Every now and then a lighting manufacturer will come up with an exciting new product that is inspired by an old idea. For years church lighting designers have been using lighting fixtures with separate color scrollers attached to create washes of light with remote color control. Unfortunately, color scrollers have their own inherent disadvantages including limited choice of color and high operating costs. With this in mind, High End Systems took their expertise in designing state-of-the-art automated lighting fixtures and created a completely new lighting instrument utilizing 21st Century technology. This new lighting fixture is the ColorCommand.
The ColorCommand is a very bright incandescent wash light (like a video quality Fresnel or PAR) with an integrated automated dichroic color changing system. It does not pan and tilt, change gobos, or perform the other tricks that many other automated fixtures do. This light is designed to do one thing and do it well: produce an extremely powerful and even wash of soft light, and remotely change the color of the light through a series of Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow dichroic color filters.
In addition to its color-mixing prowess, the ColorCommand has a remote controllable variable zoom that changes the field angle from 18 to 32 degrees. This allows for spotting or flooding of the circular beam. The ColorCommand also has the ability to use external barn doors, top hats, snoots, and other conventional lighting fixture accessories.
High End Systems was kind enough to loan Church Production Magazine (CPM) a ColorCommand and its associated power supply, the ColorPower, for testing in my light lab at California State University, Long Beach. My graduate lighting students and I ran the ColorCommand though extensive tests. What we discovered was a high quality lighting fixture with a few pleasant surprises.
Don’t allow its high-tech roots fool you--the Color- Command is a very simple lighting fixture to set up. Similar to conventional Lekos, PARs, and Fresnels, the ColorCommand is basically a light on a fixed yoke. You manually hang and focus the light on its horizontal and vertical axis, attach the power cable to a conventional circuit and dimmer (to power the lamp), and plug in the DMX control cable to the ColorPower power supply. There are no other manual controls on the fixture as the rest of the adjustments happen through your control console.
The fixture is controlled by four DMX channels-- one channel for each color (Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow) and one channel for the zoom. You also need an additional channel to control the intensity of the lamp. It was very easy to set up the fixture attributes on the lighting control console. Once you do this and run the DMX to the power supply and fixture, it’s up and running.
At the heart of the ColorCommand is a unique color-mixing system incorporating two lenses and three-color wheels. The first lens splits the light into 25 separate beams which pass through three CMY dichroic filters. The second lens rejoins and projects the light into a fully saturated, evenly colored beam. We found this system’s performance highly effective.
As the ColorCommand is intended for theatrical use, it is designed to achieve a wide variety of colors—from subtle pastels to deep saturate hues. Along with an almost unlimited palette of colors, we were able to achieve such difficult to mix colors as Lee 202 and Rosco R64. The fixture can also produce some beautiful lavender hues— very difficult colors to mix to in a dichroic color mixing system.
The quality of the light emanating from this fixture is outstanding. Imagine an expensive, video-quality Fresnel. The ColorCommand produces a beautiful field of light that is bright in the center and smoothly fades to a soft edge--this alone may be worth the price of the fixture.
What we were most impressed with was the quality and consistency of the color within the field of light. As a professional lighting designer, I would use this fixture for either front or back angle color washes. Whenever you have multiple fixtures creating a color wash system, it is essential to create an even field of light with consistent color. This is especially critical for video applications. Our measurements confirmed an amazingly soft field of colored light with a gentle drop-off in intensity that fades without strange beam artifacts. This was consistent throughout the color range from subtly tinted to deep saturated colors. It was also consistent though its entire zoom range—very impressive.
The true test of a color mixing system is how smooth the actual color fading is. In our test, the color fading was virtually seamless as the entire beam changed color at the same time. This is not true with some other dichroic or scroller color changing systems where the color would “creep” into the beam from the edges.
One interesting observation we made while testing this fixture is that the shadows projected from the object that the light is hitting have colored rim halos. I have never noticed this before and assume that this has to do with the beam splitting technology. It is important to note that we were testing the ColorCommand on a white projection screen, and from a distance this halo effect probably would not be noticeable on a stage floor.
The speed in which the fixture can change color has always been an important consideration for any color-mixing device. The technology used in the ColorCommand allows for almost instantaneous color-changes. We clocked the maximum speed of the ColorCommand at less than half a second. It can also make gradual, controlled fades. To our surprise there were no perceivable steps (visual jumping) of change--even with extremely slow color fades. This is a great attribute if you wish to create a slow sunset or a very subtle change in mood.
Operating noise is another important factor when assessing automated lighting fixtures. Unlike many conventional color scrollers, the ColorCommand is extremely quiet - an essential quality for churches, theatres, television studios, and other noise sensitive environments. As there are no cooling fans associated with this fixture, fan motor noise is not an issue. We tested both snap color changes and very slow fades. We also tested the zoom in rapid and slow movements. We found the ColorCommand sonically unobtrusive in all cases. Congratulations to High End for making this fixture so quiet.
Two lamps are available for the ColorCommand. You may either use a Phillips 750 watt 115 volt incandescent lamp with a 3200K color temperature and a 300 hour lamp life, or a Phillips 800 watt 230 volt incandescent lamp with a 3100K color temperature and a 400 hour lamp life.
As both a stage and architectural lighting designer, I can also see the utility of the ColorCommand in architectural applications. This is a high-powered lighting fixture that can offer churches unlimited color combinations for illumination of their walls, ceilings, and other architectural elements. My only concern would be the relatively short lamp life. However, longer life lamps may become available for this fixture in the future.
The price point for the ColorCommand is quite competitive. The Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price for this fixture is $1,493 (before discounts). The power supply, which powers up to twelve ColorCommands, costs $1,243. A good conventional wash fixture, paired with a high-quality color scroller and power supply, will cost roughly the same amount of money. It is important to note that the conventional wash fixture will not have a remote zoom feature, and the color scroller has gel strings that will eventually need to be replaced.
The High End ColorCommand is a breakthrough product in its own right. The choices were once limited for churches that desired smooth washes of light with endless color combinations. With the introduction of the ColorCommand, churches may now choose to purchase systems of these fixtures for both their stage and architectural needs. If you require this type of color flexibility in your church lighting, then the High End ColorCommand may be just what you’re looking for.
