ronsell

Why not cut all the BS. Just prerecord the corps and have them sync/march the show. The amppeople will be in heaven.

My family loved to meet at DeKalb for the DCM Championships. The last year I could convince them to attend a finals show was in Pasadena when the use of amplification was the last straw. The drum corps activity has lost at least 40 tickets a year from my group who no longer enjoy the activity. I feel very bad about this but, the activity I once could rave to all about, no longer exists. I appreciate all your comments and analysis re DCM but it's really history. Corps are not what they once were and bringing them back to a favorite venue is not going to change that.

Does anyone know when the 2008 DCI Cds will arrive?

It's always dangerous to generalize. Yet, there definitely is, I sense after seeing Drum Beauty and the Madison show last night, a lack of really exciting show designs this year and generally in the past several years. While there are some very good performances already and some neat moments, there simply aren't any screaming crowd responses. Last night at Madison there was one, only one genuine standing ovation. Perhaps you have to be an "old timer" to remember how a particular corps show brought you screaming to your feet several times in a the 11 minute show. Do the new designers not care? Are they incapable of writing an exciting show? Or are they simply not interested in the crowds response. That clearly is the attitude of Hopkins and his Cadets. What a shame that the hard work and talent of all those young people should be in the hands of someone who uses them to further his own agenda.

I think we are all missing an important fact that is becoming more apparent every show I experience. The amplification that is occurring right now is, for the most part, being very badly utilized. What was argued and accepted to be a means to utilize special colours and exotic instruments in the pit has become an excuse to crank up the mallet instruments and generally distort the acoustic relationship between the field music and the pit. Doesn't anyone have a problem with seeing the musical efforts of all those hard working, accomplished battery players being mixed together and coming out of, usually, two mediocre speaker towers? It's very sad that the tremendous efforts of the marching members can be overcome with the slight movement of some jerk at a sound board. The aural difference between the electric sound and the acoustic field sound diminishes the field sound. It also, as we see to our dismay, has become the means for some corps to "push the envelope". Thus, for example, The Cadets shows the past few years. The hard working, extremely talented, kids in the corps are the ones who have to listen to the nearly dead silence that follows their show this year. At least, up till now, it isn't greeted with the venom it received last year at Pasadena. The synth issue is the logical next step in the transformation of drum corps into what might be termed a "super band" program. DCI is in pretty serious trouble now and, I believe, if they continue to allow the extreme fringe to dictate their artistic product they will soon have alienated a very significant portion of the base that pays for the activity. RAS

Glad to get such strong positive remarks re the sound on the DVDs. I must go back and check my system. So many years of screwwing up the sound has probably made me too quick to jump to the negative.

Phantom isn't the only visual show that was poorly shot. BUT!!! The real negative is the horrible audio! Compare the CD recording of any corps you want with the DVD. Every time a corps get loud the DVD audio gets less. Very poor quality. If T. Blair were to even acknowledge the problem he would cry there just is only so much info thay can squeeze onto a disc. I say there is no excuse for putting out a DVD product that is barely better than the Video Cassettes. DCI should get a complaint from everyone on this; especially from the performers and staffs of every corps. <**>