Working band lighting rig

[darga19]

Hi Everyone,

I'm in a 4-piece working band, working regularly in bars and clubs around town. Most of the clubs have little or no lighting available in-house, and it's our responsibilty to bring and provide the light show.

Currently, we use 2 tripod stands positioned in front of the stage on the L/R, with 2 LED Par38 cans on each T-Bar; this gives us decent front lighting and keeps us out of the dark, but that's about it. We set them on 'sound active' mode and let them blink along with the beat of the songs. Here is a link to what we're using: Buy American DJ 38B LED Pro DMX LED PAR Can | Par Cans | Musician's Friend

I'd really like to add a couple more small pieces to help illuminate us a little better, as right now you can see us but the rest of the stage is pretty black. I'd also like ideas on how to illuminate our banner, which is a medium size rectangle and hangs on the wall above our drummer's head. Our criteria for picking out new stuff (not in order) is:

1. LED
2. Transportability
3. Bang for our buck...amount of light we can get for price
4. Stand alone (we have no one to operate our lights during performances)

I was looking at the Chauvet ColorStrip Mini bars...these seem like a good buy for amount of light for your dollar, and they have the built in chase sequences and what not.

Any advice on what to add next in terms of fixture, rigging, and location for the light would be very very helpful.

Thanks everyone!

 

[Footer]

One of the local bar bands that the wife and I like to go see carry a 2 Chauvet 4 bars for backlight and two trees with 2 par 38's for front light. Sometimes they have a light op, sometimes they don't, sometimes I light them if I have enough beers in me... Its not really a bad setup. When they turn them on auto it looks pretty good. You also get the visual of separate units which you don't get with the strips. You can pick up two for 700 bucks and they are highly portable. They have been dragging them around for the last 6 months without issue.

http://www.overstock.com/Electronic...-52C1-DF11-98FF-0019B9C043EB&mr:referralID=NA

 

[bishopthomas]

As far as lighting the banner, I would probably just go with a couple of pin spots, maybe one on each DS tree.

 

[darga19]

Thanks for the replies.

Those Chauvet 4-bar systems seem cool, but are a little out of my price range right now...so I may save up or consider other options there.

As far as rigging goes, I'm considering the idea of mounting our current front lights (the 4 par38 cans) to the tops of our mains. Is this a good idea? I'm thinking I might be able to rig a vertical 12" pole to hook the T bar onto, then rig the 4 par38s up there (2 per side), along with 2 pinspots (1 per side) to light the banner. Our mains sit out in front of us by only a couple feet usually, so I'm wondering if I'll be able to get good enough front lighting from that angle?

Then, I can use the 2 trees we're currently using out there in the back, and mount up whatever backlighting we go with to those, without drastically upping the amount of equipment we're hauling.

Thoughts?

 

[darga19]

One other question...would these pinspots be a decent choice for lighting our banner? They're just small fixtures with white light:

Buy Chauvet LED Pinspot | Spotlights | Musician's Friend

FYI our banner is about 5' wide by 2.5' tall (approximate).

 

[mstaylor]

It's possible but we can't really answer the rigging question without seeing it. Remember, anytime you fabricate anything that supports weight around audience there is liability involved and best to use purchased devices that are engineered for the purpose. At the least, explain what you are using for mains and how they are currently supported. Look at Applied Electronics website, they have some pretty inexpensive options. Crank-Up Lifts Applied Electronics

 

[darga19]

Good point. Cost of the extra stands is not the issue really, more transporting them (space restrictions) and setup time. If I can come up with a viable and strong mounting design though, I think mounting on top of the speakers may work and be plenty safe. I'd only be mounting 2 LED par38 lights and 1 tiny pinspot to each side so the weight wouldn't be very much.

Our mains are Yamaha speakers (don't have the exact measurements however). One side has the speaker sitting on a ~ 5' pole going into a Mackie subwoofer. The other side has the speaker sitting on a tripod speaker stand set to the same height (maybe 7' or so to the top of the speaker?? Something like that). The tripod stand will eventually be matched with a subwoofer probably, but for the small/medium bars and clubs we're playing now, 1 sub is plenty.

My idea was some sort of threaded pipe fitting bolted down to the top of the main speaker (or something like that...), with a ~12" vertical pole attached by threading onto it, then the t-bar clamped on top of that just as it would clamp to the normal light tree. I'm hoping with the symmetrical mount of the T that it won't make the stand unstable...but it's a concern for sure. Like I said just an idea...

 

[mstaylor]

The L11s breakdown to a footprint about 6inches by four feet.

 

[darga19]

The L11s breakdown to a footprint about 6inches by four feet.

All the same...if I can mount them up on the speakers safely that's even less equipment to bring, plus we can nix the trees altogether until we add the additional backlighting.

 

[techno89]

Theres no reason to buy an LED Pinspot for that much. You pick just pickup regular ones and plug them in to a power strip for less than half the cost.

 

[bishopthomas]

The L11s breakdown to a footprint about 6inches by four feet.

Actually it's 5.5" x 9.5" x 70.5". They're not small, although a decent enough stand if you need crank up. I have a pair and would get more if I needed them.

 

[WooferHound]

To light the banner I would recommend Par38 cans with using SPOT bulbs, the regular 90watt ones that you can get at Walmart for $6.oo each. I think pinspots would just put a couple of big Dots of light on a banner that big.

 

[darga19]

Thanks for the recommendations guys. As far as the banner lighting goes, I would like to stay 100% LED if possible...some of these bars don't have reliable power and the low draw of LED is nice so it doesn't cause a worry. Plus as fast as we typically tear down after a performance, I'd rather not have to wait for anything to cool down. But LED par38s are pretty expensive at about $100 each. Also, would regular white light be desirable for the banner light?

Any more thoughts on my rigging idea for mounting the lights on top of the speakers? I don't think we really need/want more tripods, crank up or otherwise. Our lights aren't heavy enough to need crank stands anyways.

 

[darga19]

Another idea I had was to leave our frontlighting the way it is on tripods and figure out another solution for back/side lighting.

Is there a good way to utilize Chauvet colorstrips or similar lights on the floor or another strategy that wouldn't require more stands? Not sure if backlighting will will even achieve any effect if it's not mounted up in the air above us...

 

[Pie4Weebl]

Our user SoundLight has made a pretty in depth guide for small bands looking to make their own rig. It can be downloaded here:
Basic Band Lighting Guide v1.2.pdf - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

 

[soundlight]

Our user SoundLight has made a pretty in depth guide for small bands looking to make their own rig. It can be downloaded here:
Basic Band Lighting Guide v1.2.pdf - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

It should be noted that fixture recommendations are far out of date.