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Amplify THIS ! !


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Electronics I like:

-- Teal Sound's (?) electric violin and wind controller

-- Nick's celeste solo in Crown's Grass Is Greener show

-- Electric string bass in Spirit's Dust in the Wind

-- MY one exception to amplifying brass:  the brass opener this year by Les Stentors due to their small size.  They only used mics for the opener and solos.

Electronics I don't like:

-- Keyboards playing as part of the brass and not as part of the pit

Just my $0.02.

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15 minutes ago, Cappybara said:

I'm okay with soloists being miced. Trumpets aren't G bugles, they won't generate the same power. 

Using a mic allows for much better tone quality and avoids the harshness that would occur without the mic. I use 2012 Pacific Crest as an example. They had a gorgeous flugelhorn solo play the melody of Yellow by Coldplay and it was chill-inducing good. You just can't have solos like that without a mic 

Then you have dynamics and staging to allow the solo to come through.  Frankly all volumes are really high all the time.  Really soft is effective too BTW.

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The pattern repeats.

A new "option" is made available.

Top corps do it, and continue winning.  Other corps follow what the winners do.

Worse yet, the traditional "option" becomes the wrong option with the judges, and is essentially banned from competitive corps.  (See any brass solos without a mic this year?)

New "option" becomes another compulsory element of drum corps show design.

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17 minutes ago, luv4corps said:

Boy you're not kidding.  And some corps have really embraced the fancy dancy PA system while others lag behind in this regard.  So based on PA systems alone, the playing field is NOT level.

Check out BD's PA system - woofers and tweeters stretched all across the pit and out to the sides.  Other corps have only two main speakers on either side of the pit.  There is a reason BD's bass was car-thumping distracting!  I sat through a full ensemble rehearsal of theirs and the Rhianna bits were positively deafening without a sound-absorbing audience.

 

Well, we can blame last year's titleists. The electronics arms race has been heating up, with Bluecoats leading the charge. Once they started dragging the speaker arrays onto the field back in '15 (which actually was one of my favorite shows), and deploying multiple "pods" of pit instruments with their own speakers and in-ear mics last year, I knew we were in trouble. They blanketed the front sideline with sound, which was probably more entertaining for the people out on the 10, but just a huge jump forward on the amplification. BD and SCV have now followed suit, and I'm sure it's going to spread. "Keeping up with the Joneses".

Someone I know mentioned that the pits have gotten a bit smaller this year...is this to help balance the outlays of cash required for all the speakers and sound boards and mics? Probably. I've been to a few shows and rehearsals with them, and the bass is too much, and I hope they back it off some. It's not a unique phenomenon, and it seems most sound crews are more than happy to overdo it, given the chance. I think all sound guys, whether drum corps or your average concert, are all deaf and have no clue what they're subjecting the audience to. I was at a Tower of Power concert in San Diego a few years ago, and if you got within ten rows of the stage, you couldn't make out any music at all, it was just a deafening glob of sound with no definition. Plenty of hearing was lost by many that night. While some make the case that PA systems help bring the full sound to more of the crowd, these systems still have substantial shortcomings. I have mixed feelings about the whole movement, but it's here to stay. I hope that the level of refinement advances rapidly, because it's still pretty rough.

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5 minutes ago, Mello Dude said:

Then you have dynamics and staging to allow the solo to come through.  Frankly all volumes are really high all the time.  Really soft is effective too BTW.

There's no need to state the obvious, there's plenty of examples that show that soft is effective too. 

However there are many other moments where a soft moment is NOT needed, and in those instances, one has to realize that trumpets do not have the piercing power that G bugles do. 

Take BD 2012's closer as an example. The trumpet soloist was performing a reprise of the opening theme and the rest of the hornline was doing exactly what you just suggested - they were using softer dynamics and staging themselves sideways to create an echo effect. However, there were loud moments mixed into that and had the soloist not been miced, he would have been drowned out in those brief loud moments. 

Mics for soloists allow for the best tone quality possible and that should be the first and foremost priority. 

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This will require judges to be re-trained to stop giving so much credit for electronics and more with what a corps members are actually doing.  IMHO dynamic contrast is so bad anymore that I cannot believe this is not mentioned.  Everything is so in your face there is like ZERO subtlety anymore.  Musicality is suffering IMHO big time.  The thing is you actually would sound LOUDER if you allow the ambient volume to be soft and have impacts that would "impact".  Something needs to give because right now what is the point of 20 tubas again when they are buried under synth doubling.  Or feeling the absolute NEED for trombones?  Like what you have frigging 20+ baritone/euphs on the field.  This whole doing it because you can (getting massive creds for) rather than actually making musical / show sense..I don;t know.  Reminds me in 86 when Star had an entire semi truck to have teh guard get into human size hamster wheels to roll across the field....

 

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8 minutes ago, Cappybara said:

There's no need to state the obvious, there's plenty of examples that show that soft is effective too. 

However there are many other moments where a soft moment is NOT needed, and in those instances, one has to realize that trumpets do not have the piercing power that G bugles do. 

Take BD 2012's closer as an example. The trumpet soloist was performing a reprise of the opening theme and the rest of the hornline was doing exactly what you just suggested - they were using softer dynamics and staging themselves sideways to create an echo effect. However, there were loud moments mixed into that and had the soloist not been miced, he would have been drowned out in those brief loud moments. 

Mics for soloists allow for the best tone quality possible and that should be the first and foremost priority. 

But mics don't because it is an artificial sound.  Best sound is ALWAYS live without amps.  Amping changes the sound.  If the soloist needs to be mic'd everything else is too loud. 

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15 minutes ago, Mello Dude said:

But mics don't because it is an artificial sound.  Best sound is ALWAYS live without amps.  Amping changes the sound.  If the soloist needs to be mic'd everything else is too loud. 

Hmm that is where we will have to just agree to disagree then. I will take the best tone quality possible that I can hear without straining my ears through a mic over a pinched/pitchy un-miced solo any day. 

Edited by Cappybara
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