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Los Angeles, August 7,
2007
The ZZ Top Hollywood Blues Tour 2007 is using a grandMA and grandMA
Light to control lighting and video displayed on a big, soft LED drape
onstage. The celebrated Texas band began their tour in March, will be
joined by The Pretenders and The Stray Cats for the summer and then
continue solo through October. A.C.T. Lighting is the exclusive
distributor for MA Lighting in North America.
“I’m a grandMA guy through and through,”
says
lighting designer/director Christopher Stuba. “The band
wasn’t really into IMAG but had been wanting to do video. So
we
bought a Catalyst system a couple of years ago, and we’re
running
the soft LED drape with it and using the grandMA through the Catalyst.
The grandMA is wonderful and easy to manipulate. Troy Eckerman is our
grandMA programmer; we’ve been working together on and off
for 15
years -- he’s the best there is.”
Currently, the grandMA controls an array of moving and conventional
light fixtures, including 14 VARI*LITE VL3000s, five VARI*LITE VL1000s,
12 VARI*LITE VL500Ds, four HES DL.2s, eight Martin Atomic Strobe
Colors, 18 Martin Mac 2K washes, 10 Color Kinetic Color Blast 12s, two
four-foot and one one-foot Color Kinetic Accents, 2 Reel FX DAC, 132
PAR 64s, 16 PAR 64 ACLs, and six 8 Lights.
“The grandMA is a solid console,” Stuba notes.
“Its
flexibility is really amazing. I did a Bob Seger show recently with a
different board, and other consoles just don’t feel like the
solid, serious piece of gear that grandMA is.”
Stuba also used the grandMA on larger a industrial project, which came
up during the ZZ Top tour. “We set up a WYSIWYG suite and the
console and modified our tour lighting scheme, changing the VARI*LITES
to Martins and adding more lights for the corporate show,”
Stuba
explains. “Changing the light types and cloning some of the
lights was easy to do.”
Stuba also notes that the grandMA has features that enable him to
accomplish “very cool” creative things he
“couldn’t do with another console. The
grandMA’s
executor buttons are a big plus; I can use them for programming as well
as playback,” he adds. “It’s awesome that
you can
assign buttons to be just about anything.”
"Chris and Troy do a really nice job putting the ZZ Top show together.
It has some nice touches that the grandMA helps them make easy work of.
It is good to have them as part of the grandMA family," comments A.C.T
Lighting President and CEO Bob Gordon.
Donny Stuart is production manager and Pablo Gamboa tour manager for
The ZZ Top Hollywood Blues Tour 2007. Jeff Archibeque serves as the
lighting crew chief, Bobby Dominguez as lighting tech, Mark
“Smokey” Kohorn rigger and Brad Schiller Catalyst
programmer. Bandit Lites provides the lighting equipment and grandmas.
MA Lighting is
exclusively distributed by A.C.T Lighting.
A leading importer and distributor of lighting products, A.C.T
Lighting, Inc. strives to identify future trends and cutting-edge
products, and stock, sell and support their inventory. The company
provides superior customer service and value for money to all of its
clients.
For more information call 818-707-0884.
Copyright © ACT Lighting 2009. All rights reserved.
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