Performance LED Steps Up

Worship lighting applications have an ally, reports Paul Pelletier, global brand manager for lighting manufacturer Chroma-Q. The company’s Inspire line is energy-efficient, low-wattage and high-output. And those are among the top attributes worship clients are asking designers for in their lighting solutions today.

Pelletier sat down with Church.Design to tell us what else is new and of interest to church specifiers.

Church.Design: What does the Chroma-Q Inspire line offer specifiers that should especially appeal to their church clients?

Pelletier: The Chroma-Q Inspire range provides beautiful white light, soft subtle pastels to bold saturated colors all from one fixture. Inspire provides the creative and worship teams the tools they need to sculpt and create an environment to help deliver the message.

From the Inspire Mini to the Inspire Full-Size and, all the way up to the Inspire XT, [there’s] a solution for virtually every worship application. Pendant-mount, flush-mount, black, white and custom colored fixtures along with UL924 control solutions for emergency back-up power and alarm triggers, Inspire offers a complete solution, designed, engineered, manufactured, and supported in North America.

Church.Design: Tell us about the new dimmable solution we’re hearing about.

Pelletier: [We’re] now launching the dimmable Inspire MD, a powerful fixture capable of replacing conventional tungsten fixtures, which connects directly to a traditional dimming system.

The Chroma-Q Inspire MD fixture provides a beautiful warm white at 3,000K, high CRI, with its fully homogenized lens with a choice of three beam angles (narrow, medium and wide). The Inspire MD uses an energy-efficient LED design [that reduces] maintenance and running costs. Using proprietary Chroma-Q technology ensures a smooth dimmer curve from 0-100 on standard dimming systems.

Based on the Inspire Family features, this innovative fixture has an extremely smooth, uniform wash, theatrical dimming, and is cooled by silent convection.

Church.Design: You’re now offering lighting control, as well, with your acquisition of the Vista brand from Jands. How are you improving upon Vista?

Pelletier: Vista by Chroma-Q offers software and hardware options that are ideal for houses of worship. Continuing to impress with its legendary timeline, visual interface, speed and ease of use, the Vista 3 software has been developed to dramatically enhance the existing feature set [while] also introducing a host of major new features, such as smart FX masters, the ability to merge multiple showfiles, a new color engine, improved fixture visualizations, and a vastly expanded command line interface.

"The Vista control platform is unique to the lighting industry with its intuitive timeline and graphical user interface. We will continue developing on this aspect as well as bringing a new set of tools required for the shows of today and the future." Paul Pelletier, Global Brand Manager, Chroma-Q and Vista by Chroma-Q

Alongside the release of Vista 3, Vista by Chroma-Q launched two new control surfaces, the Vista MV and Vista EX.

The Vista MV is a cost effective, compact USB control surface, featuring five playback faders, 15 playback buttons, grand master control and four user-definable function keys. The MV is a perfect entry control solution or expansion to an existing Vista system.

The Vista EX control surface offers additional hands-on control capabilities in a slim form factor. Stand-out features include 12 faders, an incredible 60 playback buttons per page, eight encoders and 12 function buttons. All of which is contained within a compact footprint that qualifies as "carry on" luggage.

Vista being acquired by Chroma-Q will improve long-term support and customer care of the brand and bring a whole new range of possibilities to the marketplace. We are fortunate to be taking a well established product line, [one that is] integrated with established users in the [church] market. Our future is building and developing the Vista brand for each of its unique markets.

Chroma-Q has maintained an excellent partnership with Jands and you will still be able to find Chroma-Q products in Australia through Jands Australian Distribution.

Church.Design: LED is now brighter, offers more colors, is less expensive, etc. Where does the technology head from here, in your eyes?

Pelletier: Within the global market there is a big push to develop white LED to replace fluorescent lighting, street lighting, etc. Chroma-Q would like to see LED chip manufacturers invest more in developing chips that provide richer, more vibrant RGB color. [In addition,] phosphor technology is advancing to deliver a wider range of color and a new level of efficiency, which is exciting news for the industry.

Church.Design: Church designers ask a lot from manufacturers when it comes to their church clients. How does Chroma-Q meet these particular needs?

Pelletier: Chroma-Q strives to meet the needs of church designers by offering a full package offering, which includes fixtures in a variety of lengths. We are known for our color matching and providing a quality product that creates an immersive experience.

The acquisition of the Vista brand further develops our commitment to the house-of-worship market by providing powerful lighting control solutions that are easy to use, even for the occasional volunteer.

Church.Design: Are there any other new Chroma-Q fixtures that designers should be watching for?

Pelletier: Studio Force II. Although the main purpose of the Studio Force II is to provide a white light for film and broadcast applications, it makes for an interesting solution for churches that use IMAG (image magnification). The fixture provides clear light to assist the camera, while still offering creative RGB control.

[Editor’s note: for more information see: http://www.chroma-q.com/products/studio-force-ii.asp.]

Learn more at www.chroma-q.com. Chroma-Q’s EU and U.S. representative is A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd., www.ac-et.com.