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028 INTERVIEW


“Projecting gobos is no longer the point, the main issue is to have a solid beam projector and create powerful mid-air effects and laser- type flat scans”


A quarter of a century ago companies claiming coherent, laser-like lighting in their armoury of ordnance-styled ‘Light Guns’ and ‘Light Cannons’ could only have dreamt of a day when lamp technology, digital control... and a man with genius knowledge of optical paths would conspire to frame lighting, with such unbelievable beam strength in a video world. There is life after gobos... and as Paky says, with a telling smile, mechanics and optics are not an exact science.


THE EARLY YEARS During our interview, two clues emerged as to why Pasquale ‘Paky’ Quadri may have ended up as he has. Firstly, his father was a keen magician, which clearly rubbed off. Secondly he became infatuated with projection at an early age, adapting old Rollei cameras to make lightshows, while simultaneously performing as a musician. At 15 he was a cinema projection operator and today he owns around 140 cinema projectors and some very old 8mm, 16mm and 35mm film (including Pathé news reels). It is not difficult to see where he developed his passion for optics and slide projection. Hence, in 1975, Paky produced the LX3: an oil wheel projector and industrialised version of what Optikinetics had been producing during the decade before. Along with Spanish companies at the time (notably Kremesa and Satel) and near neighbours Coemar, Clay Paky utterly dominated the dancefloor ceilings of the early to mid-80s. Scattering beams from single sources with products like the Astrodisco, Astroraggi and revolving four-dish Astrospider. But 1987 was to prove the pivotal year. Clay Paky formed an alliance with Pulsar, who started to develop their electronics. They immediately set to work upgrading the servo motor technology (seen in the pioneering Brilliant intelligent projector) to stepper motors. Golden Scan was born, and with it a new era of mirror-driven scanner products. Gracing the flyers of a thousand rave promoters at the start of the ‘90s, and much later immortalised in the Klaxons song of the same name, to rave punters being


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subjected to a ‘Golden Scan’ experience must have seemed a ready placebo for MDMA. The fixture’s seminal influence on a rock and roll industry weaned on Vari-Lite and Telescan was profound; once ‘disco’ prejudices and preconceptions had been overcome by the production of a robust ‘touring version’. Pio Nahum smiles that this really came about after Golden Scan had added rotating gobos. “The only real difference with Golden Scan 3’s touring version was that it was black, and on the bracket a ring allowed a safety chain to be fitted. We also provided a meter for lamp life and it had built-in Power Factor Correction.” Smoke and mirrors it may have been, but the success was huge. In fact, sales to discotheques would have been even more profound had Pulsar not developed the world’s first complete all-in-one lighting universe, which was the only control environment at the time capable of running the fixture. A much simpler dedicated controller would have made it a lot more budget-friendly from the get-go. But by the start of the new millennium, Pulsar were developing their LED programme and this had taken priority over developing OEM electronics. The relationship was all but over. In 1999 Clay Paky had released the Stage Line - a range of six moving body projectors ranging from 300W to 1200W sources. Despite delivering unprecedented power and optical precision for theatre and TV set designers, the industry was already moving towards a newer lightweight, more versatile solution. But it took Clay Paky to ride out their dark days of 2001-2002 before they made their most significant move yet.


THE ALPHA BEATER It took until 2004 before Clay Paky were again seen as world beaters. The Italian company’s ranking had slipped as the market had become increasingly dominated by Martin Professional (from Denmark), Robe (from the Czech Republic) and any number of Chinese lighting companies, offering fully-featured products.


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