Ever bring your own lights just for yourself?

PorkPieGuy

Platinum Member
Anyone ever bring your own lights? I'm not talking about lights for the whole band. I'm talking just for you and/or your kit.

If so, what do you use? Pics?
 
Do you mean like a flashlight for setup/teardown, or lights to display the drums with?

If its the latter, Eric Kretz had candles surrounding his kit when STP toured with Megadeth. I thought it was cool and it always stuck with me.
 
If I remember to bring it, I like a light shining thru a kick that has a Smooth White, a Coated, or a Fiberskyn reso. The full moon effect is cool and cheap. A cheap shop light from the hardware store...
 

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Anyone ever bring your own lights? I'm not talking about lights for the whole band. I'm talking just for you and/or your kit.

If so, what do you use? Pics?

Yes. After seeing one too many photos/video clips with the drums/me represented by a black hole, I bought a couple of inexpensive LEDs for uplighting. Similar to these... https://www.amazon.com/U`King-Uplights-Lighting-Control-Uplighting/dp/B0824YXV2J/

Now, whenever I play a room where I know live music was an afterthought, or outdoor gigs that will run after dusk, I add them to my gear.
 
Not the best photo but all I've got. I paid about £20 for two "party" lights off ebay. They're small fist sized domes with led lights inside that spin and are rfeeracted through the plastic dome acting as a lens. They've got a sound to light element to them but that's it. As cheap as chips but they do the business in a pub environment, plus they took the roof off at a party a few years back when I broke them out in the living roomIMG_20190601_215246.jpg
 
I do the lights for the whole band but I have two battens on the floor specifically for the drums. I leave them on a slow fade rather than incorporate them into the dmx programme.

I like those lights. I may do something like that.

Or what I initially had in mind was to get two bars and have them vertically on stands (one on each side of my drum set) facing the crowd. I'll keep thinking about it. I'm glad my idea isn't too goofy and that others are doing it already. Thanks for your feedback!
 
I like those lights. I may do something like that.

Or what I initially had in mind was to get two bars and have them vertically on stands (one on each side of my drum set) facing the crowd. I'll keep thinking about it. I'm glad my idea isn't too goofy and that others are doing it already. Thanks for your feedback!
I might be misunderstanding but ideally you don't want lights facing the audience, on stands at 10 and 2 o clock or off to your side and facing onto you is perhaps a better option.
 
I like those lights. I may do something like that.

Or what I initially had in mind was to get two bars and have them vertically on stands (one on each side of my drum set) facing the crowd. I'll keep thinking about it. I'm glad my idea isn't too goofy and that others are doing it already. Thanks for your feedback!
No worries - they were relatively inexpensive,they're compact to transport but very well built and fully dmx programmable if you ever want to go down that route.

They're showing as discontinued now but I looked at several companies versions of before I bought these so there's plenty of similar options (y)

 
Where do you set them up? On the riser, pointing up?

Depends on how well lit the rest of the stage area is.

Little/no stage lighting, I set them left/right front inside/between the tripod legs of my cymbal stands. Angling the lights creats a nice wash across the drums, and the area around them.

On stages with some illumination, I use them to uplight whatever surface is behind me. Same idea with outdoor evening gigs under a canopy. The light reflects off the canopy. Creates a nice glow.

These units have DMX, and can be daisy-chained to a larger system if need be. However I usually set them to a single color. Or use slow fade.
 
I saw a band where the drummer had a clear acrylic kit, and each drum had different color light trigger in it. So a bass drum strike triggered a blue light, floor tom triggered a green light, etc. Doing rolls would make a strobe effect. It was pretty cool.
 
I did take a small red spotlight for my kit Sometimes. Being a white kit, I like having a small spot with a colour when I know the scene will be poorly lit.
 
I keep 2 or 3 LED floodlights in the car for occasions when the stage is too dark. They’re not RGB lights, just a red, a yellow and a purple, all 20W, very wide beam. Today I used the purple and yellow to highlight the kit, and carefully placed the purple so it would shine on my face without blinding me.

C84ABB14-A92E-41BC-813B-1DF2330F1C3F.jpeg
 
Hi! As for the interesting details, in addition to the light sticks, there are also incredibly cool smart bulbs that are controlled remotely using voice control. Personally, I ordered such light bulbs using the platform https://www.vont.com/product/vont-bulb-color-smart-light-bulbs-smart-bulbs /. And it also really saves energy, while creating a very cool light that pleasantly changes the atmosphere. And there is also a cool feature, which is that they adjust to the sounds of music. Try to order your own kind, you won't regret it!
 
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No.

Option 1: There's a guy for that. Lights.

Option 2: No guy for that. No lights.

Could not possibly care less. Much more interested in what the soundman is up to...
 
If I remember to bring it, I like a light shining thru a kick that has a Smooth White, a Coated, or a Fiberskyn reso. The full moon effect is cool and cheap. A cheap shop light from the hardware store...


Very much this! I use a simple "clamp on" style shop light that I clamp to the tripod section of my snare stand and shine it at the bass drum. It does the make bass drum look great, and I always use either coated, Skyntone or Fiberskyn heads. The Fibersykn or Skyntone heads actually look like a moon! The light is out of the way and has never been a problem for me in my playing or adjustments.

I will also occasionally bring additional shop lights with colored bulbs in them. It provides a nice ambience with "softer" colors (blue, yellow, orange, purple). And they are easy to carry around. I usually clamp them to speaker poles, mic stands, table legs, cymbal stands etc.
 
I would never even entertain the idea of bringing lights for myself. I like the idea of scenes, and sometimes you just don’t need to light the drummer so well. Granted, scenes are a little tough to do when you only have four lights :) but with today’s lights, there’s a lot more that you can do than just on and off. And on a show with a real light show, who wants to do anything to screw that up?
 
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