Written By Terry Doner, November 20, 2020
A common question - I need to change the lighting at my venue sanctuary or stage - What Should I Buy?
The concrete answer to such a question needs to be strongly rooted in the answer to the question “What problem do you need to solve?”. Followed closely by “What state is your end game?”. Let's assume you know those answers!
When looking at the options, there are four crude categories of solutions.
These may appear to be in order of increasing cost, however there are some false economies in that thinking. You may very well end up buying some gear two or three times as you try different variations to get things to work right.
Whatever you do, think safety first:
Have a qualified electrician do all electrical work
Avoid the use of cheap extension cords and residential power bars
When hanging anything overhead, have a qualified rigger and / or engineer ensure that the installation is safe
Finally, lighting is a source of heat, ensure heat is kept away from flammable materials.
I recommend you purchase LED lighting rather than incandescent. There are some cases where LED is not the perfect solution (in 2020). Professional lighting designers will likely prefer Incandescent for front light. Many movers are not yet LED. However, the days of incandescent are limited, so if you purchase any incandescent fixtures today, they will likely be the last time your do so.
By "Big Box", I mean Home Depot/Lowes or whatever the equivalent is your market.
The equipment you get here is not meant to be used for event lighting. It will have some characteristics that aren’t nice. LED lamps in this range don’t behave all the same. They will tend to not turn on until you reach 10 or 20 percent and then they will flicker on at different points in time as you increase dimming from zero. And if you a using colours, they will shift colours as they brighten, and not the same as each other. You will not find native DMX support in this category of equipment.
Products like Philips Hue are not meant for large scale installations and you will encounter operational problems if you try. The do produce fairly consistent colour and may be useful in some situations.
All of these products (today) are in the low-end of the brightness scale. They are meant for your living room lamp, not the stage.
Be aware that these may produce large amounts of RF interference which could interfere with wireless audio systems and other gear. Before buying a large quantity of these, buy a few and ensure they don't create problems.
This may be all you can afford, but you may not be happy with the choice.
Expect:
Erratic dimming behaviour
Inability to scale to a large number of fixtures (wireless protocols)
Colour variations, even among the same manufacturer
RF interference
These will generally behave better than the big box lights, but precise behaviour is hard to predict before purchase. They will typically dim to sub 10% but will still often have a low level flicker on/off behaviour. Colours may not match and are likely to shift over time. It is reasonable to expect a decent red, green and blue from these. But do not expect pretty combo colours, such as yellow, magenta or cyan, or even white; you are likely to see the component colours along with the desired colour (that is, when trying to produce a yellow, you will get a yellow, but you will also see splashes of red and green too).
Expect:
Low build quality - plastic housings, IEC power - maybe loose fitting
3-pin DMX
Lights purchased at different points in time to produce different colours.
A lifespan of only a few years
Noisy fans / motors
RF interference
Unpredictable appearance on video - visible flicker and pulsing.
Expect metamerism, especially in RGB only units (low CRI or TM30)
Ugly combo colours
There are some places where I use these products, eg backgrounds and fills. I don’t recommended as your base lighting.
Music store gear has many of the same drawbacks as the cheap offshore - the one advantage is that you can actually demo the gear before you buy - or rent before you buy. You will see brands like Chauvet DJ, Blizzard and American DJ. This gear is meant for the DJ market. When evaluating them, look at the quality of the combo colours (cyan, yellow, magenta, white); they will likely disappoint. The brand names available often have gear in different price ranges, so look at the entire catalog, not just what is on display.
I would expect better build quality, but you will need to look at each product and assess.
How bad can these be? Some people are happy with their gear, and others ? As one person reported " ... the front half of one of our stage lights melted, cracked, and fell from the ceiling and crashed just inches from ... the front row" (Matt Turbedsky on facebook's Church Sound and Media Techs Group, Dec 26 2020, with permission)
Expect:
Better build quality - metal housings, better fitting connectors
Maybe Powercon
Maybe 5-pin DMX
Larger colour pallette - will often see they have amber or white emitters as well as RGB.
Reduced metamerism with emitter designs beyond RGB. (low CRI or TM30)
Lights purchased at different points in time to produce different colours.
Warranty of two years or less; a lifespan of a several years more
Lesser RF interference
Unpredictable appearance on video - visible flicker and pulsing.
Some models can be very noisy
Ugly combo colours
Gear in this category will last longer, will have very consistent colour between fixtures (and if they drift some models can be calibrated to continue to match each other). They will dim to 1% or lower and maintain colour as they do so, with consistent behaviour across all fixtures.
And will cost 2 to 3 times the price of the music store gear (or more). Pro manufactures have different ranges of gear as well. Brands to look for include: ADJ, Altman, Clay Paky, Chauvet Professional, ETC, High End Systems, German Light Products, Martin, Strand, and Vari-Light to name a few.
Expect:
Excellent build quality, often cast aluminium casings
5-pin and/or 3-pin and/or RJ45 DMX
RDM
Well behaved blended colours - typically added emitter colours beyond RGB: amber, lime, deep blue, etc. These designs produce much less metamerism.
Look great on video
Larger colour palette
Long warranty
Excellent technical support
A thing you want to avoid is having "one of everything". You will find that getting good looking consistent lighting designs is very hard when every light is different.
We always have to watch our pennies and spend our budgets wisely. This doesn't mean buy the cheapest available. As a friend of mine says, "I am not so rich to afford something so cheap!". But there are times when cheap is the best choice and times when you should save your money and buy upscale.