Switching to LED lights and I'm clueless.

[tomanyjacksons]

I need some help shedding some light on this. LOL We have a bunch of older style cans at least 20 or so. Long story short they are hot, draw to much power causing breakers to pop, require a lot of drop cords and it takes up a lot of the space in our trailer. I would like to go LED and not spend a fortune. We don't generally use that many lights as stage space is ussually sparse. My drummer has it in his mind that it will cost at least $1000. I've been looking and Chauvet seems to be priced good, I just have no user knowledge. Anybody used their lighting stuff? Is it reliable, easy to use and good lighting? Thanks in advance guys.

[Rsmacker]

Chauvet stuff is OK, but LED lighting is coming on in leaps and bounds, and there seems to be no major standout brand, I think the Chinese factories are just churning out loads of generic cheap spun aluminium cans and they brand the cardboard boxes. Not so long ago, like about 4 years, there were just cans that were about as bright as a PAR56, and they were expensive.

These days they are less than a PAR56 and a lamp, and the budget LED can, with around 177x 9w LEDS, is now pretty damned good. The problem is with the cheap ones, and I've seen this A LOT, is the capacitors and the zener diodes on the control PCB burn out if they are on for any length of time. That possibly won't be an issue for you, using them for band work. Sometimes individual LEDs have to be replaced, and that usually entails changing the whole lot of that particular colour. The DMX settings are made from DIP switches and they get bashed in transit, and that fucks up the whole can, it'll have a mind of its own!

I'd suggest you go and try out some of the PROPER LED cans, the top end ones have RGB plus a white LED, so you can get really good pastel shades, and a good brilliant white (the RGB ones give white when they are all on together, obviously, but it's...not nice IMHO). They usually have around 18 x 8w LEDS, but they are fucking bright. They will literally light the band from the other end of the room, whereas the cheaper ones tend to need to be quite closem and still can look insipid. The downside is that they cost about 3 times the price of a cheap can, maybe more, but when you see the output, you won't want the cheap cans, I assure you.

Remember that you'll probably want a cheap DMX controller for them too, even though they usually come with sound activated preset colour mix, fade and flood. Better to get a cheap controller and have total control. The cheaper ones are mostly 5 channel, the top end ones use 8 DMX channels.

Look at the LED panels and bars too, they have great output, and now even the moving yoke heads are up to a decent brightness - in a short space of time it will be expected that a good working club/pub band has moving heads, mark my words!

I just pity the poor fuckers who have rails and rails full of Thomas PAR64s, miles of Socapex, and massive racks of dimmers - there are still companies who have to take out two artics full of kit whereas now the same effect can be achieved witha Sprinter load. (In the same way that PA Companies with mountains of Point Source boxes are feeling the pinch compared to those with tasty little Line Arrays...)

[roodyrocker]

We have a mix of LED's and regular par cans. Yes, they are reliable. No problem there. And it's true they are much cooler so you don't roast on stage under them. People forget that pro bands in large venues are playing with the lights way up high so the heat isn't as big an issue for them. Us weekend players however are genarally playing with those par cans just up on tripod stands next to us. The height of the ceiling being the limiting factor. Those lights are hot! You'll love LED's in this regard. We also run into the same issue you do with par cans. They draw a lot of current and pop fuses at many places. We have a 220 distro and cable and it's generally not a problem IF the venue has 220 available. Unfortunately most places don't. A friend of mine who is a tech will tap into their fuse panel to get 220, but not me. If there is no 220 plug there then we use the regular wall outlets.
LED's are more expensive. Your drummer is probably not too far off on price depending on what size cans you're considering. There some considerably cheaper LED's but they're usually small. Our bass player has such a kit and we use that sometimes for simplicity. You also don't need gels with LED's. They are capable of color changes using the right light controller. The only downside I can see to them is that as far as looks, I still prefer the cone type beam of light regular par cans produce. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to say most LED's have dimmer packs built into them which is nice. On the par cans, which we use par 56's btw, you need to plug them into a separate dimmer pack to control them.
My friend who is a tech and I run sound/lights for other bands when we're not playing. Our light setup includes the above lights, movers, spot light, fog and haze machines, and we're thinking of adding a laser

[tomanyjacksons]

Thanks guys. Very informative. Time to start making a list. A pricey one at that. Ah who cares, it's only money and you can't take it with you.