Technology has driven developments in stage lighting control throughout history. From gas jets to microprocessors and 3-D virtual technology, lighting designers have strived for easier and more dependable control of their lighting designs. Recent technology has now made it possible to acquire an extremely sophisticated lighting controller for a fraction of what one would have cost just a decade ago. In addition, there is a wide selection of controllers that will surely fit your church’s budget—large or small. This article will review a number of controller types in most price ranges. One or more of these will surely fit your church’s needs.
Before we look at the choices, is it important to discuss what a modern lighting controller will do for you and your church? Probably more than you can imagine. First, the lighting controller will send signals to your dimmers to dim your stage lighting, house lighting, and architectural lighting, and it will do so by manual control or by pre-recorded cues stored in its memory. It can control any automated devices attached to it including moving lights, color scrollers, strobes, hazers, smoke machines, slide presentations, and on many consoles, sophisticated stage automation devices. It can also send signals to initiate video and sound cues. It can even turn on and off interior and exterior lighting, and at the same time, turn on your coffee machine in the morning.
How many control channels do you need? Lighting consoles are specified like any other computer. The primary specification is power. Like a personal computer, lighting consoles are limited by hardware and software capabilities. The console controls the individual dimmers and other devices through a language called “DMX”. This language sends digital signals through low-voltage cables telling the technical devices to perform a specific function. This can be to turn on a dimmer, pan a moving light, move the scroll in a color scroller, turn on a hazer, etc. Each device is on a separate channel (or group of channels) so that the devices do not get confused and do the wrong thing. Lighting controllers are specified in groups of 512 DMX channels called “universes”. A controller with one DMX universe has 512 channels; two universes have 1024 channels, and so on.
So how many channels do you need? Start with the number of dimmers in your church. You need one channel for each dimmer. Don’t forget the dimmers for any house lighting and architectural lights that you may wish to control. If you have any moving lights then you need to add the channel requirements for these fixtures. A separate channel is required for each feature (called attributes) in each moving light. Therefore, one moving light can require numerous channels. One new moving light I use quite often requires 27 channels for all of its movement parameters.
In addition to your present needs, you should think about the future and purchase more channels than you currently need. This is so you do not run out of channels when you later add more dimmers, moving lights, and other devices.
Do you need easy manual control along with the computer’s programming features? Many church services are both scripted and improvised and it is a good option to be able to override a pre-programmed cue if the service dictates it. That is why I like controllers with submasters and encoder wheels so that the operator can add light “on the fly”. These submasters and wheels can also be programmed to control moving lights to pan and tilt if a soloist moves a bit, or to add color to the lights during a worship song.
Do you need to synchronize light cues to MIDI or other time code signals? Many churches produce pageants and other theatrical presentations that use prerecorded sound and video. With MIDI and digital inputs and outputs, you can sync your lighting, sound, and video together so that all your cues initiate at the same time.
Do you need offline editing so you can write your cues and “see” them on your home computer before the lights are programmed into the controller? With this three-dimensional visualization feature you will be able to adjust any lighting cues at a remote computer then load the disk into your controller to see your work. There are very sophisticated programs available in a range of brackets that allow you to do this.
As these lighting controllers are basically computers, a crash or other calamity can happen, usually with disastrous results. Therefore, an important question to ask is how dependable do you need your backup to be? You never want to be left in the darkness if your controller stops working, so some type of backup is required. Most controllers have simple backup systems that will allow the operator to take limited manual control of the system. Other more sophisticated controllers will have complete backup systems that will automatically take over if a problem occurs.
Electrical and low-voltage control distribution is another consideration. One recent development in stage lighting control is the use of Ethernet to network a complete lighting control system. Ethernet allows a clean distribution of DMX data throughout the entire building, enabling control of numerous devices in remote locations. It is also wise to be able to integrate your house lighting controls with your stage lighting. Most controllers allow you to do this through DMX.
Finally, what fits into your budget? As you will soon see, lighting control systems range greatly in price. You never want to overpay for your system, but you also never want to limit yourself with a cheap, and more important, undependable controller. Following is a brief overview of the different controllers now available.
Lighting controllers come in various categories:
- Conventional Memory Controllers
- Software Controllers
- Hybrid Controllers
- Dedicated Automated Lighting Controllers
Conventional memory controllers include the lower- and mid-priced models from the leading manufacturers. For lighting control on a budget, I recommend a board with basic, twoscene preset control and limited memory storage of cues. If you are going to consider budget lighting control, then I strongly urge you to look at consoles with adequate submasters so you may group your lights for easy manual control of your lighting during your services.
Stepping up to the mid-priced controllers not only adds all the basics including recording and playback of cues, submasters, and effects, they all have software for controlling a small system of moving lights. These are the controllers that I specify for most small to moderate churches. The prices of these controllers range from $4,000 to $30,000.
Software controllers are a very interesting niche in the market. These controllers are basically software that runs on a personal computer, bundled with some type of DMX interface that plugs into the parallel or USB port of the PC. This design has many advantages. Primarily, since you are supplying the PC, you do not have to pay for the hardware when purchasing the controller. You can use an extra PC that you have, or purchase a decent computer that will control your lighting for less than $1000! The software and DMX interface will cost between $2,000 and $5,000. Most of these programs will control conventional and automated lighting fixtures. They also have interesting and useful tools including virtual magic sheets, moving light control pages, and off-line editing. However, interfaces can be quite different. You can download review versions of programs from www.elationlighting.com and www.rosco.com.
If you decide to go the software route, I strongly recommend you purchase a good UPS (uninterrupted power supply) for your computer and use that PC only for your lighting control, with only your lighting software installed on it.
A hybrid controller is a new classification for added software and hardware that increases the capability of an existing controller. A good example of this is the new ETC Emphasis system (see my review in this issue). The ETC Emphasis system will convert your Insight, Express, or Expression controller into a full-fledged moving light controller with WYSIWYG. This is an enormous development in lighting control as this system is “backwards compatible”, meaning that you do not have to throw away your older controller to get sophisticated moving light control with 3-D off-line editing. The Emphasis comes with a Dell PC and added software that connects to your old ETC controller. This system ranges from approximately $4,000 to $7,000 (old controller not included).
Dedicated Automated Lighting controllers are intended for the very large churches that have many moving lights. They are primarily designed to program numerous moving lights with speed and efficiency. Although they can run well into the tens of thousands of dollars and are usually outside of most churches’ budgets, I have specified these controllers for several churches and will sometimes suggest renting these controllers for special church events.
Finally, there are many options you can order within a model of controller. You can add channels, memory, back-ups, monitors, 2-D or 3-D visualization, and networking options. We have come a long way from gas lighting and salt water dimmers. Reviewing all the choices for lighting control can be daunting due to the sheer number of choices available. It is wise to engage a knowledgeable lighting equipment dealer, lighting designer, and/or consultant to review the needs of your church and suggest a range of options.
