The Keyboard Corner Lighting Thread....

[jeffincltnc]

Here's a topic that doesn't come up a lot, but that I'm interested in what others are doing -- Lighting!

 

I play a lot of dance music in bars and restaurants that often has a makeshift stage/performance area that isn't well lit. I also play a lot of "hit and run" gigs with a basic setup and pack out, and so I'm not looking to assemble a truss to mount and set lights, or do the whole DMX rigging. What I think I am really looking for are good budget lighting solutions that are compact to carry, don't have a lot of electrical or sync wiring, and can work on the floor.

 

Maybe some combination of some colored wash lights on the floor, small tripod mounted bars, or LED sticks on the floor. I know Chauvet is a budget brand that is sold in a lot of music dealers in the sound & DJ department. I also see a pretty steady amount of deals from mobile DJs who bought gear and lighting and are selling used to get rid of gear.

 

Since other band members do more in the PA, mixer and sound contribution, I was thinking about volunteering to spruce of our lightning some more. Has anyone else here done the same?  I was thinking about a mention that Chuck Hollis made some time back about the APE Labs cans and wanted to go a little deeper on more suggestions from the forum crowd.

[KuruPrionz]

Hmm... your title says "lightning, not lighting."

 

I'm a lower tier mod but I don't know how to fix that, maybe somebody higher up can do it if you ask?

[jeffincltnc]

3 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

Hmm... your title says "lightning, not lighting."

 

I'm a lower tier mod but I don't know how to fix that, maybe somebody higher up can do it if you ask?

 

Thank you.  I fixed my typo from "Lightning" to "Lighting".

 

This is why I don't work at the International Space Station.  I would type "launch" instead of "lunch".

[Old No7]

You'd have to search on here for it...

 

Somebody had posted, maybe 3-5 months ago, info and images on small LED color-changing "cans" that if I recall, which were battery powered and could easily be placed around the stage or keyboards setup to add some color & lighting -- add WATER if you want lightNing...

 

I think they "danced" to the music, by sensing the beat?  They were not programmable but low-cost for a set of 4 or 6, if I remember.

 

You might look on Amazon for battery powered LED stage lighting to see what hits you get.

 

Old No7

[Justin Havu]

Most stuff from ADJ and Chauvet can be set to a pattern/audio mode and left alone.  If budget is a concern, there are some wash lights, like a multicolor LED bar that sell for under $200.  Maybe start with a couple of those, then add some effects later on.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

This isn't going to fully illuminate a band on a dark stage, but a friend of mine picked up this $50 galaxy projector lamp from Target and set it up in his studio, and it gave it a really fun vibe, so I did the same for my own. I have occasionally brought it to gigs to add a little mood and color above the band (in a room with ceilings or a blank backdrop that will accomodate it) or around my rig. It can power off of USB as well as a regular AC plug, so if you have a laptop rig, or USB ports in your surge protector, that's an option as well.

 

https://www.target.com/p/sky-lite-led-laser-star-galaxy-projector-green-stars-8211-blisslights/-/A-80310526?ref=tgt_adv_XS000000&AFID=google_pla_df&fndsrc=tgtao&DFA=71700000086346112&CPNG=PLA_Lighting%2BShopping_Traffic|Lighting_Ecomm_Home&adgroup=SC_Ceiling+%26+Wall+Lighting&LID=700000001170770pgs&LNM=PRODUCT_GROUP&network=g&device=c&location=2840&targetid=pla-1677807983171&gclid=CjwKCAjwzuqgBhAcEiwAdj5dRibgk6kkF2a32McrDhXxK45mxZmxWjhBSnNkXC_BoGouETeMrhWNChoCCgMQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

[Stokely]

We have toned down our lighting a lot.  Our old drummer brought out a ton of stuff, with lasers and disco lights oh my.  He actually pissed off the manager of what was our best gig at the time by having his freaking lasers shining on people at the bar.  Part of the reason is that the nature of our more recent gigs isn't as "dancy club" as before, also the ones that are more like that already have lights.

That said, we have two small trees of 3-4 led lights (the octagonal type) each, these attach to our PA mains on each side.  It's not a lot but at least each member has at least a light on them.   We have a couple wash lights (bars) that we haven't used lately, and a couple of us have additional ones.   

We don't hook up anything with dmx, just let them be.

I've thought about bringing out something fun just for myself, maybe some string lights or something mounted on my stand.  But then I get lazy  

[mate stubb]

Yup, I've been THE LIGHTING GUY in the band before, and have many of the same criteria you do. The brand I have gravitated towards is Blizzard. I had 12 of the flat pucks to start - 4 on each front T bar and 2 on each back T bar. The lights were wired together for power and dmx for as quick as possible setup.

 

It was still too much hassle. I ended up with a single Blizzard SnowBank on a pole at each corner of the stage. For control I used wireless dmx dongle receivers so all I had to run was a single power cable per pole. These fixtures are now discontinued but I have seen similar from other brands. They threw a ton of light for a small to medium stage.

 

https://www.blizzardpro.com/products/snowbank

 

[mate stubb]

The SnowBanks in action.

 

 

[Delaware Dave]

Gig from a couple of weeks ago.  Our singers lights, setup in about 10 minutes, cost him a couple hundred dollars.  What I love is that they generate no heat, unlike Par cans that we use to use 10 years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stokely]

I have nightmares about those big heavy and HOT par cans.  Last time I used those was in the late 80s in a "frat band"--we had a fairly big PA with distro box and lots of lights, and ZERO roadies.  It took us at least 3 hours to set up and tear down.  Like the young fools we were back then (vs old fools now), we'd then drive 3-4 hours home with the car and rental truck quite often, arriving back at 8-9 am.   

Such fun to wrangle those lights and those freaking trusses, and winding up all the beer-mud-covered extension cords running to them from the distro.

Compare to the tiny yet powerful PA and lights of today, it's mind-boggling.  We can pretty much take one trip on carts from our vehicles and set up from nothing to first note in about 20 minutes if we really hustle.

Those snowbanks look very nice, they look even easier to deal with than the typical bar with 3-4 lights across.

[CEB]

Production (sound and visuals) is a pain in the keister. We contract everything out unless house or event production is provided. What we do is based on budget.  
 

Professional production is a major factor in putting my bands into higher pay scales.  But it’s an arms race. Pay goes up but so do expenses. But the impact is huge.  And … prograde light gear is always needing repair. If you are going to start a lighting company you HAVE to do your own repairs. 
 

it doesn’t do miracles. You still have to be players and have your music together. 

[cphollis]

7 hours ago, Old No7 said:

You'd have to search on here for it...

 

Somebody had posted, maybe 3-5 months ago, info and images on small LED color-changing "cans" that if I recall, which were battery powered and could easily be placed around the stage or keyboards setup to add some color & lighting -- add WATER if you want lightNing...

 

I think they "danced" to the music, by sensing the beat?  They were not programmable but low-cost for a set of 4 or 6, if I remember.

 

You might look on Amazon for battery powered LED stage lighting to see what hits you get.

 

Old No7

 

That would have been me.  Like keyboards and speakers, I spent a lot of time buying and discarding bad lighting setups.  I finally found something that works gig after gig.  

 

Warning: I love my setup, it works fantastically well, it's super simple and light, and it looks great 

 

It is also laughably expensive.  All the cheaper alternatives I tried really sucked.  That may change in the future, but not yet. 

 

------------------- long post follows ----------------------

 

I went with Ape Labs fixtures with integrated charging and carrying cases.  They are battery powered, wireless DMX and built in Germany.  These are the portable fixtures that professional event people use.  Once you try them, you're hooked.

My first wave was the Ape Lights 15w battery-powered cans (24 or 4 per performer), placed on the floor next to performers to add ambience in addition to whatever the venue had. I started with the built-in "musikmode" programs from the remote.  It looked pretty darn good, more on how musikmode works below.

Next, I added their Maxi 45w par lights (6 of them on two small tees) to illuminate from the sides.  The ensemble is bright enough, but no one is getting a suntan from them. 

 

By this point, why stop?  So let's keep going!  They updated their firmware so that you only could get single colors from the remote, or a single rainbow palette.  Yuck.  Their answer was their wifi/DMX/bluetooth dongle, which is a very cool little piece of kit called Connect.  You use a phone app to download shared multicolor presets (or create your own) and maybe 10-15 presets from your phone will get you through a show nicely.  You just have to remember to change the lights every so often.

 

So that's the rig maybe 90% of the time.  Three small cases, two small tee stands, dongle.  If we need real overhead lights, I have a 15' truss with hand cranks, it supports 6 very bright and very cheap wired LED fixtures.  You can get a suntan from them.  The neat part is that the Ape Labs dongle will drive them as well.

 

More on "musikmode", this is not your typical sound reactive flashing light.  The fixtures form a wifi mesh within their group (up to four groups).  Each fixture has a microphone.  They listen for a while, and then start dividing up the frequency band and flashing in coordinated, changing groups.  It looks very professional indeed.  And it catches the breaks in the music!  The software is very clever and makes for a great show with near-zero programming.

 

The fixtures are industrial strength and can handle rough treatments (e.g. being kicked across the stage) as well as a bit of rain.  The batteries last longer than you'll be there.  The integrated charging cases are very nice indeed.  I bought them prior to covid, inflation, etc. and they were painfully expensive then.  I am sure they cost even more now.

 

The less expensive fixtures I tried had common failings: their built in programs were boring, the batteries weren't long lasting, there wasn't a cool bluetooth app to change presets, and so on.  Just not the same thing at all.  These Ape Labs fixtures look like the kind of things I'll be happily using ten years from now.  There isn't much of a resale market for used as people tend to hang on to them.

 

Best of luck!

 

 

[harmonizer]

Lighting added to the stage area can either help or hurt the ability to capture good videos.

 

Some options shown in this thread put lights in front of the performers, shining light on the front of them. These can help with capturing videos.

 

But if the lighting added is behind the performers it can kill video captures. For example, if your video capture devices are iphones or android devices, and the lighting was marginal in the performance space to begin with, adding lighting behind the performers can make it much worse. At the two venues we play at most often, we try to cover or turn off any light sources that are behind our performance area.

[Synthaholic]

Lighting is the last thing on my mind, but I recognized that I needed something every once in a while, so I bought this back in 2016:

 

American DJ VPar Pak | Musician's Friend (musiciansfriend.com)

 

It worked out well for me, since they weigh practically nothing, and come in a carrying bag, with a remote (which I don't really get to use, as my hands are busy 🙄). I hang them with zip ties from my speaker stands when I use my JBL 510 speakers. Bright and pretty. I've never bothered trying to program them, because I don't care. I just have them react to the music (there are a few different operational modes) and it's fine.

 

Interestingly, they haven't gone up in price since 2016 - still $249, but I bought it for $100 off, as it was the Stupid Deal of the Day.  😁

[Stokely]

I have to say that it's pretty obvious that cphollis' band is much better lit than my own (and most others I've seen)!  Makes a big difference, looks like a show.

My own band has been kind of in a "hey it's good enough, it's working" rut but this is one area we probably should up our game in.  Then again, someone's got to buy, bring, set up and tear down the lights!     I'm actually hoping the bandleader buys our drummer an e-kit though first (for use by him or any sub drummer)-- it's been something he's been considering.  Sure would make lower-volume gigs easier, heck higher-volume ones too.  I mixed sound for my friend's band at a fairly big street party thing and the Roland kit his drummer had sounded fantastic with no fuss whatsoever.  

[AnotherScott]

These are cheap, and not at all rugged, but they can do in a pinch. I keep them in the car in case we end up in a venue where we're practically playing in the dark. The worst thing about them for me is that the power cords don't detach from the lights, so when you screw the light onto the stand, you have to spin the light with its cable attached, which is clumsy.

 

 

[Nathanael_I]

Chauvet and ADJ have three distinct lines of lights. The DJ stuff is at the bottom. This stuff is not that bright and not that good. But it’s cheap. The pro grade stuff is more. It is also available used for 50% of new.  But the lights are better in every way.  I’d buy better quality used than cheap new.