What Lighting effects would you use?

[dolivas]

How do you determine whether you bring your own lighting gear or what lighting gear you want used while you perform. I know if i'm performing I would get some like Michael Jack "Off the Wall" "Rock with You Video-style lighting" type of crap because I like stuff like that. So what's up with how you determine which lighting to use?

[Bellringer]

Most venues in Chicago already have a pre-wired lighting settup. If you are playing somewhere that doesn't here are a few suggestions. Figure out your budget and music style. If it's just an acoustic set 1-2 Par cans with lite colored gel would be fine. Psychadelic style- a couple strobes and maybe 1 tree with some wide spread cans and maybe a Double Derby light ( this has an internal mic that makes the colored lights bounce to the music.
Really I would think about the set and the music and see what American DJ or Chauvet has to offer in my price range. If you don't have someone to do lights, buying lights with mic triggers is the way to go (if you are looking for moving lights.)
One last thing. Think of your songs as moods represented by colors that reflect the mood. You can always give a house lighting guy a set list with color notes for each song (though I'd say it wouldn't hurt to give him a small tip for the effort). If you are setting up your own lights, local lighting companies can rent you a few par cans in a pinch and will sell you small pieces of gel so you can get the colors you need.

[McLean]

I though it would be cool to get a video projector for a light show. Not to just show some weird video during the performance, but you can put anything on video. So if you wanted red lights in the show, you could use your handy dandy handy cam and video tape a red object or wall or whatever. than it projects a red light twards the stage. With DVD technology getting cheaper. It is very possible to make a DVD of whatever you like and have the different stuff on different tracks. When you start the next song or change in the song, click the remote control to go to the next track on the DVD. Basically you can have a premade light show on DVD.

[dolivas]

Just figured out a cool way to handle those background screens. If you use something like Rax which us Quicktime visual effects:


or Milkdrop which is a visualization plugin for Winamp, you can route one output to such programs visualizers and get a big screen projector to run those neat visual behind you:

[Light Tech Chris]

well I am a lightign designer and Programmer, I work with Martin Lighting mainly so I am with the high end stuff, I own my own lighting company and we have alot of American DJ Stuff. I would look up www.pssl.com it's a good place for lighting very cheap or if you want even cheaper and better quality try www123dj.com. I would say go with the mood watch alot of concerts you see if there are slow songs and stuff there are most likley Blue purpal green lighting like that, or for a rock kinda song use strobes fast moving lights and more brighter colors like yellow red white green pink all that have the lights go with the beat of course, to make it cool and attract people to your performance like if your just in a park or something lol anyways I hope this helps.



Chris