-colour moonflower effect. When I first heard the name, I instantly thought of the London landmark and it’s worth holding onto that thought for later. 7788 When the unit arrived, it went straight on to my test bench. It has a sturdy, all-metal construction and is quite light, weighing in at 3.5kg, and is a reasonable size, nearing 30cm x 30cm with a depth of just 21cm.

It is octagonal in shape – looking from the front – and has a heat sink in the centre with eight lenses arranged around it. It comes with the standard IEC mains lead and instruction manual, and is ready for use straight out of the box. It has what I think can be now considered a ‘standard’ 4-button LED menu that allows mode selection and addressing. This can also be used to view a counter that displays the LED’s lifetime hours of operation and to monitor the operating temperature, amongst other things.

Also on the back panel are IEC mains input and output sockets, DMX input and output XLR sockets, an On & Off switch, a safety bond fixing point, a mic to allow sound activation, and a ¼” jack remote control input socket for use with an optional CA 8 controller. The Shard is advertised as a high-output moonflower effect and is powered by a very respectable 60W Osram Ostar™ quad-colour (RGBW) LED. With an LED this bright, it should pack a fair punch, and the bench test did not disappoint, projecting very well out of the window and onto houses down the road!

I’ve had many moonflower effects over the years such as Blitzers, Monstermoons, Datamoons and Twisters, so I was very interested to see how this new ‘moonflower’ compared. Inside the unit there are four black mirror dishes, each with 20 mirrors on them. The mirror dishes are fixed onto four spokes driven by a central motor. The motor can rotate at differing speeds and in both directions.

This arrangement generates a multitude of beams, as you would expect from a moonflower, and the spread of the beams is very good, somewhere around 80 degrees I would say. The projected beams are not, as I expected, square-shaped from the mirrors. They are actually, as the unit’s name suggests, more like shards. In fact, some look surprisingly like the shape of that famous London building!

As the individual mirror dishes don’t rotate, the setup creates a twisting beam effect rather that the traditional rotating cone of beams synonymous with traditional moonflower. It’s an interesting combination of mirrors and lenses that works quite well, and does justice to the 60W LED source. In terms of light output, it THE ART EOQFU AIDNVOEXR STHISAINRDG does not disappoint, and in smoke or haze will produce a myriad of sharp beams of light. The only downside with the combination of lenses and the bright LED source is that you can see the green PCB and wires on occasions behind the rotating mirror dishes, when looking from the front.

In my opinion, it would have benefited from some form of blanking plate to hide the internal bits and pieces from view. So, now that I’ve introduced the unit, let’s move on to the road test. My first gig with the Shard was ‘60s and ‘70s themed party, so a chance to really try out what the light can do. It fitted into my overhead rig quite nicely and powering it up and putting it into Show mode was quite straight-forward.

There are a total of nine different pre-programmed shows available, providing a reasonable collection of effects. All apart from Show 2 can be set to react to sound, so can be fast and energetic or slow and subtle; the best of both worlds! Show 2 is a slow-moving colour change that does not react to sound, so works well as a warm-up effect. Show 0, meanwhile, offers random setting that will cycle through all of the nine programmes in turn.

So that is ideal if you want a light that you can just leave to do its own thing triggered by the music. However, to create a synchronised lightshow, the unit can also run master/slave with one or more additional units, and also offers full DMX control. The Shard has three DMX settings, using 1, 4 or channels, depending on how much control you want. In the 7-channel mode full RGBW colour mixing of the LED is provided as well as Master Dimmer and Strobe functions.

A dedicated channel also provides control over the mirror speed and direction, and includes the option to set the mirror dish rotation to be Sound Active, allowing sound active rotation to be combined with user-selected colours. In its marketing materials, Prolight suggests that the unit can be used in its slow constant rotation mode to emulate a mirror ball effect. This I found particularly interesting for my first trial gig, as it saved me setting up a mirror-ball, which was my original plan for the night.

At the start of the evening, I set the unit to Show 3 – with sound off – which simply produces rotating white beams. It created a very pleasing effect and, whilst not a proper mirror-ball, it would certainly be appropriate for first dances etc. Once we were into dancing mode, I switched the unit over to Show 0 – with sound on – and it proved to EQUINOX SHARD equinox shard be very responsive and effective. I was impressed so much that the Shard stayed on my rig for the following night’s Christmas party.

It fitted in very well with my Christmas theme, complementing the many snowflakes I had projected around the room. In summary, the unit is a nice addition to any mobile disco rig for small-to-medium-sized events, with a decent range of control options and functions to enhance any lightshow. If you also want a slightly different take on a mirror-ball effect, it is definitely worth a popping down to your local disco store for a demo. a E L 79