I love and value good lighting so much and for so many reasons. No setup pics right now because I am transitioning to another space, but I am happy to give any advice I can
Other than general ambient lighting, which is sometimes needed, try and hide the source of the light so you only see the glow. (Especially true for undiffused leds) This can be done with fixtures and placement.
Think in layers, this is a great strategy so spread the lights out and have ambient lighting, task lighting, accent lighting etc all working together
Flexibility and control, adjusting everything to your liking, but also being able to change all ther lights together easily for different purposes is huge if you want more than just one set it and forget it light scheme. Having to control everything separately with a lot of lights is a hassle, you either won’t make the adjustments if it’s inconvenient or it is a distraction from music. So sticking with a system or organized control is good. At least get dimmers and convenient on/ off control close by in your studio if you can. Hue and lifix are good here because you can create scenes, similar to DMX, and change everything at once when you need to change the mood or purpose of the lights.
Hue vs lifx. Both are good, both are expensive. I prefer Hue here because like hardware, even with lights I prefer physical controls and they have some nice ones, I don’t want to mess with my phone other than for initial setup, lifx has richer colors but Hue has some nice more toned down ones
- if you are going to be getting any led strips I wouldn’t go with these name brands here as they are overpriced and inferior to what you can custom build easily. You can get way higher density strips, or cobs for neon like seamlessness and have way longer runs etc, and at least hue has 3rd party led controlers that will work within the system. Check gledopto etc, they even have a nice little usb short strip which is great for placing around your gear. There are some decent 3rd party bulbs around that are compatible and much cheaper too
Track lighting can actually be a nice reposistonal light source so maybe think about changing the heads of getting something with a narrower beam to go in there if you still want to use it. If there is a gap between acoustic clouds and ceiling you could still use lights above them to give them a nice backlit glow
If your running wire definitely have a plan, take your time, test things out. If you can do a dry run and wire up a plug to your hardwired lights to position them around and get a feel for what locations work best before you commit
I’ll stop here because I’m rambling and have thought a lot about this, probably too much. Maybe this is too much detail here but I’m also happy to go deeper of you have any questions or anything
Good luck and good lighting is worth it
