The Learn Stage Lighting GEAR Guide

People are ALWAYS asking us for our top picks - below you will find every top pick, sorted by type of item or accessory. This doesn't mean it's the best fit for everyone, but it's a great place to start!

We update these constantly to ensure you ALWAYS see our top picks here! It's just one way we make YOUR life easier - you don't have to cut through the clutter of so many products, you can find the ones we most highly recommend, here!

Products are listed from smallest/cheapest to largest, left to right.

Directory:

Wash Lights - Spot Lights - Beam Lights

Consoles - Nodes and Splitters - DMX/Power Cable - Wireless DMX - Clamps and Safety Cables

Atmosphere (Fog, Haze, Snow)

Wash Lights

Eliminator LP12 Hex

Probably the cheapest par we recommend, this par is inexpensive, but works quite well and is reliable.

GAMMA Starburst Par

The GAMMA Starburst 7*18w has long been one of our favorite pars for stages of many sizes. It's small, compact, silent, and has a really great build quality. All without breaking the bank!

Volux CuePar 18IP

The Volux CuePar 18IP Excels at throwing light up at 25' for a really nice stage wash or backlight on medium-sized stages. It's waterproof, and does everything well.

ADJ Encore Pars

The ADJ Encore Pars, in particular the LP12IP and LP18IP are bright, high-color-quality wash lights with interchangeable lens options.

Check it Out!

Eliminator Stealth Wash

The Eliminator Stealth Wash is a GREAT, small wash fixture.

Like most small moving lights, it's not the quietest thing on earth, but for the price you can't beat the brightness and quality!

GAMMA Borealis RC Z

The GAMMA Borealis RC Z is one we often go back to. It's a simple wash light, but offers solid brightness and a reasonable zoom range at a killer pricepoint.

Volux Sisma Z4

The Volux Sisma is a really great wash fixture. Just a step above the Borealis RC, it's around 20-25% brighter, faster, and has a wider zoom range, including the ability to go very narrow for a beam effect.

Chauvet Rogue R3 Wash

The Chauvet Rogue R3 is a great value when you are looking for a pixel-mapped wash that can cover a lot of space! It's big, bright, and hits a really good pricepoint for it's size.

Chauvet EVE F-50Z

The EVE F-50Z is a really nice, small fresnel with barndoors and a warm white LED. It's inexpensive and does the job well for smaller stages and studios. We really like the wide maximum zoom angle of 50°, which can do wonders in smaller spaces!

ADJ Encore F150Z

A nice, bright, cost-effective fresnel with a warm-white engine, the FR150Z does best on throw distances from about 15-30', with a high color quality.

GAMMA Rose RGBW

The GAMMA Rose Fresnels are a great hybrid between a par and fresnel, with free barndoors included. They come in both variable-white and full color (this model), and hit a really great pricepoint for throws up to around 20'.

Elation KL Fresnel 8 FC

The Elation KL Fresnel is an impressive, large-scale fresnel for the biggest stages and studios. The "FC" version is the full color, with Elation's high-color-quality RGBMA LED engine, this is a light that won't dissappoint!

Spot Lights

Chauvet EVE E-50Z

The Chauvet EVE E-50Z is our next step up - a good ellipsoidal-type spot with a warm white LED and a included zoom lens that excels with throws from 20-25'

Chauvet Pro E-2 FC

The E-2 FC has to be our favorite "JR" ellipsoidal right now. It has everything you need for a really high quality, full color stage light for throws up to about 20-25' via the integrated zoom lens.

GAMMA Leko Toro 200

The Leko Toro from GAMMA is a real winner on quality and price! It features a 200w source, comes with your choice of lens (default is 26°) and it puts out a nice light in color or white!

ADJ Encore Profile Pro

The Encore Profile Pro is a very high color-quality fixture that has that extra bit of punch above the units below!

It doesn't come with a lens, so you'll have to add that on, but it still hits a respectable pricepoint considering it's brightness.

Eliminator Stealth Spot

The Stealth Spot is a great-priced, small moving head for bands, DJ's, and even smaller church setups.

GAMMA TX4

GAMMA's TX4 is one of those lights that just never seems to go away - in the best way possible!

It's a moving head spot with all of the basic features you want, and a killer pricepoint for a mid-size moving light.

Volux Spectra 300

We just can't say enough about the Volux Spectra 300. It's one of the least expensive CMY moving spots on the market, but it doesn't feel cheap. It's one of our top-selling moving lights, and customers love these things - they are versatile, reliable, and well-built.

Elation Artiste Monet

Need a moving light with BIG punch? The Artiste series from Elation offers a LOT of power and all the features a moving light could have (just about).

Beam Lights

ADJ Saber Spot RGBW

The Saber Spot is a great pinspot-type fixture with a really tight beam, full RGBW color mixing light. It does also have a wider lens, though it does get quite dim at that spread. Overall, a great way to get a tight beam of light at an unbeatable price!

Eliminator Stryker Beam

The Eliminator Stryker Beam is a great, mid-sized beam fixture that really works well. It has a cheaper build and some fan noise, but hits an excellent pricepoint for the quality of the electronics and optics.

Dominar X

The Dominar X is an epic, mid-size beam fixture that is also waterproof. It's quiet, has a lot of really great features, and oh yeah, it's really bright with a 250w LED source!

Elation Proteus Excalibur

When you need a big, BRIGHT, searchlight-type beam, the Proteus Excalibur is the choice for you. Packed with great features including CMY color mixing, it can be used standalone in a variety of searchlight patterns or via DMX like any other beam moving head light.

Consoles/Software

LightKey

Lighting - Mac Style. That's LightKey's motto, and we like it! It's by far the easiest, most intuitive software (for Macs) out there. It can handle a fairly good size rig of lights too before it starts to move out of it's "sweet spot".

ADJ WMX1

I gotta hand it to the creators of this thing - this little lighting controller is GOLD. It is completely stand alone (no PC required) and can do a lot of really advanced things very easily.

If you're running lights manually for music, this can be a GREAT fit that's easy to learn and master!

ONYX NX1

ONYX is by far our favorite pro-grade lighting console, and the NX1 is the entry level "stand alone" console. It provides a lot under the hood, for a reasonable price.

Want to get into ONYX for less? Use the Contact page and we'll find you the perfect hardware fit for your needs!

Nodes/DMX Splitters

ADJ D6, D4 RM and Data Distro 6

Nice and simple, ADJ has 3 models of really solid DMX splitters on the budget end.

First, the rackmount D4 Branch RM is a 3/5 DMX output splitter with 4 outputs. Choose 3 or 5 pin for each output, but don't plug in to both!

Next, we have the D6 Branch and Data Distro 6. These are the best value in our opinion - The D6 Branch is a 3-Pin, non-RDM splitter, and the Data Distro 6 is a 5-pin splitter with RDM.

Both mount to trusses, or can sit on the ground, etc, and have 6 outputs plus a thru.

Netron RDM10

This Splitter is a cool hybrid, where you get 2 DMX inputs and 10 outputs, and Art-Net/sACN support.

It's 2 universes in via either wired DMX or Art-Net and sACN, and then all 10 ports can be assigned freely to either universe A or B, with full RDM support.

Chauvet DMX-AN2

The DMX-AN2 is a bare-bones, basic DMX node that can output DMX from Art-Net or sACN. It's our budget pick that works incredibly well!

Netron EN4

The EN4 is pretty much unbeaten as a 4-port node. The built-in screen and knob allow you to quickly reconfigure it for any event, and it's POE powered or AC powered.

Don't need to reconfigure it often? Grab the EP4 instead and save!

Netron EN12

Like the EN4, the EN12 just can't be beat in terms of feature set, quality, and number or ports for the price. If you need a node with a bunch of outputs, this is the one!

DMX / Power Cables

Everyday DMX Cables

Accu-Cable DMX Cables are our go-to DMX cable for most people. They lead the market in cost and have a few quality levels depending on your needs.

The "standard" models are inexpensive and work well for installed venues, hobbyists, bands, DJ's, etc. They will break under professional use, though.

The "Tour Link" models are a pro-grade cable, perfect for anyone doing a lot of events with their cable. They feature a loose heatshrink and the length printed on the connector so that you can apply your own branding and color code to the cable.

PowerCon/True1 Cables

While we have many brands of True1 Cables available, our favorites for price/quality are GAMMA and Accu-Cable.

Both are great options, GAMMA typically hits a lower pricepoint for a very similar product. Accu has more options. Both are really great and will serve you well!

Wireless DMX

Chauvet D-Fi

Chauvet's D-Fi is a good, 2.4ghz Wireless DMX that tends to work pretty well and has a low cost.

It can also transmit on Channel 14 of 2.4ghz, which allows it to work in some areas with more congested wireless. It will struggle in the most congested areas, at which point it's time to look at a more professional option.

ADJ Wifly EXR

ADJ's Wifly EXR is a great system that does still use 2.4ghz, but has an extended range. It also uses DSSS technology to avoid interference, and tends to be a step up from less expensive wireless systems.

ADJ Aria X2

We REALLY like ADJ's Aria X2. What's different is that it offers both 2.4ghz and 900mhz wireless, and it will offer adaptive frequency hopping.

The 900mhz ability in itself is huge because it offers a longer distance of transmission and is generally less crowded of a frequency space.

Aria X2 also offers RDM and Aria X2 Serial, which allows you to do some extra configuration of the connected fixtures over wireless.

Clamps and Safety Cables

C-Clamps

The cheapest clamp we typically recommend, the ADJ C-Clamp is an inexpensive way to hang non-moving lights up to about 20lbs. It is technically rated higher than that, but it gets tough to use, so we recommend no higher than that!

Not recommended for moving lights or when hanging lights on trussing.

Mega Clamp

When you're hanging larger fixtures (about about 20lbs), we typically recommend the Mega Clamp. It's a really nice clamp at a surprisingly low price!

Not recommended for moving lights or when hanging lights on trussing.

Coupler Clamp Jr

The GAMMA Coupler Clamp Jr is a 50mm/2" OD (standard truss/pipe) clamp at a price that can't be beat! It's a solid clamp that does a good job!

Quick Grip Clamp

Quick Grip Clamps are a great option for larger fixtures and moving heads, especially when hanging from standard 50mm/2" truss or pipe.

What makes a claw clamp different from a coupler is that they allow you to set the weight of the fixture down on the truss, then tighten the clamp. 

Much better than supporting the weight while you tighten the clamps!

Check it Out!

Safety Cables

Safety Cables are essential on any light that hangs in the air!

Here's our pick that gives you the best value!

Atmosphere: Fog, Haze, Bubbles and Snow

Hazer

Our Favorite, general-use hazer is the Magma Prime. It puts out a really nice haze while maintaining an affordable price.

Upshot Fogger

The ADJ Fog Fury Jett's in our opinion, offer more value than any other Fog Jet on the market. They're well-built, reliable, and offer a killer pricepoint. Each unit ships with DMX control and a FREE wireless remote.

Small Snow Machine

The Magmatic Crisp offers a small size, good output, and a really awesome pricepoint. It's also quieter than most other small snow machines.

Large Snow Machine

The Antari S-500 wins out above the rest for a large snow machine because it offers a remote nozzle, and does really well indoors or out.

Bubble Fogger

Bubbles with Fog! Why not? It's fun for holidays, rave's, special events and more!

Check it Out!