Hrothgar15 Posted February 17, 2017 Share Posted February 17, 2017 (edited) Over the past year I've been going through each finals CD from 1984 onward, discovering a ton of great shows that I had somehow missed. Usually I've been spending about two or three weeks focused on each year. That is, until I got to 1995. I just can't bring myself to listen to the mess of cymbal crashes and otherwise indistinguishable trebly noise that is those recordings, and it's making it really hard to warm up some previously unheard shows from that year. It's been taking me forever to get through them. Every other recording up to this year seems to be crystal clear, so I'm wondering what caused this huge step back in quality. I remember reading that this was the year that IBM did the recordings, but is there a reason they messed them up so bad? So much of it is just noise, and it's a shame that they're the only recordings we have of some of those classic shows like Madison and Blue Devils. Edited February 17, 2017 by Hrothgar15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightyonepointthree Posted February 17, 2017 Share Posted February 17, 2017 I remember being there and noticing that the mics were VERY low, maybe 8 feet off the ground. I think if you watch the videos you can tell. We complained about them and got the "we feel like the product is fine" responses from DCI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibexpercussion Posted February 17, 2017 Share Posted February 17, 2017 (edited) Then there was the overcompensation of bass sound in the 1996 recordings. This didn't make them bad to listen to, just had to be careful with your settings when listening to them, or the bass could drown out the other sounds. By 1997 it seems that everything is the way it should be from there on through 2017. *The 1995 recordings almost sound like bootlegs at times. As if someone was just sitting on the sideline, or in the stands, with a single mic recorder. Edited February 17, 2017 by ibexpercussion added the last sentence after the asterisk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Dixon Posted February 17, 2017 Share Posted February 17, 2017 heavy pit and not much sound from the field - I guess mic placement or sound mix issue I some cases you can barely hear the brass at points Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted February 17, 2017 Share Posted February 17, 2017 With current technologies, can those bad years be re mastered or whatever the terminology is called? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HockeyDad Posted February 17, 2017 Share Posted February 17, 2017 6 hours ago, eightyonepointthree said: I remember being there and noticing that the mics were VERY low, maybe 8 feet off the ground. I think if you watch the videos you can tell. We complained about them and got the "we feel like the product is fine" responses from DCI. Haha. More of that great customer service. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted February 17, 2017 Share Posted February 17, 2017 IIRC, These were the years right after they moved the corps staffs off the field and made them sit in the stands because many of the recording were completely saturated with staff screaming. I remember reading that it was mic placement. It didn't take long for them to push the mics to 20 feet. Now I think they just master out all of that overbalance to make a salable product. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Usually Mistified Posted February 17, 2017 Share Posted February 17, 2017 The 1995 recordings were a "one off" by a different vendor. You will notice from the tapes/dvd's that the company did not even captures the Cavaliers winning score announcement, several shots were actually from semi finals. Take notice of the lady with her fingers crossed hoping for a Cavaliers' win or as it really happened, she was hoping for the Cavaliers to have highest score on semi's night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drangin Posted February 17, 2017 Share Posted February 17, 2017 Two of the shows from 1995 were remastered for inclusion in the Champions/Classics Blu-Rays. The sound is much better. I wish I could find a CD set for that year; I can tell how the remastering was done and could treat all the tracks that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drangin Posted February 17, 2017 Share Posted February 17, 2017 8 hours ago, garfield said: IIRC, These were the years right after they moved the corps staffs off the field and made them sit in the stands because many of the recording were completely saturated with staff screaming. I remember reading that it was mic placement. It didn't take long for them to push the mics to 20 feet. Now I think they just master out all of that overbalance to make a salable product. I bought an audio track of one of the 1995 corps from Fan Network a couple of years ago to see if it sounded any better than the video, and it sounded just as bad. As far as I can tell there's been no remastering except for the two corps they did for the collector Blu-Rays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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