Lighting ?

tonefight · Post by **tonefight** » Friday Jul 09, 2004

Who is using something interesting for lighting?

I'm still up in the air on all the new stuff out there , the color changers and scanners etc. I'd like to come out and check some things out. Also are there any music stores around with any decent amout of stuff set up. I know most of the J-town / Altoona stores don't have much on display maybe State College or Pittsburg stores?

GUITARII · Post by **GUITARII** » Friday Jul 09, 2004

Tony....

If you're going out to the burgh, check out Piano's 'n Stuff! YOU will love it! They have a mad guitar display out there! And lights.... WOW! They have several systems set up and will let you run the system, mixing and matching to get any effect you want. Check out their site www.pnsmusic.com.

It's an AWESOME Store!!

redawg · Post by **redawg** » Friday Jul 09, 2004

My dj light show is pretty interesting because I can use it for my dj work and with the band. I have 8 american dj mini gems. Those are a way cool moonflower effect (sound active). They don't make them anymore, they've been replaced with roto pods. You've seen them at the Castle. They are the silver lights that put out the spinning white beams. They look way cool in the fog. Very cheap and very effective. I have 8 pin spots. When I dj, I simply put gels in them and plug them into a chaser box that chases them in pairs (sound active). When the band plays, I take out the gels and wire them to one channel so they can be flashed all at once. The 50 watt ones I have cost about 20 dollars a piece. I have 2 Mini gressors. They are smaller versions of the center piece light at the Castle Pub. They run about 70 bucks each. Colored lenses on the front color the spinning beams of sound activated light. My snap shot strobes are only 75 watts each but are plenty bright enough. Those are about 50 bucks each. The Castles strobes are DMX and are 750 watts each. My light controller cost only about 150 bucks with 75 feet of cable. You get the 8 channel pack with the outlets on it and the controller has on/off switches and flash buttons. With a 150 dollar 10 foot wide by 9 foot high portable truss stand, I ended up with a very nice little light show for $2,400. bucks. I've rented that thing out alot too. For bands, I really like the American DJ Rainbow 250's. They went down in price too, around $230 each. The light has 2 whites plus 7 other colors. They are only 250 watts but I think they are plenty bright enough. They just came out with a better version of them recently called the Concept Color. The light has 15 colors plus 2 split colors plus white. There is a removable frost (wash) filter on it too. It also takes 250 watt bulbs. I know that par can bulbs are higher wattage but these are plenty bright and you won't trip as many breakers in clubs. The advantage of having that many colors to pick from is too great. They are only 300 bucks a piece. You could always use par cans too and the dimmer packs you would use are WAY cheaper than DSI dimmer packs. Another benefit of those 2 lights is you don't have to keep buying gels. ELC bulbs for them cost about 8 bucks each as opposed to 20 dollar par can bulbs. As far as scanners go, I've really only seen American DJ Mighty Scans. They take the same ELC bulbs the color changers do. The main things that go wrong with them are the fans, the porcelins (shitty design) for the bulbs and the gears for the mirror strip out. If you don't make the mirrors move real fast, that won't really be a problem. American DJ will sell you spare fans and porcelins that you can easily replace yourself. The price on them want way down too. Lots of colors and gobos. Hope this helped you out. Great thread Tony.

tonefight · Post by **tonefight** » Friday Jul 09, 2004

Thanks for all the info, I don't want to get too involved in the tech end since this is in the general discussion ( I might get a good rockpage bitch slappin ) . I'm mainly looking for palces to go check some stuff out. Red I will have to get a tour off you since you do have a really good light show up there.

dayzichick · Post by **dayzichick** » Friday Jul 09, 2004

I also suggest American DJ, it's where we get all of our stuff, check out their website and get them to send you a catalog.

facingwest · Post by **facingwest** » Saturday Jul 10, 2004

Tony, do you remember the old PVC lighting we used to use with Night Wing? I think we built the entire thing, including bulbs, for about $250.

tonefight · Post by **tonefight** » Saturday Jul 10, 2004

Yeah, John I remember those lights, I do have lights now ( 8 par 38 with sound chase ) wich are Ok but I'm debating on bigger pars or an intelligent system and want to see some shows using something interesting, mean while I need to keep it down in size so I can still haul it in a ( OK, its lame ) minivan with all my speakers

lonewolf · Post by **lonewolf** » Saturday Jul 10, 2004

Tony, many of today's smaller venues don't have the 220V outlets required for pro lighting, so I sold all my PAR 64's and bought PAR 56 short cans. The short cans are just slightly larger than the PAR 38s, but use 7" 300w PAR 56 bulbs. They're excellent for stage flood, look good and a set of 4 can run on a 15 amp circuit. You might consider getting 8 PAR 56 shorts to use for flood up front and use your PAR38 for back/chase lighting.

Craven Sound · Post by **Craven Sound** » Monday Jul 12, 2004

www.cheaplights.com

They have really cheap lights.

If you get into the market of needing par 56 bulbs, let me know.

Mike