Band lighting

ESBlonde

My rig all (just) fits in my car. Lighting wise I have two nice long LED bars which we hang and bungee to the PA tops facing across the stage front. Then a bar of cheap par LEDs on a simple tripod placed at the back of the stage facing forward. These are all linked to the DMX controller. I also have a cheesy half football ‘disco’ thing on the floor that projects moving shapes on the ceiling and nearby walls. The chase is set slow so it sequences about every 7 - 15 seconds, all the lights are the same colour to create an ever changing wash. All very low impact with nothing dynamic. It works for the majority of our pubs and social clubs. I also carry a rope light to lay on the floor if there is no stage. It’s intended to keep punters back, but drunks won’t see it if they don’t want to. I just set a gently blue wash on stage when we’re not on it.
It can be programmed to do far more of course, but I’m singing lead, stage mixing and playing guitar, I can’t be 4rsed to faff about between songs. 

Stratavarious

LED pars on clamps on the speaker stands are a good easy first step.

If you get Y splitter IEC cables, a PA top and a light can be powered from one socket.

The same type of par light can often be put on the floor as back light and up light.

For basic gigs duo.. small band… I have a bag with 4 pars, a disco type projector for movement and a metre long led bar that uplights a banner or backdrop.

DMX adds time and complexity to setting up but even having just a blackout on a foot switch can be good to control the lights to the start and end of a song for a dramatic effect.  Does not have to be all.. maybe the backlights pointing toward audience

Next step would be a T bar at back or two, one each side and spotlights for singers/soloists.  

Small mini par lamps like kitchen spotlights can often screw on the rigging points of PA tops to shine down.

Danny1969

A good trick if you are going to use DMX is to get a little DMX desk with a line in, so you can trigger a chase speed by the band playing a song in real time. This is effectively sound to light but you get to choose what triggers the lights.

If you mic the bass drum then send the bass drum to a spare aux send or group out and feed that into the desk. Then the lights will only go through the chase when the drummer hits the bass drum. As soon as the band stops the chase will stop on scene.

If you have someone mixing via iPad then you can change what source is feeding the DMX input from the iPad remotely. You can send the snare to that aux / group out instead or as well as the bass drum. You can get quite creative with this, to the point you can forget your main job on the iPad is mixing the band

Part of my companies work with 2020 is installing and repairing PA systems in clubs. At the last club install we did which was PA and DMX lights, I designed and built a little box with an integral mic, pre amplifier and level control. That is plumbed into their DMX desk and by default sets the speed of the chase when the band plays and stops on a scene when they stop. Cheap but very effective. I simply screwed it to the wall in the middle of the stage where the drummers setup. For power I used a 5 core piece of install cable, ground is the shield, red is +V, Black is 0V and the other 2 are the differential mic signal that feeds the desk.

You can easily build this as a little box and put it by the drums if you don't mic the kick drum or have any spare aux /group outputs.

Chris_J

robinbowes said:

Chris_J said:

Thanks for the comments everyone.

I'm currently trailing a Maestro DMX unit. It is basically a DMX controller that reacts to your playing (speed/kick drum and intensity/volume) making changes to your lighting within the parameters set (colour(s), vibe, excitement level etc). You save these as profiles and you can have as many profiles per show as you like and select or bank through them with a midi controller etc.

They claim AI, in that it listens to your show and makes informed decisions based on the music, but that remains to be seen.

I'm treating it as an auto show for the whole lighting rig, rather than each fixture being on a fixed colour, or auto and just ending up with a mess. I don't have to program DMX which is a bonus, but it's not quite as plug and play as they would have you believe, due to a fair bit of manual work to get everything running and reacting the way you want.

Early signs are promising for what I'm looking for though.

I've set a midi controller up to toggle blinders, strobes, blackout and some of the dials for master brightness, excitement level for different fixture groups, though I doubt I'll have time to play with that much whilst drumming.

I do co run a small venue and do sound for local festivals, so the lighting rig is likely to be set up for those events too and I can see the on the fly control being useful in those scenarios.

The lights include 2 large gravity T bars at the back of the stage (with 4 pars 4 moving zoom wash), 4x led battens, 2 moving spots with gobos/prism and 2 led wash panels at the front of the stage with barndoors for lighting the band. It's a lot to set up so can't see it all being used regularly, but elements of it likely will do.

How are you getting on with this @Chris_J ;?

We really need to get some basic lighting for gigs for our 8-piece punk/soul/ska covers band, esp. if we start doing more exclusive functions.

R.

Late reply but...

Getting on ok but have ended up only using the whole system for the venue I co run. That many lights plus cabling just takes too long for us to set up on our normal pub/small club gigs... plus as drummer and PA guy I'm generally already up against it. The band is still using a lot of the old lighting gear... 

I do like the new system, including the Maestro, and have created a few presets that I can trigger for static looks, slow songs, upbeat tunes, really rocky numbers. I'm the sound tech, mixer and lighting guy usually so having a them all on buttons on a midi controller is super handy. I have other buttons for blinders, strobes and blackouts so can leave the box to run the presets I've made (that for the most part, sync with the music) but still have some fun on big hits.

For important gigs or if I'm hired to setup for a local festival I'd have no problem taking the whole rig over but would want a few hours to get it in and tested before the show starts.