Stage Lighting

Roland

On another forum I’ve been asked what I do about stage lighting. Rather than reply with a long PM I thought it might be useful to have an open discussion so that we can cover different venue types and sizes.

When I first started using lights in a wedding band we had two LED clusters on stands, and a pedal board which stepped between various in-build sequences. We left it on sound-to-light, put the microphone in front of the kick drum, and let the lights change colour just after every beat. From what I've seen the most pub bands are still doing something like that.

I’m slightly more ambitious than that, wanting a brightly lit band surrounded by colour and movement. Our current setup has two PAR cans, one on each PA speaker, pointing across the "stage" to pick out the singer, and add a little light on the bassist and myself. They're actually focused at the singer's chest so that he/she isn't blinded. The PAR cans have incandescent bulbs because their light has a better spectrum than LEDs, with straw coloured lighting gells so that we don't look pasty faced.

Behind the front line we use LEDs to provide colour and movement. These might be aimed at the band or the back wall depending on the venue. We started with two KAM bars on stands, one either side of the playing area. At one point I added two LED panels on the floor pointing up at the drum kit. I told the drummer that they were to highlight his kit. In reality they were to flash on beat to help his timing. We’ve recently added some Equinox Spectrapix lighting bars which provide better colour intensity than the KAMs. I’ve though about moving head lights to provide even more movement, but most of the places we play don’t have space for a lighting gantry. Neither does my car.

Two things I’m keen on: not distracting from my playing, and not distracting our audience with gimmicky lighting changes. Keep It Simple. We have a colourway per song, and four levels of movement: Pulsing once per bar, twice per bar, four time per bar, and flashing on the beat. Pulse means that light level follows a sine wave. Flash means on-off-on-off. There’s also a static lighting level which we use between songs (where there’s a gap).

How is this all controlled? I use a DMXIS interface box, and lighting control software running on a Windows tablet. DMXIS is no longer sold, but second hand units do come up on eBay. There is an upgrade available, but I’ve not investigated it. The lights are daisy chained with ordinary XLR cables. I drive DMXIS by midi from my AxeFX using the Scene Midi block. Each Scene sends two midi messages, one for colourway and one for movement type. As I step through a song the lights change. For example: Intro - pulse per bar. Verse - pulse twice. Chorus - pulse on beat. Solo - flash on beat.

The new AxeFX set list feature allows me to vary these changes to suit the song without adding too much extra effort. It also lets me have an Interval patch, with no sound, and a choice of static lights, blackout, and whiteout which is useful for tearing down at the end of a gig.

What does everyone else do?

fastonebaz

For a pub rock band we use

2 x moving heads
2 x kaleidoscope balls
1 x multi colour light bar
2x36 led par cans on a bar
1 x large laser unit
1 x small laser unit

Or for larger venue
All that plus goal post with par cans and gels

All triggered by sound. 

All a bit random plug n play.

Not a patch on Yr pro setup.

Danny1969

Well I know this might sound overkill be we have a separate lighting engineer alongside the FOH engineer and he operates the lights from a DMX desk.  Our normal setup is 

8 times moving head fixtures at the back 
8 long throw pars at the sides
8 long throw pars angled at the front
4 moving head fixtures on the stage sides
2 lasers, one either side
Large haze machine, triggered from the lighting desk. 

We also have guitars with lights in, don't use them that often though 

PolarityMan

Fuck yeah lasers are cool

PolarityMan

Id really like to do projection but it seems quite expensive to get something bright enough, especially if you want to do rear projection so you dont have to have the projector off the stage. 

Roland

Some of the new television projectors are designed to work from the floor, and less than a metre from the wall. I’ve no idea whether they would work for band back projection. @Sporky might know something about this technology. 

Sporky

You probbly want something more like an education ultra short throw projector, the donestic telly ones aren't at all bright. Epson do some decent ones, but you're probably around £2k a pop. 

PolarityMan

Yeah 2k puts it out of reach..maybe jsut buy a couple of cheap flatscreen TVS but thats a lot of shite to drag around