Posts in Lighting

Lighting

Lighting Christmas Eve: Jands Vista, Chauvet, Rouge, ETC, Leviton, MDG

I’ve been wanting to post this since Christmas but it’s been pretty hectic. Christmas Eve is always a big production for us, so I thought it might be a good starting point for lighting discussion, questions, ideas, etc. Let’s get started!Here is a static, low-quality angle from the entire event: Your browser does not support the HTML5 video tag. HTML5 Video Player Our Gear Here is our lighting gear list for this year: Control Lighting Control: Jands Vista S1 LED Wall Control: Entec LED Mapper Lighting Cues: MIDI cues from… Read More

How-To Lighting 18 Comments

LED Pixel Tape Stage Design Part 3: Pixel Control and Mapping Software

Okay, at this point you’ve done your research, designed your wall, and priced out some components. You’ve installed your tape, wired in your control and powered it up. Now what?### Pixel Control and Mapping Software As I mentioned briefly in part 2, you’re most likely going to need a program that can map media and effects to your pixel tape controller, likely via Art-Net, sACN or KiNet. I’ll look into some specific programs to compare in a second, but generally these programs allow you to create a stage configuration that… Read More

How-To Lighting

LED Pixel Tape Stage Design Part 2: Installation Steps and How-To

Well, we just finished up our Christmas Eve service here at Harvest Christian Fellowship and I’ve got some free time to finish up this series on our LED pixel tape wall installation. If you missed it, this is based on the research we did in part 1.In the end, we ended up going with the following gear for our install: – 21 5-meter reels of Enttec 8PL30 tape (an extra reel in case we have issues, which we did…) – 8 Meanwell LRS-350-5 (300 Watt, 5V) power supplies to power… Read More

How-To Lighting 2 Comments

LED Pixel Tape Stage Design Part 1: Design, Research, and Pricing

We’re really excited to be pulling the trigger on a 3,700-light LED pixel tape backdrop this Christmas. We’ve been really happy with our stage looks recently, but it’s pretty clear that what we’re lacking is a good backdrop.I thought I’d write a few posts and how-to’s as we make our way through this project, especially since it seems like there isn’t a whole lot of comprehensive material on the subject. So here goes! – Part 1: Design, Research and Pricing – Part 2: Installation – Part 3: Pixel Control and… Read More

How-To Lighting 17 Comments

Controlling Jands Vista Lighting Cues via MIDI show control from Ableton

Building a beautiful light show can be great. But getting all those incredible cues to sync perfectly with the song just like you envision can be challenging at best. To achieve this, many shows are now utilizing SMPTE timecode or MIDI control to trigger lighting cue changes from software like Ableton, which allows a show to be entirely pre-programmed fairly easily–timing included.That all sounds great I’m sure, but making it happen can be a bit tricky, so that’s what this post is all about. Keep in mind that although I’m… Read More

How-To Lighting

Vista Lighting Remote: Help

1. “Why can’t your App do…” The Vista Lighting Remote for iOS is a very basic App. This is primarily because the App is based on the supported MSC lighting messages listed publicly here. As you can see, there are only a few features available via these messages, and there is no other public way to control additional features. If Jands decides to allow access to more features via MIDI messages I will happily add these features to the iOS remote App. For now, cues and cue lists are the… Read More

Lighting 4 Comments

Vista Lighting Remote: Getting Started

Thanks for picking up my Vista Lighting Remote for iOS! Before this little App will do anything worthwhile you have to do a bit of work to get remote MIDI control of Vista’s Byron:# 1. Setting up MIDI networking Mac OS X a) Opening Audio MIDI Setup To get started on Mac OS open “Audio MIDI Setup” which you should find under /Applications/Utilities. Once it’s open press Window->Show MIDI Studio (or press ⌘-2). You should see something like this: Double-click the “Network” icon. Now you should have the MIDI Network… Read More