Hello. I'm in process of selling my dimmers and 8 Par 46 cans with the intention of buying some new stuff.

I would like some LED par can type lights that can do RGB and strobing so I've been looking at the P64 and P64 pros. I'll probably get 4 to 8 of them. I don't need as much coverage as my old Par 46's did, but I'd like something that'll work for my band. We are a duo and do electronic pop music. Right now we are using a few panel LED effect lights and we have 2 halogen 900 wash lights. I used to DJ and use the Par 46's a lot but we just don't need them and want less and cooler running DMX lights mostly.

I guess my question is, would the P64 work well for my situation or would some kind of LED wash work better? Since there's only two of us and we're usually in tight quarters on stage I'll either use them on stands close by or on the floor around us. I'll be using MyDMX to control them. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!
-Adam
www.thesolutionmusic.com
www.twelve2five.com

For small spaces/stages, P64 LED/LED Pros will work just fine. You might want to look at the P56 LED as well. The P56 LED and P64 LED use the same number of LEDs and same size. The difference is the P64 is physically larger. The P64 LED Pro has more LEDs then both and thus is brighter. So unless you like/need the look of a Par 64, go with the P56 LED instead or the P64 LED Pro.

That's good info. That will save me about $30 each. I do like that the Pros have digital channel addressing instead of dipswitches, but probably not worth twice the price for me.
Has anyone used or seen the P46 LED cans with the 1watt LEDs? I just saw those.

See here for where I did a shoot out between different LED fixtures. The P46 LED Pro should be in between the DLED 36 (about 50% duller) and the Opti 30 RGB (about 50% brighter). I haven't actually seen/used a P46 LED Pro, but hopefully this helps.

In my experience, the 64 LED Pros need a bit of throw distance to really be their most useful. Definately up on a T-bar and 8-10 feet up and at least 8-10 feet away from their target(or a bit further) seems to provide a more ideal throw and coverage. But that's just my opinion.

SerraAva has vastly more experience, so his opinion on those sort of things should carry a bit more credibility.

My direction: Me personally I'm going for the bar-type wash lights and other similar type fixtures. For what I want to accomplish, the 64 LED Pros do have a lot of work and life left in them, but my typical applications require extremely short throws and don't need "focusing", so the LED wash bars would work better for me.

I don't see my investment in the 64 LED Pros as a poor purchase for me. I just think that my lighting design skills are a bit sub-par and that knowing what I do now, the 64 LED Pros do hvae a place in my rig, but the bar wash lights work better for me.

It really depends on space size. I recently installed 28 P56 LEDs into a club in New Jersey. We have 6 for front light (3 a side) and 22 for back light. The stage is probably about 20'-25' wide and 10'-15' deep. The LEDs themselves are only about 8' in the air. The stage itself is washed fine and evenly with the 6 front light from about 15' out. The back light takes about 8 lights to wash it evenly.

So 8 cans on a smaller space should be fine. The P46 LED Pros would be better since they are more powerful with a larger beam however.

I think what I'll probably do is get 4 or more p56 unless of course selling my old stuff goes well. Then I'll get 4 p46. Thanks for yor help.

With the front truss 8' in the air, how far is it from the front of the stage?

I typically have to be right on the stage to set my lights. I'm planning ahead for Sac Horror at the end of October, where I had issues with the 64 LED Pros at that event, which had to be my fault of course. I learn best by doing and following examples to help base some of my efforts on, especially when it comes to lighting.

Again, they are about 15' from the stage (more like 12'-13' if you want to be exact). Just 3 fanned across in SR, CS, and SL. The other thing to remember is this is in a dark club and the only lights on the dance floor are a 4 Focus Spot 250 R's, some pin spots, and misc DJ lighting. So they are nice and punchy in the dark room.

Well, that supports what I said about them needing a bit of throw to be as effective as they should be. So, I'm basically heading in the right direction with how I am trying to use them. Maybe I ain't so bad with lighting after all....

Yes and no. If you need more output, move the light closer and use more fixtures. If you need more coverage, move the fixtures away and they will cover more area.

For example, I can use a S4 50 degree leko to cover the same area as 2 S4 26 degrees. The 26 degrees will have more output, but I need more to cover the same area. Moving farther along that line of thought, I can take my one 50 degree and it will cover the same amount of area from half the distance to the target as one 26 degree or the 26 degree needs to be twice the distance from the target to cover the same area as one 50 degree. At that point, they are the same brightness, it comes down to preference. The same would apply roughly to Opti Pars and going from a narrow to a wide lens.

That's why I'm moving to the bar wash fixtures. I typically don't get space to set up as I ideally want to, so that should resolve it. The 64 LED Pros still have their place though. The bar lights seem to have short throw and plenty of wash down good. Footlights and aiming down, should be good.