High End Systems' SHAPESHIFTER Shines on Latest Joe Satriani Tour

	Joe Satriani on tour with High End Systems

For guitarist extraordinaire Joe Satriani's latest tour, lighting designer Alastair Watson specified 20 High End Systems SHAPESHIFTER luminaires, 12 SolaSpot 1500 Pro, and Axon Pro HD media server, with the lighting rig controlled by his trusty Hog Fullboar 4 and playback wing. Lighting for this leg of Santriani's tour was supplied by PRG Europe, with Roy Hunt as account manager. Alastair's lighting crew chief was Neil Smith.

Watson used 20 SHAPESHIFTER C1s in the rig, which resulted in more firepower than he perhaps intended for the design. Alastair explains, "I originally specified C2 SHAPESHIFTERs, but there was actually a mistake with the order and I ended up with C1s instead. They were arranged on four vertical soft ladders five deep with three 10' projection screens in between them. I really wanted a light that would have some definition as a pixelmapped light -- but still had a massive punch when I needed it, and also had some of its own tricks that I could use in way of pre-loaded macros. The fact that having them run a pixelmapped piece of content and then moving the panels would be an amazing look. These lights were the backdrop to the design. This gave me the ability to go from 20 tight beams to a huge wide wash and even a UV scene which looks great with a matrix of 20 lights."

Watson has used SHAPESHIFTERs on previous Satriani tours, and the implementation of the luminaires has evolved organically. Alastair comments, "On the previous tour I had 18 SHAPESHIFTERs, but I used them on straight trusses as we had a one piece screen on the back truss, and I didn't want to lay anything over it. I also only used them in standard mode -- which is okay, but you lose some functionality and doesn't represent all the fixture has to offer. This time I ran them at full throttle, which although that can be a pain in the ass to patch, was definitely worth it in the end. I got a lot of great looks using just the center module and then swapping between that and the moving panels. It's definitely a fixture that you can take out of the box and go, but if you really want to explore it, you can spend some time and really finesse your show."

Hog control was another integral part of the production package. Watson explains, "I ran the Fullboar 4 with playback wing -- still using the workhorse! We also used the Axon Pro HD media server at front-of-house which is running a Barco WDX 20; the server is also taking input from a Go Pro camera via an HDMI to SDI converter. We use eight universes of DMX to run the stage lighting, and run the Axon on the fixture net with CITP for server feedback."

Programming was done at Watson's home for a week on LightConverse, followed by a single production day in Nantes in France. He adds, "The new software for the Axon allows me to use .mov files instead of only MPEG2; this has enabled me to do more with my time and tweak video content very quickly with my Mac. I have spent the same time building and programming content on this tour as the last one and I have twice the content in the server."

"As far as lighting, I wanted to use the pixelmapping, and plot displays that 3.2 now offers Hog users. I had a little time at home to import files into the plot layers and having the desk convert them into usable content to play across my SHAPESHIFTER matrix. It's a powerful tool, and gives you some common themes across your various video elements on stage. For one song I took all the elements of the front projection content I was doing for that song, and threw those pieces into the desk for conversion. I ended up with a moving light look that matched the colors on the three projection screens I had on stage."

In closing, Watson said the gear was well behaved on this leg. "We also had 12 SolaSpot 1500 Pros, and all were solid. I don't think we swapped a single one out in 46 shows. I only recall a couple of resets during the shows, all from the desk, and once it was up and running it was solid. All great gear, I'm not changing any HES gear as we roll in to the next leg!"

High End Systems is a Barco company.