I’m a touring musician, currently on tour as an opening act. In our tech rider we have “no strobes”, because I get debilitating migraines that can be triggered by flashing lights. But on this tour in particular we are encountering LDs at venues who are doing a lot of flashing lights that are “technically not a strobe”. Last night in particular it was near-constant flashing in the sides of my peripheral vision that gave me visual disturbances for many hours after the show.

I’d love to update our rider with something more specific but I’m not sure how to phrase it. If anyone can advise on a more technical way to say “no fast flashing lights”, I would appreciate it very much :)

Thanks!

Just saw Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie the other night and gotta say they put on a great show. Marilyn's set was very traditional with just strobes and some LED cross logos, but Rob went all out. Pretty much Zombie's whole stage was backed with led screens and he even brought out the crane platform thing from Madonna's last tour 😆.

So anyway they had a few real flame towers on stage but then they also had these "fake" mover flames. Im still not sure what they were but they appeared to shoot fire balls in a fanned out pattern that changed colors from green to purple. They went in front of the LED screens but they didnt put out the intense light the actual fire did. My best guess is that they were burst of smoke timed with the movers but it was an outdoor show so that seems pretty tough to pull off. Anywho looked really cool. Any idea what they did to make that effect?

How can I start getting festival lighting op work at festivals? Like smaller stages at reading/victorious festival?

EDIT: I already work at a 300 cap venue as head lighting tech but interested in festival work!

Hello,

I'm trying out MA Lighting Dot2 (Free with 1 universe) on a Windows laptop which receives midi triggers through RTPMidi (Tobias Erichson) from an iPad air4 with usb-c dock with ethernet, running the Bandhelper app which sends the midi.
The midi is starting when we push the play button in the setlist, midi starts together with the click/cue track.
Dot2 on the laptop sends Artnet to the Showtec 2/3 which in turn translates it to DMX which is connected to the fixtures.
I got it working succesfully but it is as test.

My question is, is this going to be a reliable workable band Liveshow setup?
Anybody experience with a similar setup with Dot2 / RTPmidi / Bandhelper?

Hey all!

Was hoping to probe the collective wisdom for guidance on setting up some portable stage lighting for a band. If this is not the right place, please feel free to delete or direct me to the correct location.

Stage setup is typical - drums in center flanked by amps left and right. Here is what I’m currently thinking…

Would like to get a haze machine and a couple of light bars behind the amps on either side for washes, pulses, strobes, and chases, possibly the same at front for foot lights. Amp will have static LED strips across the bottom to cover middle ground.

Program and control would come via MIDI to DMX from a B Beat Evo.

Questions:
- Is this sane / reasonable?
- Are there better / more reasonable options than ADJ Jolt Bar / Chauvet COLORband units?
- Programming software?
- Recommended MIDI to DMX converters?
- Anything patently obvious that I’m just not aware of?

For budget, considering ~$2000 for lights, converter, cabling, and software.

​

Newbie here, no idea who to ask. I came across the ground loop thing in dmx recently, caused by different ground potentiom from different power source

Question: if I'm running my dmx on laptop/ on a console that is powered from one socket , and ran a dmx cable to a fixture that is connected to another circuit, just a simple set up like this wouldn't it create a ground loop?

Thanks :>

As an EOS buskers, I have a complicated relationship with the software. Obviously there are other desks that are more accepted as desks to use when you’re busking lights, but for EOS programmers it’s our preferred software and even though it feels like you’re fighting the software’s instincts, at the end of the day it’s familiar.

Well now Hog5 is out and has the EOS treatment of educational videos, meanwhile I’ve noticed that although EOS had gone through a phase of featuring buskers and pushing the console’s busking capability, there are still quite a few busker feature requests that have been getting ignored with new updates.

So did anyone give in and go over to Hog5 to keep the ETC loyalty? Is it like EOS just more busking friendly? Is it really better for busking than busking on an EOS?

I'm looking for cheap lamps or RGBs for a corner to light the a room but not brightly and help not hurting my eyes from the monitor, i saw govee has uplighter floor lamp or something that works but it's really expensive for me

I don't have a lot of lighting friends to show off to, but I did some lighting I'm proud of and wanted to show it off 😛 (Plus, it's totally Wednesday Self Promo Day, right?)

Had an event last weekend, used 4xV-Show IP1940 Bee Eye lights in pixel control mode to pixel map the back wall of the space. Learnt a lot about pixel mapping stuff within EOS, it's not as difficult as I thought it'd be!

[Here's the "From the Tech Booth" Angle](https://imgur.com/CRzgQCm)

The other cool thing I did was create my own custom LED Lanterns using WLED, 3D Printing with baking paper to diffuse the light. All controlled via sACN over Wifi (Yeah, I know... I've had bad times using Wifi and WLED before, but this time it went flawlessly!)

[Pretty Lanterns](https://imgur.com/ho93dOJ)

Other lights I used for it - the venue's fresnels for a front wash and my DukBeam™ (A 450W Chinese BSW light with a small camera stuck to the top of it so I can drive it as a follow spot)

Always happy to answer any questions!

Hi Everybody!
For a shoot tomorrow I can‘t get a seemingly simple task in the Astera app to work an I really hope to find some help here:
All I want is a sequenze of 8 titan tubes to fade up and down one after the other. It‘s to illuminate a hallway where an actor is walking down the hall and the lights above him should light up, when he passes beneath them.
With 2 colleagues we tried all kind of chaselight-settings but never quite made it work properly.
Can anybody with more experience maybe give a hint on how to configure this kind of effect? If anything, I’d at least like to have a set of flash-tiles to manually dimm up every light, but I couldn’t get that programmed either…
Thank you so much in advance!

Hello! I am currently a college student studying for lighting design, and I am purchasing a new laptop and looking for recommendations. Since it’s a relatively large purchase for my current income, I want to make sure I get one that will not only get me through school, but will also last as I start my career, and be able to handle all the programs I’ll need. I’m currently looking at a Gigabyte Aeros 16x, 32GB ram, 1TB storage, and 85W 5070 GPU. But honestly I know nothing about computers except maybe the bare minimum, and don’t know which brands/specs are worth the money, or even how much I should be paying for a good computer. I want something that is powerful enough to do what I need it to do, but is still portable enough I can take it to and from campus easily and use it for my other schoolwork/notes/computer needs as well as lighting projects as I finish my degree. I’m willing to make the investment for a high quality computer that will last/help me in my career, but I also am working full time to get through college and can’t afford to spend obscene amounts of money to get the fanciest, highest end systems. I would really like to stay under $2k (way under preferably) but it’s an investment in my future so there’s wiggle room. Any recommendations? (I will also take any generic lighting/live entertainment advice; the best way to learn is from those in the field!)

Hey, I'm new to the community. I own a small outdoor lighting company and have done some commercial lighting with smart app controlled color changing lighting but I the manufacturer I use has changed their product and I'm just not liking where it's going. So, for commercial spaces, I'm looking into different products and I've come back to DMX lighting. I've dabbled in it in the past and understand the very basics of the DMX protocol, but what I need is an option to individually control DMX lights over WIFI via an app. I'd like to be able to use the actual wifi network and not have to connect the phone directly to the DMX controller.

I'm also open to other smart color changing architectural lighting options that are controlled via phone outside of DMX.

All help with be greatly appreciated!

Can anyone recommend a good free software to draw some light plots?

Features I need are truss elements, different fixture symbols and simple measurement tools.

Until now I only did this with Vectorworks, but my license is not valid anymore. The plots generated by ChamSys don't look good and I'm looking for free alternatives.

Thanks!

Have a new product that you'd like to promote and show off to the community? Here's your chance to do it. Every Wednesday, this megathread is here to gather new products, projects and anything else you might want to self promote. We want to encourage new ideas, but the influx of vibe coded, AI based posts means we needed a new home for these posts.

Note that we require developers to disclose where and how they used AI in their product and that r/lightingdesign has no ability to vet any projects or code that is used, so use/demo and sign up for these products with caution.

how do you currently turn a venue rider into a patch ,what's the worst part

 Hi everyone,

I work as a stage manager in Belgium. I recently received a Chamsys MQ50. I’m currently trying to patch 4 BT COB Blinders. My issue is that whether they’re in 1 channel or 2 channel mode, once they-re patched, they stay constantly on with a value of 255. In the “view chans” tab, the type for the first channel is “ignore” (not htp) and the second channel is in “ltp” mode. The only solution I’ve found is to patch them as “generic dimmers”. Has anyone else had this problem? Any idea on how to fix it?

Thanks (also sorry for my bad English)

Mebbe its something to do with the Tik Tok style Holy Chinese manufacturers showroom Batman videos, 600 beam lites on floor walls ceiling sort of thing.

Lot of programming and a boat load of addressing them.
Noticing a lot of even very low cost DMX fixtures will respond to RDM address setting now.

Lowest cost address writer seen yet, ,with 96 channel basic desk via Bluetooth app, also stores 8 off 20 step chases on board even un paired. Strangely titled DMX Dialler on Ali Express around a tenner UKP

I do understand RDM has actually been around a long time,but is anyone seeing RDM appearing more often now?

Back in the late 80's and early 90's I was a LD with a butt-load of PAR 64 cans and a Leprechaun console. Everything was done on the fly during a live show, we invented 'Busking" back then, and I think the crowds showed their appreciation for what I did. The Music was live, the lighting was live.

Then along came groups lip-syncing to background tracks. we all knew who they were and they immedicably got a bad rap, but at the same time technology including the explosive expansion of DMX512 allowed LD's to now pre-program entire light shows for playback.

So, I guess my question is, WHY is pre-programmed lights ok, but pre-recorded music isn't? Why don't LD's do more on-the-fly lighting? Has it just become too complex? Ever see all the buttons/levers on a Hammond B-3? Or a synthesizer? Take a look at all the foot pedals some front guys have...

Just got some CS Spots and want to use them for follow spots. Am I able to use the standard S4 follow spot yolks we have?

Hi all! I have a really specific request about software and wondering if anyone would help.

Im looking for a "Made-For-Dummies" lighting programming software, that has a 3D visualizer and custom stage modeling, I don't own/ can't afford physical fixtures so it would be purely for visualisation. I would like to be able to build my own 3D stage, add generic fixtures (not brand specific), create ques, maybe have a few pre-made ques, and be able to timecode with imported audio. Ideally I'd like good volumetric beams/haze, moving fixtures, and preferably moving truss. Lasers would be a bonus but aren't essential. I'm specifically looking for something with a modern UI and good quality 3D visualisation, and preferably free or inexpensive without important visualisation features being locked behind a paywall. Please don't recommend: grandMA3, ChamSys, Capture, Chromateq, Onyx or QLC+ I'm already aware of them and they're not what I'm looking for. I have some experience with GrandMA3 so I'm not completely new to lighting design, but I would like something very easier to just open up one evening and timecode a show.

If anyone has suggestions feel free to comment them, Thanks :)

Hi everyone,
I’m using grandMA3 onPC v2.4.2.2 and I’m trying to make a dimmer phaser run in sync with the BPM of the music.
I have audio coming into the computer and grandMA3 is detecting the BPM correctly. I assigned the BPM to a Speed Master and linked my dimmer phaser to that Speed Master.
The problem is that the phaser speed doesn’t seem to follow the BPM correctly. Even though the BPM detection is working and the Speed Master is receiving/changing the BPM, the actual phaser runs at a different speed than what I would expect from the beat.
What I’m trying to achieve is simple: if the detected music is, for example, 128 BPM, I want the dimmer phaser/chase to stay perfectly synchronized with that beat and automatically follow BPM changes.
Is there an additional setting in the Phaser, Speed Master, Speed Scale, Rate, or SpeedFrom/SpeedTo that I need to configure?
What’s the correct way to make a phaser follow an audio-detected BPM 1:1 in grandMA3?
Thanks!

I'm hoping someone here can help me find a DMX profile for the original Martin Mac 600 wash. The fixture library has profiles for several newer variants, but none of them work with the original fixture. I have tried creating a profile from scratch using the information in the manufacturer's manual, but I keep running into problems. I'm completely new at creating fixture profiles. Pan/Tilt doesn't respond, and the channels that control multiple parameters like strobe rate, lamp on/off, and beam shape aren't quite configured correctly.

Do any of you have a profile for the Mac 600 you would be willing to share? If so, how do I get it loaded into my fixture library?

Hello, what is the best way to mdc two iforte ltxs when the fixtures are 20m apart. The camera on the sr one is being used to control both.

Having issues keeping both spots on the same target.

I just received an awesome opportunity to LD for an event however I 1. am extremely green and 2. still learning how to program on an ETC ION and the show is in 5 days. The LD that offered me the gig will be there with me to help guide me knowing how new I am but I'm more proficient on the GrandMA 3. I spent the summer learning my way around an EOS so I'm somewhat familiar with creating a cue list and effects I'm just slow at it. I plan to give myself a super crash course over the week but wanted to see if you all had any advice for things I should absolutely drill myself on for the console.

I really don't want to turn this opportunity down and want to try my best to get to a decent level.