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[Connif Boudoin]

Hey guys, I presently own
24 par 64's with the 600 watt DYS bulbs and dimmers,
16 of the pin spots and dimmers,
2 10" dual 4515 rotating police beacons,
4 highend trackspots,
An American DJ Show Designer One,
An Elation desksetter 24.
1 Chauvet 1700 watt fogger with DMX converter
1 ADJ Volcano 700watt constant fogger/hazer

I am ready to purchase more lighting. I was wondering what everyone's thoughts were on where to proceed. I could do moving heads, more trackspots, or more pars (although the power requirements are getting pretty high with so many par's).

I probably have about $2000 to $3000 to spend. My present considerations are one of the following:
4 Q-spot 150's ($500ea.)
4 ADJ Accuspot 250's ($799ea.)
2 Q-spot 250's ($1299ea.)
2 Elation Design Spot 250's ($1799ea.)(getting a little over the limit)
2 ADJ Accuspot 300's ($999ea.)
2 Q-spot 575's ($1799ea.)(getting a little over the limit)
4 Used Trackspots (approx. $500ea.)

Let me know what you think. Also consider servicing the fixtures. Duane Massey, I would also like to hear what you have to say since you service these lights. What brands do you service in Houston. I live in Louisiana so you would be relatively close. I use the lighting for just about everything, Concerts, Theater performances, Dance school recitals, Festivals. Thanks in advance.

[Steve Thomas]

You have a lot of lights.

With all those static fixtures, it appears you could benefit with some moving lights.

With 24 PARS running, you may need to consider 575W moving heads.
I'm not sure how well 250W moving heads will cut through that lighting.

Steve

[Duane Massey]

Hello, Connif;

Since we carry everything you have on your list, I can at least give you a hands-on perspective. We have had more consistent performance and service from ADJ/Elation than any other company we carry. This is not to say that we have had no problems with any of their products (I'm a tech, not a salesman), but they have responded much better on average than anyone else. The Accu-series is a great bang-for-the-buck product line, and the Elation stuff is more sophisticated (and more $$).
We don't work on much of this gear in-house anymore, with the exception of Trackspots. Almost all the current crop of products (including virtually all brands) are not serviceable by dealers; that is, all warranty work must be done at the manufacturer, and most consumers nowdays either discard the fixture after a couple of years and purchase something newer and cooler, OR they buy the parts and do their own repair work. When you calculate the expense of 1-2 hours labor @ $65 plus parts, fixing a fixture that originally cost $ 600 or less does not appeal to most consumers. Even Trackspots are reaching the point where fewer people are repairing them anymore, and these are my favorite fixture from a tech viewpoint.

Rather than give you suggestions "blind", give me an idea of what type of gigs (genre, venue, etc) and I'll be more than happy to give you my $ .02 worth.

[Connif Boudoin]

Well Duane let's see. I'll give a few examples of some of what we have done.

On a concert level in a theater we use most everything that I have. 8 par cans at FOH facing the stage about 50 foot off of the stage. 4 trackspots hanging from the curtain bar down at the floor, 8 par cans inside of homemade columns made of PVC 21" x 21" square wrapped with a sheer curtain material called sparkle tool. This looks really cool. You can change the columns all different colors. 2 different colors in each column. I have the pin-spots mounted on aluminum plates that I can set on the floor in different locations. The last 8 pars I use as a wash on the back curtain from the side of the stage on 10' vertical poles.

For dance schools everything the same except all pars are in the wings to light up stage except 8 on handrail of balcony to light up front of stage. The stage is quite large at 40' x 40' x 20' tall. I provide all the lighting. The building is old and the lighting dimmers are all out in the building so the building lighting is either on or off no dimming and just white lighting so I don't normally use it. Some times I bring the trackspots to front of house to do designs on the walls of the building. Everything looks really good just looking to add to what I have.

Now when I do outside stuff I usually just do par cans on stands. 4 T-bars and one 10 foot crank truss. with tracks doing stuff where everyone is dancing. I have put the tracks on truss behind band when playing indoors with haze. My thoughts with Moving heads is to maybe do something at the front of the stage either criss crossing or just creating designs in the audience. In the theater the audience stuff looks good because the audience is dark and the lights show up the best. For the dance schools the teachers tend to want all the lighting on the stage not in the audience. They want the people watching the dancing not the lighting. They tend to like it white too. The more the better. But that does take away from what the other lighting can do.

Now for Outside Festivals at night again typical pars front and back 12 on each. Sometimes I pull the trackspots and sometimes not. Just depends on what other lighting is there.

Thanks again in advance for the input..

[Duane Massey]

Connif, consider this:

Add 2 AccuSpot300's; they have remote focus and a prism, very useful if you're doing psuedo-projections.
Add 1 or 2 AccuRollers; they can look very cool (and FAST) if you use as rear lights, especially floor mounted. Even 1 can give you some serious FX's that most people don't use.
Take what you have left in your budget and add some Elation Stage Colors or some other form of RGB lights.

You also might spend a little on new gobo's for your trackspots and whatever new fixtures you get. I've also changed out a dicro or 2 in Trackspots to at least gain some more choices (red, orange, reddish magenta? and color corrector? yuck!) Apollo has a whole list of colors, and you can even get them cut in 1/4's to make a multi-color dicro. Definitely an easy DIY project.

[Connif Boudoin]

Hey Duane, You have anyone that would handle gobo's for these lights. I would definitely be interested in purchasing gobo's. Even some for advertisement. I have had some request for the dance recitals for certain gobo's but never had a place to get them. Gobo's for the trackspots and the ADJ stuff also. Thanks

[len woelfel]

Connif Boudoin wrote on Thu, 04 January 2007 06:50

Hey Duane, You have anyone that would handle gobo's for these lights. I would definitely be interested in purchasing gobo's. Even some for advertisement. I have had some request for the dance recitals for certain gobo's but never had a place to get them. Gobo's for the trackspots and the ADJ stuff also. Thanks

If you want Apollo gobos http://www.internetapollo.com , you need to go to a dealer as Apollo won't sell direct to the public.  Entertainment Systems in VA sells them.  

But not every fixture has replacable gobos so you would need to check that before even looking.  I doubt Trackspots have replacable gobos, but I'm not sure.  

In the alternate, you could have gobos made for a leko, or buy/rent gobo projectors.  Some move, some don't.  

[Craig Leerman]

Quote:

I doubt Trackspots have replacable gobos, but I'm not sure

The standard Trackspot has one replaceable slot. It takes a V sized gobo.

You can buy different custom gobo wheels that allow you to take more gobos.  I have seen wheels that allow you to add 3 of your own  gobos, and a wheel that is ALL custom gobo slots.

Here is a custom wheel called an Amorphic wheel. When you spin the wheel, it just flows from pattern to pattern. You don't see the stops between the standard gobos. In addition, you still can stop the wheel at each index, and get a cool looking single gobo.

[Duane Massey]

Craig beat me to it, but I'll add (from my own tinkering) that you can take a Trackspot gobo wheel and punch out a hole in place of the gobo(s) that you don't like or have a use for, and glue an Apollo or similar gobo (or even litho) in place of it. It always amazes me that so few people actually use the open slot, especially considering the low cost (under $10-12) of an off-the-shelf gobo.
In general any fixture that has rotating gobos has replaceable gobos. Most (if not all) of the simpler (translated: cheaper) scanners have a single wheel with no removeable gobos.

If I ever get some spare time I'm going to experiment with replacing some of the dicros on an AccuScan or similar. I'm really less than impressed with the stock colors.