollers to cue up so everyone doesnt hear them. Also if you have some patience and money you can get scrolls custom made so the colors fall in order of what you need so you do not have to go back and forth from one end of the scroll to the other. As far as the noisier moving lights such as X-spot, i try to make them move during the clapping or louder scenes.
 
I wouldn't really say that the VL1000's are quiet. Sure, they are really quiet until you do something with them, as zoom or pan/tilt or framing shutters.Then they are making quite some noise. At least the 3 of them we had in for a show.
 
Any fixture is going to make noise when it starts to actually DO something. However, in terms of just audible level with lamp on and fans running, the VL seems to be pretty good.
 
The Martin 250 and575 encore[I think} with studio mode is very quiet, I think it's time to include a sound level at some standard distance into ML specs.This would make a thread like this totally redundant.
 
Agreed -- I think we have all forgot to mention the Q series VL 3000 and VL 3500. Never had a chance to play with them myself, but they are marketed as having pretty good sound suppression. Anyone had any experience with these fixtures?
 
Yes, we currently use a VL3500Q in one of our productions, and I love it! It's not totally quiet, but much quiter than the mac 2K series. I would use them anytime the budget let me ;). Maby off topic, but the framing shutters are top notch!
 
Most if not all of clay pakys products are pretty quiet. Esp when you get the SV's they are even quieter. Usually all you hear is the head moving and the fans. The optical system is very quiet.
 
Strad -- Can the framing shutters in the VL each fully cut the beam? On the Clay Packy site as discussed in a thread on LN, their framing shutters can each independently fully cut off the entire beam, in addition to rotating each shutter and rotating the whole shutter mechanism. There is a demo of this on the Clay Packy home page that is VERY well put together -- some really great programming if nothing else. No pan or tilt was used -- just the shutters.
 
Strad -- Can the framing shutters in the VL each fully cut the beam? On the Clay Packy site as discussed in a thread on LN, their framing shutters can each independently fully cut off the entire beam, in addition to rotating each shutter and rotating the whole shutter mechanism. There is a demo of this on the Clay Packy home page that is VERY well put together -- some really great programming if nothing else. No pan or tilt was used -- just the shutters.
Well, what I know for sure is that the entire shutter mechanism can be rotated 50 degrees in either direction and the blades can individually be rotated 30 degrees in either direction. However, I can't say if the blades are fully closing. I searched the manual and it says that 0 is open and 255 is closed, so it seems like it's possible.
 
I know with the new varilites they will not fully cut the beam in either direction and this was one thing i complained about when i saw the prototype. Its been so long since i touched a VL1000, if my memory serves me correctly i really dont think they cut fully all the way in one direction. My bigest complaint about the VL1000's was that they are way too slow. I had issues waiting for them to go from one extreme to another. I heard they have updated the software to make them faster.... But i dont know if this actually holds true or not.
 
No with a VL1000 you can't cut the beam fully with 1 shutter.
 
Not an expert in this department but it seems to me a mix of Seachangers and VL1000's/ETC Revolutions would be a good way to do this on a budget. You won't get Mac 2k performance but they are pretty quiet and you can get a lot of bang for your buck. Seachanger is coming out with a new model the "SD" which has fuller saturation. The "XG" model is designed to really give you great low saturation pastel colors for typical theater applications while also being able to go out into the deeper colors when you want. The new "SD" is a little weaker in the pastels but stronger out at the deep end of the saturation scale.
Should be great for music situations.

If you can't get Seachangers in your area what about Wybron Nexeras or just a bunch of scrollers.
 
I really like the robe 1200 watt spots (1200 at) they work great and they are quiet considering their lamp output. All of the functions such as moving are quiet. You do not get framing though. Coemar's are also quiet. Even their 2k spot.
 
I'm not sure whether anyone read this or not (the post was deleted in the crash) I need to rent probably 4-8 Mac TW1's for an upcoming show or something similar, but I haven't heard much about them. It probably doesn't help that you can search for TW1 (character limit) Basically i want something which will blend with the conventional, hence the tungsten source, and have CMY mixing. I will also need a console to drive them (I am thinking a hog 1000) and will need to rent it for about a month.

Does anyone have any suggestions or any experience with the TW1, and for any aussies, anywhere I can rent them? (I am in Brisbane, but can pretty much rent from anywhere in Australia which is cheap) Please consider this is a school with a limited budget and, yes I realise this will be expensive but I would like to keep it as low as possible.

Tom
 
I'm not sure whether anyone read this or not (the post was deleted in the crash) I need to rent probably 4-8 Mac TW1's for an upcoming show or something similar, but I haven't heard much about them. It probably doesn't help that you can search for TW1 (character limit) Basically i want something which will blend with the conventional, hence the tungsten source, and have CMY mixing. I will also need a console to drive them (I am thinking a hog 1000) and will need to rent it for about a month.
Does anyone have any suggestions or any experience with the TW1, and for any aussies, anywhere I can rent them? (I am in Brisbane, but can pretty much rent from anywhere in Australia which is cheap) Please consider this is a school with a limited budget and, yes I realise this will be expensive but I would like to keep it as low as possible.
Tom
I suppose the big questions is, what are you using them for? The TW1 is not the only tungsten lamp ML with CMY. Are you looking specifically for a wash fixture or do you need the capabilities of a profile? The VL1K-T (either shutters OR iris) gives you the tungsten source plus gobos, CMY, and shutters or iris. I am only mentioning this to makes sure that you know that the TW1 is not the only tungsten ML with CMY. All I have heard about the TW1 are good things.
 
I suppose the big questions is, what are you using them for? The TW1 is not the only tungsten lamp ML with CMY. Are you looking specifically for a wash fixture or do you need the capabilities of a profile? The VL1K-T (either shutters OR iris) gives you the tungsten source plus gobos, CMY, and shutters or iris. I am only mentioning this to makes sure that you know that the TW1 is not the only tungsten ML with CMY. All I have heard about the TW1 are good things.

Actually, come to think of it I did think of the VL a while back, but had since fallen off the edge of my thoughts...

I am after primarily washes, but some profiles could also be useful, but considering the budget, I am thinking to go just with the washes. The application they will be used in is a music concert which usually has approximately 20-30 different "scenes". This is the primary reason we are looking at the movers, because we have very limited circuits available to the FOH position, very limited dimming, and nowhere near enough instruments. We will have a basic white wash, and a basic blue wash but can't do much else with the available resources. The movers appear to solve all of the listed problems because: a) They can move (duh) to wherever they are needed and b) they have inbuilt dimmers. This saves having multiple instruments pointed at the same place for colour merges/fades etc.

Having said that, are there any other possible instruments which will fit the bill other than the VL and TW1, and any console recommendation's (I am thinking Hog 1000)

Tom
 

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