October 27th, 2009 by admin

It’s a cinch.  Ever since I discovered lighting effects for DJ work, I’ve become a lighting fanatic.If you are just beginning to explore DJ lights, this article is for you.On that basis, let’s begin with some simple info and run with it from there.

Most all DJ lighting units are sound activated.  That means you can just plug the thing into a power source, point it in the desired direction, set it to respond to sound, crank the music, and let it go.  However, some thought needs to go into this first. 

Be aware that many lighting units get terribly hot, so you must be careful that no one gets injured.  We’re talking about a blistering  hot device plugged into house current, so safety must come first.If you decide to suspend any of the lights, as you often will, be completely sure that you use every safety procedure to make certain they don’t crash down on someone’s head.And be sure you don’t overload any outlets!  It is incredibly frustrating (and embarrassing) to fire up the system for the first dance, crank the lights, and have a breaker trip taking down a good part of your system.Spread the power loads safely across the correct number of circuits and let it all run for a while before you event begins.

When you position your lights you need to make sure every light that is set to respond to the music can hear it properly.This usually isn’t an issue, especially indoors, but it does mean that you need to check out the locations by actually testing the units with the sound up.

What ones to use?  I love the various “intelligent” lights or scanners.Crowds love laser lighting effects.If all this lighting talk has you excited, the “moving yoke” lights will get you worked up.There’s not a particular reason to discuss these now since you can check them out and watch mini-videos on various websites that show how they look when working.Do a search for “Chauvet Lighting” if you don’t know where to find these.There are a lot of mini-movies at Chauvet’s site showing their lights in operation.

Here’s one strong suggestion: Be sure any lights that you buy are DMX lights.DMX refers to a way to control the lighting units from a remote programmable control board or software program.What you can then do is run all your lights from a remote lighting control board or a contraption that hooks the works up to a computer.This does mean you’ll need to wire the units together or use wireless control devices, but the results can be incredible, and you’ll want to try this out at some point.

Interested in discussing DJ lights?  They you need to be at my blog, Discovering and Shopping for DJ Lights.

We’ll look at DMX some more next time.Your class project is to go check out what’s out there – and have a blast!