LED strip lights have been around a while. These battens have lots of uses, and it seems that many are good for one function, but they may not fare well at another. Some didn’t use 4-in-1 LEDs, some didn’t line up perfectly in a row, and my biggest pet peeve — none of them could ever illuminate a whole backdrop evenly, from top to bottom with just a ground row of fixtures. Then along comes this product from GLP.
The Hardware
Besides the 20-light fixture I am testing, they make the half-size Bar 10. This batten has automated tilting on the yoke, so the head of the fixture is suspended from the base by two side yokes. The first thing I do is lift the fixture out of the road case and notice it’s light. It’s only 40 inches long and weighs about 17 lbs. Lifting it one-handed is simple, because there is a tilt lock on the yoke. The sleek black aluminum housing is designed with no extra padding on the end side of the fixture. The design has the yoke and tilt motors stealthily hidden under the LED cells on the outer sides of the fixture. The 20 15W 4-in-1 RGBW LEDs are butted up next to each other from end to end. I take a second fixture out of the case and set it next to the first fixture. They are separated by less than 1/8 inch of space. Four rubber feet on the bottom of the fixture keep it from sliding. I could line these units end to end on a truss and it would appear to be one gigantic strip light with no visual gaps between cells. Nobody else has a fixture I have seen that does this.
The base of the fixture houses the self-sensing power supply. In the middle of the base is an LCD screen for addressing and setting the mode of the fixture. I choose to run it in 88-channel DMX mode, as I would like to control each LED cell individually. I notice one can run these in reduced modes of 20 or 34 channels. On the base are two cut out sections where the panel-mount powerCON AC connector and 5-pin DMX in and out plugs are located. These hollows in the base make it hard to kick a cable out of a floor unit. They also protect the connectors from breaking. I appreciate this thought, but the downside was that I could not plug in the connectors without lifting the fixture off the ground and turning it upside down to see what I was doing. If you have 12-inch cables made for daisy-chaining these fixtures together, it will look good when done but it will also be hard to assemble on a ground row.
The mounting hardware is exceptional. GLP recognizes that trusses have cross members everywhere, and butting these fixtures up end-to-end would be impossible with normal hanging hardware. They designed the Omega bracket, which can attach to the fixture via quarter turn slots. The bracket itself is a foot long, and the user can attach a clamp of their choice to it. This clamp can slide side-to-side on the bracket until it finds an open space of the truss to attach to.
The Light
I turn the fixtures on to test the tilt speed. It goes from end to end (210°) in just over a second. I write a chase that sends it from one focus position to another and execute it. There is no lag time — the fixture never stops momentarily when commanded to go from one direction to the opposite one. They have very silent motors, too.
I point the narrow beam at a wall from 20 feet away and turn it on. This fixture has a zoom range of 7°-50°. I see a very concentrated spot on the wall. I could use this strip light as a key light on a person if I wanted. From this distance, the lit spot on the wall is one foot high by three feet wide. I check out the zoom function and it moves perfectly linear in a slow timed cue. When wide at 50°, I am lighting the entire warehouse, it seems. The zoom can snap from zero to full. I write a zoom effect with this fixture that looks wicked. I bring the fixtures over and set them up one foot away from a 20-foot-high wall. I test out their ability to light the wall as if it was ground row lighting a cyclorama. I am floored when I see how even the wash is. On these types of fixtures, I expect the backdrop to be spotty at either the top or bottom, but I get great coverage from just this ground row.
The Effects
I can easily make color peels and assorted rainbows. The white only LED gives off a nice 6500K beam. The white color achieved by mixing in all of the colored LEDs is still fairly white. I run some chases like red and white alternating steps. I notice that for about a 10 foot distance, one can see the separate beams of color when zoomed down tight. But after 10 feet, they all wash together into one hue. So I take the light and split the fixture into four blocks of five , with each block a different color. Now when I shine the light I can see four distinctive beams of different light in a stunning array of color. There is a variable CTO to mix with any color and a dedicated DMX channel to run premade colors like they were on a scroller.
I check out the strobe function, and that has variable speeds —able to strobe as fast as 10 times per second. There are random and pulsing modes. GLP has a dedicated channel for what they refer to as their “Star Effects.” This is a variable random strobe sparkling effect within the fixture. I can use this channel to make some cool random effects, but the intensity channel still designates the amount of light output from the fixture.
I put the fixture into 34-channel mode to check out the special built in effects. There are three dedicated channels of control. One dedicates the pixel selection you want for the effect while another designates the type of chase movement you want to use such as left to right, or odd-even chases. Think of a gobo where one channel chooses the gobo and another setting is used for its rotate or static function. The other channels have an effect on speed and color selections etc. One has to actually play around with these channels, but I was able to get some incredible eye candy effects. There is also a dedicated channel for time used in crossfading effects once they are dialed in. This channel allows the individual LED cells to snap from color to color or fade at your chosen rate. This is a great way to utilize the fixture if you do not wish to run them in full channel pixel-mapping mode.
As I play with this fixture, I cannot find any faults. Somebody has finally designed the perfect LED batten for the lighting designer who wants it all.
At a Glance
Smooth and Seamless
With 10 and 20 4-in-1 LEDs in a row, GLP’s impression X4 Bar 10 and X4 Bar 20 units are light in weight, compact in size, and able to provide smooth, seamless light that can illuminate a whole backdrop evenly. The fixtures also align with no visual gaps when placed end-to-end, and the Omega bracket and built-in effects add to the appeal of these batten-style fixtures.
GLP impression X4 Bar 20
PROS: Fast zoom with good range and perfect optics. Offers the ability to line up several fixtures seamlessly in a row. Great mounting brackets. Vibrant colors and built-in eye candy effects.
CONS: Hard-to-plug-in DMX connectors.
MSRP: $5,399
MORE INFO: www.germanlightproducts.com
