You’re at a show with one of your favorite DJs.  You look over and see someone with their mouth and eyes gaping wide, amazed by the incredible light show someone is giving them.  You watch the person giving them a light show for a while, and eventually ask for one yourself.  The lightshow itself blends the senses, mixing incredible sound with incredible visuals. 

“I need to learn how to do that,” you think to yourself. 

This hub is designed to teach you how to do exactly that.  WARNING: IT’S NOT EASY!  IT TAKES PRACTICE!  When I started out giving light shows, I was pretty terrible.  In fact, I’m still not amazing by any means.  I have gotten quite a few “WOAH” responses using some unique techniques I’ve developed.  It is important to note that MOVING TO THE MUSIC is much more important than following techniques.  I’m going to share one of them with you towards the end of this hub, and leave the others for you to discover yourself.  There are a lot of tricks and effects out there, but I’ve learned the coolest of them are unique.

We’ll tackle this in 4 sections:

1 – Buying a glove set

2 – Learning basic hand movement techniques

3 - Learning specific techniques and practicing

4 – Getting people to ask you for light shows, and practical suggestions

Before you can go look for lights you need to realistically determine how much you can spend on getting a light set. Sets can range anywhere from $20 dollars for finger lights to $200+ for a full light set (yes I meant 200+). The average decent set of lights with multiple probably costs around $70-$80. Try to be somewhat flexible with your estimate (expect to spend a bit extra).

Now that you know how much you’re willing to spend on a set you need to determine what lights are within your price range, and what you want to buy. For this I suggest one website in particular, Light Zombies!

Enter the code Pr0 (with a zero) at lightzombies.com to receive a pair of gloves and a microlight, or use the code Pr0batts for 6 free cr2016 batteries with each order.

Light zombies offers a good comparison for the different types of lights and what you can expect to pay. Other websites will sell the lights, and some will sell the bulbs (which you can use to modify your lights). LED bulbs include multi color faders (solid to dots then they change color), strobe, and ribbon bulbs.  Other sites, which I will mention below are quite a bit more expensive than light zombies, or they just don't offer the same selection.  LZ has all of the lights and bulbs you need, and more!  Because of their selection and great prices, they've become my sole supplier for bulbs and lights in general.

TIP: Get tight gloves or else your lights will become loose in your gloves and interrupt your show. I have large hands (I'm 6 foot 3) and even the medium gloves are too large for me.

If you have a budget of under $50, you shouldn’t expect to get an incredible glove set. The money your about to spend should be considered more of an initial investment. Take a look at the finger lights. These are lights with elastic that you can attach to your fingers. They’re great for initial practice, and determining whether or not you actually want to spend more money learning how to give light shows. Some people are just not cut out for giving light shows, and doing a few test runs is probably a good idea before you spend the rest of that C Note ($100 bill) on lights. You can also look at the splatter microlights, which are about $1 a piece.

If you already know you’re going to drop more than $50 on a light set, the first think you should look at is gloves. I haven’t shopped around much for gloves, so I’d have to suggest llight zombies again. Other websites have some unique gloves, but LZs gloves have been the best fitting I've found (and I have about 10 pairs of gloves). While finger lights have elastic bands that attach them to your fingers, the lights you will be using with gloves do not have any elastic. This means you do not want loose gloves, as the lights will slip out of their position, possibly causing an interruption in your light show.

Next you need to decide which lights you want. With a lower budget, your options are limited. If you buy the custom colors/tri-colors, you will be limited to 10 lights AT MOST with 50 dollars, and they won't be good lights.

If you really don't want to spend a ton of money on lights, i suggest getting 7 splatters (+3 free with the promo code Pr0) and a pair of gloves from lightzombies.com.  This wil cost you about 16 bucks (10 for the equipment and 6 for the shipping), and will get you started.

Here is a picture of my GF and I with my original glove set (almost). I bought a 2 inovas and put cheap 7 color changing bulbs, and 2 of each RGB inovas. One of the white ones has been modified to pink using a LED I bought at radioshack.

I think before I talk about the lights I should mention the different type of bulbs.

There are essentially two types, single color bulbs and IC bulbs. Single color bulbs are (duhhh) bulbs that emit a single color. The IC bulbs have very small microchips in them that control the bulb. They generally have 3 colors within the bulb and can vary between the colors depending on how the bulb is programmed.

IC Bulb Ribbon: This bulb will switch from one color to another without a Gap in between them creating a ribbon effect

IC Bulb Strobe: This bulb will switch from one color to another with a short gap in between.

IC Bulb Faders: This bulb will fade in between the different colors, going from a solid to a dotted mode, then changing colors and morphing back to a solid.

Each of these IC bulbs can be 3 or 7 color mode.

3 Color: Uses each of the colors individually (e.g. Red, Green and Blue) without mixing them

7 Color: Uses each of the colors, and a combination of each of the colors to create 7 different colors (color 1, color 1 & 2, color 2, color 2 & 3, color 3, color 3 & 1, color 1 & 2 & 3)

OK Onto the lights themselves.

Kickers - Bulky, more durable lights. Probalby not what you're looking for when it comes to gloves.

Matrix Dots - A cheaper microlight that has a dots mode (like the inova) and 2 flash modes

Splatters - Very cheap microlights. Great for starters.

Inovas

Pros

- Multi mode (solid stream or high power, dots or low power, or strobe)

- Easy to open case for battery replacement and bulb modification

- Can be modified to use IC bulbs (easy to do)

- Easy to replace batteries

- No Screws

Cons

- In solid mode the lights turn off after 4 minutes

- Bulky, a bit wide (although if you can do a finger roll with inovas you can do a finger roll with ANY microlight)

- Custom bulbs CANNOT be used with dots mode or low power mode (meaning you can accidentally leave low power mode on and drain the batteries)

- Expensive! The cheapest I've found these are $5 a piece for white inovas. They go for around $7 on light zombies for single color inovas

Comments

I use these lights in my current glove setup. I am waiting for the nibblers to come out on light zombies. I've heard you can modify them by pulling out the circuit board and bulb and putting them in a photon casing. I haven't tried this, but it seems like a cool idea. I will continue to use my red inovas for palm lights.

Photon II

Pros

- Small Lights

- No timer, with a switch to turn them on/off

- Single On off mode is good for IC bulbs

- Pretty Cheap

- Can be modified to use IC bulbs

Cons

- Tiny screwdriver required for replacing batteries or modifying them, pain in the ass!

- Long leads are required for LEDs which can cause malfunctions in the light switches (however rare)

Comments

Many people use these lights for their glove sets. Despite only having one mode, they work well with IC bulbs.

Photon Freedoms

Pros

- Can create MANY effects with one light: you can pick the power (size of the dots) on each of these, and some come with a bullet (makes the light more pin-pointed) modification

- No timer

- No Screws

- Easy to open and replace batteries

- Small

Cons

- Modification of these lights is difficult, and pointless. Putting an IC bulb inside a freedom ruins the entire point of having the freedom, if you turn down the power at all the IC bulb becomes useless.

- EXPENSIVE: $10 is the lowest I could find them, and thats if you're lucky

Comments

Light zombies sells a couple of these with the 'tracers' modification. These have a pretty cool, near IC bulb, effect. These lights are GREAT single color lights for a thumb or palm. They also make great orbits.

27 Mode (eterna)lights

Pros

- Many combos available with one light

Cons

- They reset every time you turn them on, so re-selecting your desired preference can be a pain

Comments

Personally, I don't really like them. I'd prefer getting pre-programmed IC bulbs, so I can just turn my lights on and start the show.

THEN CAME THE END ALL - THE NIBBLER

The nibbler microlight is getting released in about 3 weeks. This will literally be the ultimate light show microlight, and will even allow you to perfectly replicate the Rav'n Strobe effect (sorry anyone who actually spent $40-$80 on those lights). They are small, easily modified, flexible, and allow for MANY different combos (they will also have a 27 mode version of this light). On top of that they will come with standard diffusers. Diffusers allow you to reflect the light that is normally directed outward back into your glove, to create that glowing finger effect that you see with the Rav'n lights.

Check out this vid to see the effects

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XjA9wqJrQw

Soon after the release of the actual nibblers there will be larger diffusers (for different effects, including a glittered sparkling trail around the lights) available for purchase.

To check these lights out in full detail visit:

http://hubpages.com/hub/lightzombies_nibbler_microlights

They are up for presale NOW at

http://lightzombies.com/store/index.php?cPath=24_53

It is important to note that the LED Bulb makes the light. See my hub link below on LED bulb choice for more info on these bulbs. They truly have an amazing effect. You should definitely look into buying new LEDs for your lights when you feel like improving your glove set. I will eventually post a tutorial on replacing the LED bulbs on inovas (it is extremely easy).

Try to buy colors that go well together. Not all of your lights HAVE to be this color, sometimes it's good to have and off color, just to surprise people.

- Blue, White, Green

- Purple, White, Green

- Red, Orange, Gold

TIP: If you don't have that much money to spend, look at the floor at the next rave you're at. People at shows tend to drop things. You'd be surprised how much stuff you can find on the floor.