I've obviously mentioned about eleventy times already that I was at the three nights of the band Phish's reunion concerts at Hampton Coliseum; I also mentioned that I was able to interview the lighting designer for Phish, Chris Kuroda! That interview transcript and video is coming soon – but one of the things I wanted to talk about specifically were some of the LED sources that have made their way into the Phish lighting rig.
For the Hampton shows, Chris was using 32 Mac III's, 14 Mac 2000 XB Wash fixtures, 8 High End ShowPix, 14 Martin Atomic 3K Strobes with scrollers, and 38 Elation Impression LED fixtures. Chris talked in detail about how he handles the difference between designing with the LED Impression fixtures versus the PAR64 sources he was using with a curve on the fader, and how much he likes the quickness of the LED sources. He also had great praise for the ShowPix fixtures, which were used throughout very tastefully.
The Elation Impression fixtures were placed throughout the rig and used primarily for a toplight-esque system – but on several occasions they were used in a fan-delay tilt effect, and the brightness of the Impression fixture is amazing! High output and low energy consumption at 60 lumens per watt through Luxeon K2 LEDs (90 of them) gives the Impression superiority over the 575W sources out there on the market. Impression comes with a lens carrier and a choice between 10° and 25° – and it's FAST! 660° pan moves in 2 seconds, 300° tilt in 1 second! Impression is DMX-512 controlled, taking a 3-pin XLR. If you have a chance to spec some of the Impression LED lumainaires, I highly recommend checking them out!
