LEDs are Absolutely Great for Color Washes

LED stage lights offer strong, consistent, repeatable color washes

With super low operating cost and extremely long lamp life, LEDs bring some very welcome benefits to stage lighting. Though they are not the answer for every application, there is one use that LEDs are particularly good for: color washes!

Just a few short years ago LED stage lights were a novel new addition to stage lighting technology. At first, LED lights seemed to be no match for the power and brightness of traditional lighting fixtures.

In just a short time manufacturers have created new generations of LED lights with much greater brightness – so much so that now they have become the light of choice for many applications in churches, theaters, concert tours, clubs and commercial lighting.

What makes for a great color wash

LED lights can create an almost unlimited range of colors and they can do it predictably and consistently. With traditional fixtures the age of the lamp and the condition of the color gels can cause a large difference in colors from fixture to fixture. LEDs can be very precisely controlled allowing colors to be consistent from fixture to fixture and repeatable time after time, year after year. LEDs also create strong rich colors that you can’t always get with gels and traditional lights. For these reasons LED lights are a great choice for color washes.

Choose your style

Color washes can be achieved with three basic styles of LED lights: traditional can-style lights, bar or strip-style LED lights and the brick-style LED.

Can lights are more familiar since they have similar characteristics to traditional discharge can fixtures; namely a round smooth-edged beam shape. Can style lights have a uniform round beam that is good for aiming at people or objects on stage. Can lights are also good for focusing on a specific area of a wall or creating back light on a person or object.

Strip or Bar lights offer a long row of LED lamps in a narrow fixture that shines light in an elongated beam that is wider in one direction. Strip lights are especially good for wide, smooth wall washes and for up-lighting or down-lighting wider areas on stage.

Brick-style lights are a little like having a bank of several can-lights mounted side-by-side in one fixture. The different groups of lights can be controlled independently as separate lights or together as one larger fixture. If all the groups of LEDs are turned on at the same time you get a very wide beam. They are similar to strip lights, but can usually cover a larger area.

Choose your range of colors and flexibility

Different types of LED wash fixtures have emerged based on the type of LEDs used and the level of flexibility built into each.

Saturated color: Standard RGB

Standard RGB LED washes have an assortment of red, green and blue LED lamps that can be mixed in a myriad of colors. They’re available as cans, strips, or bricks and are best for shining rich, saturated colors. These tend to be some of the most affordable lights available, with serious models starting under $300. These lights are good for wall washes, truss warming, architectural coloring, and more.

Achieving different colors with RGB fixtures is done by allowing you to adjust the brightness level of each of the groups of colored LEDs in the fixture. Varying the percentage of each of the groups of LEDs creates the various colors. White is achieved by having equal parts of R, G and B on at the same time. Most standard LED fixtures will use a number of red, green and blue lamps spread out in various patterns to create the required light output.

Smooth color mixing: Tri Color LED

Tri Color LEDs are really a group of  LEDs (one Red, one Green and one Blue) together in a single cluster. The advantage of this is smoother color mixing and more subtle shades of color. A nice by-product is that you get more natural looking shadows behind objects. With the standard RGB patterns, you get a tri-colored shadow where each color is slightly out of alignment with the others. This makes a nice effect, but in applications where you want the lighting to look more natural you might choose the Tri Color LED models.

Pastels color and warm whites: RGBW

A newer and more versatile type of wash is the RGBW LED. This adds white LEDs to the mix of R,G and B LEDs. RGBW lights have an even greater pallet of colors available including subtle pastels and a range of whites from cool to warm. Standard RGB light fixtures cannot get a warm white and they cannot create lighter pastel colors. A big benefit of RGBW lights is that they can create more natural light to complement skin tones for people on stage. They also let you dial in the right color for use with video cameras that need to see certain color temperatures so they don’t look too blue or cool. These lights start at around $500, and are available in can, strip and brick versions.

An even more flexible style of fixture is the RGBWA. This adds an amber LED to give you even more options with warm whites and yellow pastel colors.

Maximum flexibility: Moving-Head RGBW

The Cadillac of LED wash fixtures is the Moving-Head RGBW wash. It combines the benefits of the RGBW lights described above with the ability to aim the lights in almost any direction with a push of a button. Using DMX control, you can program your moving head wash to shine on any area of the stage, the ceiling, even the audience. Moving-head washes are great for theatrical productions, music concerts, or worship services where you want the most dynamic and powerful lighting effects.

Even though moving-head wash fixtures are a bit more expensive, they can save you from having to buy multiple sets of fixtures that are only going to be aimed at one fixed position. Need light on the pastor? Just hit the program for the fixture to move to where he is standing. If you want to focus on someone else on stage, the same light can then move to another person, removing the need for two separate lights. Depending on the needs of your application, a few moving-head LED fixtures can take the place of several standard LED fixtures.

Whichever style of LED wash you choose, you are sure to get great color while saving energy and extending the useful life of your lights.

You can see our recommended examples of various types of LED washes here.