Lighting&Sound
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2009
www.lsionline.co.uk
Aug-Sept 2009
entertainment, presentation, communication
UK £3.50 US $6.00 €5.00
On Tour: U2 • PLASA09 Preview • MA Lighting • TF: LED Tools & Toys
360% for 360
Steve Moles reports on U2’s
latest touring extravaganza
°
TF: LED Tools & Toys
Get creative with LED
L&SI has gone digital! Register online FREE at www.lsionline.co.uk/digital
photo: Chris Toulmin
MA Lighting
grandMA knows best . . .
PLASA09 in Preview
All that’s to come . . .
K1 at Hyde Park;
Vibes from the Vines;
Women in Lighting;
Who’s Who in an install?;
Manchester International
Festival; Sound for
photo: Andy Brining
Latitude; Jazz à Vienne;
Audio File; Crew Cuts;
Tour Talk; Green Room
& more . . .
PLUS:
Classic Gear: Strand System CD
Rob Halliday takes a nostalgic but instructive look back at the tools that have shaped the industry . . .
Of course, Classic Gear does not always
equal commercial triumph. Last month’s
Light Console, with its unique and innovative
design, was unarguably a classic. But just 17
were sold over 20 years . . .
classicgear
However, the Light Console’s creator, Fred
Bentham, was a practical man as well as an
original thinker, so having made his own dream
console, he set about creating a version that
would better satisfy (and so sell to) others.
The problem was, while Light Console made
rapid, overlapping changes possible - great for
the live performances for which it was created it left the operator to decide that an end state
looked about right. It was much less good at
allowing a precisely balanced state to be
re-created every night by whoever was running
the desk - exactly what the new generation of
lighting designers sweeping into the business
wanted to be able to achieve, without
necessarily relying on the “artist [not
necessarily an engineer] of imagination”
recommended to pilot the Light Console.
The solution was Strand’s System CD. Visually
it is the love-child of the organ-derived Light
Console (stop keys ranked along the top, toe
pistons and rocker pedal at the operator’s feet)
and a two preset console, with a pair of faders
(one white, one green) for each dimmer - these
Strand’s delicious quadrant faders, perhaps
the finest device ever used for lighting control all held within a base of mahogany or oak.
States could now be set up and precisely
replayed using the two preset fader sets,
fading between them at the press of a ‘master
push’ with the fade speed determined using
the balanced speed pedal. But channels could
also be selected and controlled Light Console
style, using the stop keys to select which were
to be driven; the stop keys also governed
which fader levels were used in crossfades,
making complex transitions possible. The stop
keys also let channel levels be shown on
a meter, useful for plotting after making states
using combinations of faders, manual controls
and the preset masters.
The console also featured a degree of
‘memory’ capability - not for cues, but for
combinations of stop-key selections: 14 of
these channel groups could be stored using
the ‘presetter’ toe push and recalled at the
press of the appropriate group key.
As with Light Console, System CD was
designed to be able to accommodate large
dimmer installations by scaling up the console:
120 channels was considered standard, but in
A System CD, once of the ABC Theatre,
Blackpool, now on display at Litestructures
in Wakefield. (photo: PLASA Media)
some cases the consoles controlled up to 240
channels and in one case, at London’s
Piccadilly Theatre, a separate wing was added
to give three presets instead of two.
Bentham’s brochure reflected that now there
was a product capable of “executing complex
lighting changes in rapid succession in
addition to precise presetting of dimmer
levels.” Theatre technology historian Jim Laws
describes System CD as “the console of
choice for the West End between 1956 and
1965”, and it was also found in many regional
theatres. But its appeal extended beyond
theatre, to the new discipline (and lucrative
market) of television lighting . . .
MORE ONLINE
See more pictures and links for
the Strand System CD online at:
www.lsionline.co.uk/Sep09
www.lsionline.co.uk
Lighting&Sound
56
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August-September 2009
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