XL Video supplied 119 panels of Pixled F-30 LED screen – totalling 114 square metres of surface area – plus crew for leading DJ and music producer David Guetta’s recent UK tour, his first carrying a full technical production.
The F-30 was specified by Guetta’s show/visuals designer and vibe engineer Ben Brett, who has developed a piece of control software – Pilot – which is used to run the screen visuals. For this tour, in addition to the screen content, Pilot was running a back wall of 60 x LED moving lights positioned upstage of the rear section of F-30 screen.
The back screen comprised 105 panels of F-30 and in front of the DJ booth was a smaller one made up of 14 panels. With visuals flowing across both surfaces simultaneously, it became a truly 3 dimensional digital set.
Pilot was running on a MacBook Pro that was connected directly to the Pixled F-30 processors via DVI fibre. Offering near zero latency, virtually no image loss and uninterrupted by any scan conversions or other devices, the data signal gives a pure pixel-by-pixel reproduction of the unrendered content.
“This is a new and innovative approach to running visuals with a real edge,” said XL Video’s project manager Tim Riley. “It’s very exciting to work with Ben and his team at Pilot (also the company name) and see them in action as the show unfolds, and the audience who start feeding off the sounds, visuals and all the positive energies flying around the room.”
As Guetta’s set is never the same for two shows running, the visuals are all generated on-the-fly. Some are sound triggered as certain textural elements of the show need to appear on-screen at specific times.
Brett chose the Pixled F-30 surface for the tour because of its transparency and also because of the neon-like colour reproduction of the pixels, together with its depth and texture as a scenic element when combined with their content.
As with all the Pixled range, the F-30 has also been built to be highly portable, quickly rig-able, accessible during the show if necessary and rugged enough to withstand life on the road. XL Video says that it has substantial stocks of all the surfaces offered by this very versatile brand.
