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Author Topic: LED Shootout....The beginning  (Read 45601 times)

Bob Charest

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Re: LED Shootout....The beginning
« Reply #20 on: January 14, 2007, 04:47:18 PM »

Hi Craig,

I'm new to the forum, but did a bunch of looking around before I bought my Weidamrk LED 64's. I use a LanBox to control the lights and I trigger whatever cuelists I want with a Behringer FCB1010 footpedal. this allows me to light to match the mood of the set. As we call all the tunes during the set, a pre-programmed approach without hands-free manual control wouldn't have worked.

I'm very happy with the Weidamark's, both from a versatility aspect and because they are simple to control. I'm finding that they are as bright as I need them to be in our live situations. I was using 8 par 38's (4 per side) just to create a wash for the stage. Now I've got 4 Weidamark's per side with 1 ADJ LEDP36 White spot per side for a little more brightness on the singers, and lastly a Chauvet ColorSplash JR. on the drumset. We brought them out on New Year's Eve, and the FCB1010/LanBox for control & the Weidamark's worked flawlessly & looked great.

Thanks for your comparison, and the pic's too: very helpful!

Best regards,
Bob Charest
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Craig Leerman

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Re: LED Shootout....The beginning
« Reply #21 on: January 14, 2007, 04:57:44 PM »

You should post some pics of your setup.  It sound  pretty cool!

I'm sure everybody would like to see.

Welcome to the forums!

Craig
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I'm so old, when I was doing FOH for Tommy Dorsey, to balance out the horn section I would slide their chairs downstage and upstage to mix!


Bob Charest

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Re: LED Shootout....Weidamark-LanBox-FCB1010
« Reply #22 on: January 14, 2007, 10:08:32 PM »

Hi Craig,

Thanks for the reply! There's so much good info on a number of the forums here: what a good place to find!

I just have a couple of shot's that were taken of us from out beyond the audience and one that was snapped from onstage of our guitarist stepping forward to sing a vocal. I think that even though the picture quality isn't great, one can see some of the color variety of the pars and their projection onto the band. In particular, the shot from onstage gives a feel for how bright the Weidamarks are. I don't have any pictures of the lighting trees kitted up, so I should probably bring one of them in from the van & snap a few shots...

(2 hours later!!!) OK, you got me thinking that I should really do this anyway, so I went & got the light crossbars & set the gear on the living room floor. I've seen the limitation of one pic per message, so I'll try to upload them in subsequent messages.

I'm running each side as it own DMX run with the last fixture terminated. I just didn't want to have to loop the DMX run back down from the tree on stage right & run it across to stage left. The power is mounted on the top of the crossbar. This leaves each crossbar with a dangling power & one XLR for the DMX connection. I think it looks pretty clean.

The LanBox-LCM was a challenge to program, but I had some great help from a DJ out in Colorado who had already taken it on, and the support I received from LanBox's designer/support person in the Netherlands was outstanding. His name is Fokko van Duin, and he was really responsive. When first working on the LanBox, for some reason the DMX channel patching wasn't in its normal one to one relationship in the LCedit software that comes with the LanBox, and, not being familiar with the unit, this was producing unpredicable results. I emailed the support email, and within an hour, Fokko had diagnosed the problem, instructed me on the solution and even provided me with a sample fixture definition file for my Weidamark's - way beyond what I've ever experienced, even from the best tech support I've had here in the states... highly reccomended!

The pic I've uploaded is really 3 pictures: the top third is the stage-right crossbar, the middle is the stage-left crossbar, and the botton third show the Behringer FCB1010 foot pedal connected to the LanBox-LCM via MIDI. The LanBox outputs DMX to the Chauvet splitter which distributes the DMX signals to each light tree.

Regards,
Bob Charest
index.php/fa/7429/0/
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Bob Charest

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Re: LED Shootout....The beginning
« Reply #23 on: January 14, 2007, 10:10:40 PM »

Here's a smaller pic of the Weidamark's on their 1st gig:
index.php/fa/7430/0/
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Bob Charest

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Re: LED Shootout....The beginning
« Reply #24 on: January 14, 2007, 10:12:45 PM »

Here a pic from onstage that shows how bright they are. One of the things I noticed was that members of the audience were digging the way the Weidamark's looked all by themselves... pretty cool!
index.php/fa/7431/0/
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jeffhtg (Jeff Kenney)

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Re: LED Shootout....The beginning
« Reply #25 on: January 14, 2007, 10:46:08 PM »

There is a serious problem with the flood of inexpensive LED fixtures on todays market.

There are many positives to LED. Low Power Draw, very little heat generated, and RGB color mixing are among the top benefits. The problem with a shootout like this is that there is no component comparision.. Most of the inexpensive LED fixtures have some problems that aren't quite showing up. I doubt you will see 100,000 hours of life from these units, they are problaby taking crappy quality LED's with an inferior voltage regulator/powersupply and overdriving it to make up for the output..

Why not do a shootout with some of the quality fixtures Smile Thomas, SGM, Pulsar, Colorkinetics, Robe? Smile

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Bob Charest

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Re: LED Shootout....Weidamark-LanBox-FCB1010
« Reply #26 on: January 14, 2007, 11:07:14 PM »

This pic shows the first two settings: The low-level light that we use when we take the stage & the Blue/Turquoise hues for ballads, etc. You can see in the top half of the pic that the FCB1010's LED is lit for pedal #1, and that in the bottom half the LED for pedal #2 is lit. These pictures really dont do the lights justice, they're much prettier than I'm able to capture. I don't have the ability to adjust our cheap digital camera to really capture the real colors of the LED's. index.php/fa/7432/0/
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Bob Charest

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Re: LED Shootout....Weidamark-LanBox-FCB1010
« Reply #27 on: January 14, 2007, 11:16:46 PM »

This pic show scenes 3 & 4, the up-tempo Red then Orange. The color I got really didn't come through on these 2 pics... Oh, well

index.php/fa/7440/0/

I've got a bunch more pics showing the slowchase, fast chase, strobe & full on images, but I don't wnat to just load a bunch of stuff that other might not find interesting.

Best Regards,
Bob Charest
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Craig Leerman

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Re: LED Shootout....The beginning
« Reply #28 on: January 15, 2007, 03:39:33 AM »

Quote:

There is a serious problem with the flood of inexpensive LED fixtures on todays market.



And what would that be?  And I would hardly call the amount of available units out there a "flood"  By my estimate, there are less than a dozen or so lower priced LED fixtures available, and that included the few imports, not only the name brand units.


Quote:


There are many positives to LED. Low Power Draw, very little heat generated, and RGB color mixing are among the top benefits. The problem with a shootout like this is that there is no component comparision.. Most of the inexpensive LED fixtures have some problems that aren't quite showing up. I doubt you will see 100,000 hours of life from these units, they are problaby taking crappy quality LED's with an inferior voltage regulator/powersupply and overdriving it to make up for the output..



I doubt you have pulled apart any fixture for comparison. I've opened up most of the units I've bought and don't see the  crappy quality you are talking about.

If you want to bad mouth some of these lower priced units , why not actually take some apart before making stupid assumptions about their quality with no real data.  

If you don't want to buy LEDs then don't. Bad mouthing them only makes you look bad, not the fixtures.

Quote:


Why not do a shootout with some of the quality fixtures  Thomas, SGM, Pulsar, Colorkinetics, Robe?



I did a comparison of Par Can style fixtures so I could find one I want to buy, not a shootout of every available LED out there.  Nor did I do a shootout for any commercial gain, or have any manufacturer involvement.  I did this for myself and published the data in case other people were interested. I bought units off the shelf with my own money, and compared them against each other so I could decide what fixture or fixtures best suited MY needs (NOT YOUR NEEDS, whatever they are!)

If you want to buy some high end units off the shelf like I did and compare them, be my guest. Put up your own money, and feel free to post any results here.

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I'm so old, when I was doing FOH for Tommy Dorsey, to balance out the horn section I would slide their chairs downstage and upstage to mix!


Duane Massey

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Re: LED Shootout....The beginning
« Reply #29 on: January 15, 2007, 10:50:25 AM »

Thanks for your efforts, Craig. This forum should be (and is, for the most part) a way for those of us in the industry at all levels, and from all angles, to discuss issues and help each  other with problems and info. None of us (to my knowledge) are recieving any financial rewards for what goes on here (I make a concious effort to not promote the company I work for), so any extra time that someone puts in on a project that benefits us all should be applauded. And the applause is deafening...or maybe that just my hearing?

Anyway, keeping it positive will accomplish a lot more.
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Duane Massey
Houston, Texas, USA
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