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May 2016 entertainment, presentation, installation www.lsionline.co.uk

ELO Live at Leeds Arena

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Prolight+Sound 2016 A Reborn Theatre Technical: MAC Viper SSE Audio Group LSi reports from Frankfurt The Attenborough Centre Inside the MAC Viper Performance The sound provider turns 40 PLUS: RCF at Kingspan Stadium • Video Matters: High Frame Rates • Footloose with Nexo Goosebumps Alive! • Rigging Call: Rescue • In Profile: Barry Bartlett . . . and more!

Download our FREE Apple & NEW Android apps at www.lsionline.co.uk/digital Classic_Gear 29/04/2016 13:48 Page 63

Classic Gear: Source Four LED series 2 Rob Halliday takes a nostalgic but instructive look back at the tools that have shaped the industry . . . gear

Just before anyone complains: I don’t think It was immediately clear that the Series 2 was we’ve ever said that ‘classic’ has to mean different. Set to match the ‘open white’ of ‘old’. All I’ve ever said is that they are tools tungsten it had the same richness, warmth and that have shaped our industry. This one is life of the tungsten version. In mixed colours it classic doing exactly that, right now. You may not yet retained that life, even on the skin or complex consider ETC’s LED Source Four Series 2 fabrics that poorer LED fixtures rendered either Lustr a classic, but I feel certain history will flat and lifeless or with a sharp, electric feel. The judge it so. secret sauce making this possible was the use of seven different colours of LED emitters And it felt familiar, comfortable, like the Source It is, of course, the descendent of another pioneered some years ago by Selador, Fours we already knew. The back end is about classic, the tungsten Source Four. When that first a company eventually acquired by ETC, and in the same size and shape; the front end is the appeared (inconceivably, to those who particular the lime green emitter that somehow same - same lenses, same accessories. remember life before it, close-on 25 years ago), joins all the colours together to give an Compatible with things you already owned. it rewrote the rule book on performance, reliability enormous gamut and a natural-feeling white Pretty much the same behaviour when you and energy efficiency, and the industry switched without using a separate white emitter. focus it, once you master the new diffuser to it at incredible speed. Exactly the same thing is options. Quiet. A really nice, subtle fade. Just happening with the Lustr: big shows (Billy Elliot A measure of the success of the lime green: with more colour (I predict the Lustr will bring and Mary Poppins to name but two) are a number of other manufacturers are now doing a new bravery in colour to lighting, because jettisoning scrollers for the Lustr, and even the same thing. Though I don’t know if they’re there’s no risk involved in trying something new, people who once declared LED would never be going the extra mile that ETC go, calibrating the something outrageous). And, as a bonus, using good enough to light theatre are now clamouring lights as they leave the factory so they all less power and no dimmer required. to use them. If they can get them - right now match, and so that calling up a traditional gel demand seems to be outstripping ETC’s ability to colour on the console now gives that colour on It is a remarkable light. supply, which is a good problem to have. stage, not a vague approximation of it. There will doubtless be brighter versions in the The Lustr was not the first attempt to put LEDs Plus the Lustr felt bright. The figures showed it future. But this is where the game changed. wasn’t as bright as a tungsten S4 in open, but into a hard-edged profile spotlight (a tough A More In-Depth Look: > //plasa.me/nehqi challenge given the optics involved); it was not this was a hard comparison to make as in Why you shouldn’t feel too sorry for the lead even ETC’s first go. Their Series 1 was a nice certain colours the LED unit won an easy inventor of the traditional Source Four as the light, but it never quite had enough fire when put victory. In real use on real shows, it has proved world moves to LEDs: > //plasa.me/z3b81 next to a traditional Source Four. to be bright enough. www.lsionline.co.uk

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