This diy DMX Light Rig will Change Your Live Shows

Here's how I built a Modular DMX Lighting Rig for quick and affordable custom light shows.

Links for some of the parts:

Special thanks to:

[venomfall]

This is a ridiculously cool system, as someone who's been in both the music and lighting world for a while being able to have something that I could use for my own solo performances which is affordable but also has a level of production that I'm happy with is something incredibly valuable. Even with just the 4 tubes at the end you had a great demo, and it's crazy to think how cheap it was to build. Definitely wanna see if I can build one of these rigs, thanks for the video!!

[jmarcanti]

This the smartest lighting rig for bands I've ever seen on YouTube. Other videos made these DIY tube lights, but didn't take into consideration easy load in and out. You solved that problem. Pure genius. Can't thank you enough.

[dcurry]

As a professional stage technician and extremely unprofessional hobbyist musician, I would *love* to buy you a beer and talk shop about this setup. Thanks for sharing this with the world!

Most of my time lately is spent in a shoebox nightclub with an always crowded stage. I've spitballed making my own fixtures in tube protectors just like yours, with a 4-channel decoder in the base each. Never even crossed my mind to centralize the DMX brains, what a brilliant way to reduce spaghetti!

[timdenner]

As a drummer, stagehand, LED builder and tinkerer; this is awesome! Great work!

[traviscarrier]

This is AMAZING. As someone who does lights for my own bands, and went through the process of getting a more “conventional” rig this is a freaking incredible idea. We’re only ever really able to use our lights on the rare occasion we are headlining. Lately I’ve just been offering all the other bands on the bill to use our lights as well and I just plug them into a DMX controller and do the light show on the fly. This way I can get there early and setup our lights. Our show if fully programmed using Ableton & ENTTEC Pro DMX usb alongside EMU (pretty much the replacement for DMXIS). I just HAD to let you know this is super impressive. I LOVE seeing how other people implement the different uses of DMX and lights. Amazing! Keep it up!!!

[dvdcd]

Super cool project, and a fantastic video! I love your presentation style, editing, and your visual illustrations (especially the one with the string wires and pushpins) were awesome!

[micahwagoner]

This is an incredible design and well thought out! I like the spool idea! I'd probably build it out of a road case with casters to easily roll in. Another thing i haven't seen people mention to give yourself a competitive edge, is to use individually addressable lights. I'd watch some videos on home christmas lighting and WS2811's to start. Throw a pixel controller in your brainboard instead of the 0-12v board. Place a network jack as input instead of DMX, and send sACN to the controller.

[mattmcdonnell]

This is insanely impressive. I will be making some lights soon and was searching YouTube for options, yours came up and boy am I glad I found it.

[EdTheBearsFan]

This is one of the best DIY videos I’ve ever seen. The rig is freaking awesome, and your hair is glorious. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, but please get this patented like other commenters suggested! ASAP! Awesome job!!

[silverblue]

I'm just getting into doing live shows and I know expressive lighting can make all the difference, music is one dimension, light another, and the two together are unstoppable

[neilmunro]

Honestly such an amazing walk-through of something that has clearly had a lot of time put into it. The demo at the end was great, and really showed how much can be done with just a small setup. Really loved it.

[mrhaiku]

Dude, that Casio keyboard music you played when explaining DMX brought back some good childhood memories. Great design concept and great video!

[johnnythreshold]

What an absolutely phenomenal design built wonderfully. You've considered, here, everything that would stop a small scale band from considering a lighting rig and made it a desirable and achievable option. Set up times, modularity, portability, tidiness and self-sufficiency are all accounted for and the result looks absolutely professional and incredible. My music projects need this and I'm going to pursue something similar. Thanks for posting and thanks for the great explainer.

[adriansuarez]

Found this at the perfect time. I’ve been getting into dmx, stage lighting, live visuals… this is exactly the content I need rn

[jaredbeamish]

this dropped my jaw and I am giving you a standing ovation. I have DMXIS and it does the trick. The big brand tubes cost like $5k and these look very similar. awesome work!

[MikeMcDoughnut]

I built a very similar rig using a lot of the same components (DMXis, same decoders and power supplies, and same style of light bars and edison bulbs) but you did it so much better and I wish I saw this video a few years ago when I built our rig! Now I need to re-do it using your as inspiration.

[meleesuss]

Watching the bulb slide down was so satisfying. Such a great idea. Excellently executed. Have subscribed.

[BriggsMullen]

That display at the end was inspiring.

[Paladimhandmade]

And why this doesn't have over 1M views already?! This is insane! Respect for sharing it so detailed and explanatory!

[ShaggyMummy]

YES! ive been needing a more elegant solution for doing stage lights. Id love to see what could be done with Addressable LED strips and using the DMX to control animation modes