# Hey Everybody!



## PhantomD (Mar 3, 2006)

Howdy everybody, I am from a high school in Oz (Australia). Namely, Brisbane, QLD. 

I have been doing sound all my life (well not really...duh), and I was plunged headfirst into lighting when I started high school, and man, do I love it!

We have a 16 channel Yamaha powered sound mixer, with 12 channels on multicore to the front of the stage, plus a separate non-powered desk that we use to control our 8 Shure radio mics during the annual school musical. We have a CD Player, MiniDisc recorder and tape (hasn't been used in years). 

Unfortunately, with lighting, we are only on an analogue system!  So basically I took the higher-up people to task last year and said straight out that we need to upgrade our lights system to DMX512. And of course, they promptly turned that around to get me to do all the research/quotes/inspections (yeah I know eh!). Me being who I am, I jumped at the chance.

Current Lighting: LSC Focal with Master Wing 36-channel, two wallpak 12-channel dimmers, one similar touring dimmer (shared with the drama department at the moment).

Prospective Lighting: LSC maXim L with integral PatPad 36 channels, and as budget allows, probably two iPaks and one iPro.  

So yeah, looking forward to getting to know you all a bit better...

Cheers
PhantomD


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## Pie4Weebl (Mar 3, 2006)

not to sound dumb, but what exactly is the lighting stuff you're planning to buy? I've never heard of any of it before.


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## PhantomD (Mar 3, 2006)

www.lsclighting.co.uk

Check it out if you want...


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## Pie4Weebl (Mar 3, 2006)

hunh interesting stuff. Two questions:
1.Why are you purchasing a board from that company, I mean its a smaller company so I would imagine support might become difficult in later days, and from quickly looking at the Patpad it doesn't look like the best method for using movers.
2. With the dimmers why are you oping for dimmers that would permantly installed as opposed to having a centralized dimmer rack and using multicore for runs. IMO I would be concered having them perminatly installed in a spot for the cut in versatility and the noise during shows. In my schools blackbox we use a colotran touring rack and lexicon mulitcore and it works great. Also there is the same potential service. None the less I have never seen your space so it might work for you. Also ignore my bit about lack of service if LSC is a large brand down there in the AU.


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## PhantomD (Mar 4, 2006)

LSC have a great reputation down here in Australia, and in various other countries, for their products, especially for rock-solid dimmer systems. I have sent several emails about their products (when I was investigating options for different companies), and had next-day replies. They also have a dedicated forum, which is browsed daily by LSC staff. Any serious problems are resurrected immediately over the phone.

Our current backstage installed dimmer system works exceptionally well for its purpose, and the fact that there are wall-mounts directly above our patch leads means that wall-mounting makes sense.

But please do explain your centralised touring rack idea a bit more. "Centralised" how + where, considering our patching system comes out backstage.


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## Pie4Weebl (Mar 4, 2006)

What we have in our blackbox is a Colortran case with 24 dimmers in it (I think it expandable to 48) located right by our disconnect. From the back of that we run 4 runs multicore which is a fat cable with 6 circuits in it. (The cable is thicker than a normal light cable but smaller than 3 gaffed together, and the ends have pin outs so you can shorten and extend the cable before going to a break out, either in box form or whip style(don't know the real name for that)) The multicore runs to wherever we need in. In the actual road case for the dimmers it has a patch system built into it which works great and it has dmx outputs which run to the control board. If you have anymore questions I'll try to dig up the actual names of what we are using.


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## sound_nerd (Mar 4, 2006)

The LSC stuff is popular here too... I know of a few concert venues that have the maXim controller as the house console.


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## PhantomD (Mar 4, 2006)

LSC DID have administrative issues some time ago, in their management, and as such their boards suffered for a short period - and I wouldn't be surprised to still hear techs trashing their reputation. But I believe that their boards suit our needs best - especially with usability. Anybody using our current (completely manual) board would find the maXim a synch to operate - and then the board can get as expandable as you want.

Thankyou very much Pie4Weebl for your responses, sounds like a very nice working setup you have there. However, I wouldn't go near some of those Colortran units with a stick. They make very nice lights, but some of their control systems are a bit interesting to say the least.


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## Pie4Weebl (Mar 4, 2006)

yeah, whatever works best for your situation, keep us posted with how your project is going.


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