atlvalet

Lance, you can't be a drummer then. Mark Thurston arrangement = aural sexiness

A part of me still died

Pick any year Star played G bugles, because those suck too.

To borrow from another thread, matched grip for snare drums is "bando." A part of my died when I saw SCV playing with matched grip in '94 or '95.

The question becomes then, is the amped sound with better technique worse? Or is the accoustic sound which damages the keys and doesn't create as "true" of a sound but isn't amplified worse?

I have never, ever heard a good connotation for "bando." To me, a bando is the kind of person who thinks they can march corps, but lacks the requisite dedication and talent. To me, it's the worst form of ignorance in the marching idiom. I marched high school band, drum corps and in a Big Ten college marching band. The college marching band had the largest collection of people I would consider "bando." The unifying theme with that particular group was they weren't good and didn't seem to know or care. It drove someone like me, with a drum corps background, absolutely nuts. Then again, in general, I hate it when people aren't good at their jobs and don't seem to care.

That's right. Mics don't improve the sound. They degrade it. It doesn't matter how much the performer improves their own sound when you're amplifying a crappy mic through crappy speakers. DCI can't afford speakers in a concert setting that will accurately reproduce the sound of a live instrument. You are showing a basic misunderstanding of the quality of live versus recorded sound.

^^And herein lies the problem.

Um, Cavies mic'd their soloists too (it also sounded like crap) and since when does a microphone actually improve the sound of a live instrument? Especially through those horrid speakers DCI corps are using. Oi vey.

We will have to agree to disagree then. I thought BD sounded terrible on the Dynasty stuff last year. I agree that Phantom sounds good. Different strokes for different folks. I thought the change in sound of BD on Pearls was huge. It sounded like a different drumline to me this year. In my experience, the actual snare guts can make a HUGE difference in sound. I own a Premier free floater that I bought in 1991. I always loved the snare sound coming out of that drum (I know people have complained in the past that those drums fall apart on tour, but this is my personal drum). In '98, I played a crap Ludwig drum that the Empire Statesmen provided. On a whim, I re-gutted the snares with what was on my Premier...Prince TopSpin tennis string. The difference in sound was amazing. It sounded like a different drum. So, that is part of my secret recipe to great sounding drums...Prince Top Spin Maybe Dynasty makes amazing drums. I just haven't heard it yet. Phantom has come the closest, but that's a data point of one.

You know, I forgot to mention that. I will give Paul R. credit. I will also say that when I was walking up to BD last year in the lot, I thought they were an open class corps based on the sound I heard coming out of the drums.

Yes Mike, we know you think Drum Corps is essentially marching band and that you love woodwinds and that you seem to disagree with like 70% of the people on DCP. I am not advocating using home audiophile gear in a concert venue. I am merely pointing out that $200 speakers ain't going to reproduce acoustical instruments anywhere close to accurately or realistically. This is just my opinion of course, but at the Murfreesboro show, 7 of the 8 corps had major problems with sound reproduction/quality. The only one I didn't notice it with was Boston, and that's because they had minimal electronics/synth usage. I didn't get to hear Teal Sound, so I can't comment on that set up at all.

I don't know. I remember 1 drum corps had Peavy speakers. I quickly looked online and saw the median price for new Peavy speakers seemed to be around $200. And $200 for a speaker is dorm-room quality stuff. Not stuff that is going to reproduce a live instrument (or recorded for that matter) accurately. Maybe Peavy makes some nicer, higher end speakers. Even if they do, are drum corps using those? And even at $800 a pop for their SP3, you're not talking cutting edge technology and/or refinement. The point is, we're not talking about audiophile grade equipment here.

And (and I've said this before) audiophiles spend tens of thousands of dollars trying to reproduce LIVE sound. And that's in a room that's been acoustically balanced. Here we have drum corps using $200 Peavy speakers and expect it to not make people's ears bleed. I am sorry your ears can't pick up what many of our ears are. I don't mean that in a condescending way. It's almost like when someone thinks marching band is drum corps. They don't understand the difference, even though there is a clear difference. You're ears (for some reason) are not picking up the failings of mediocre equipment and poor-quality speakers.

What I wrote is the truth. I don't pull punches. Want me to write something positive? Crossmen's drumline in 1992 was ridiculous (in a good way).

How about they sound like utter garbage? The difference in the sound of Blue Devils drumline this year with Pearl's compared to last year is orders of magnitude better.

To me, almost all the non-acoustical sounds sound fake, thin and out of place. Cheesy patches + crappy speakers = meh drum corps. Yes, if you ruin the sound of an acoustical instrument and run it through a mediocre speaker and compare it to a sample, it will be hard to tell which is crappier.

Doing an all time great show by another corps is dangerous. It's going to draw comparisons, and they usually won't be in the new corps favor. Seeing SCV '10 made me want to see Star '93. While SCV '10 was good, it is no Star '93.

Winner.

The weirdest part of Drumline for me was seeing something different than what my ears were hearing. In fact, at first I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. Then it dawned on me...they dubbed the drumline parts...Oi. In all fairness, some of those lines were playing some harder stuff. They weren't the cleanest beats in the world, but you can find some inverted cheeses if you look hard enough :)

There have been drumlines that have played more notes than Star. But that wasn't the point of that drumline. It was quality of sound. It was the musicality. They played every single note with quality. They didn't rush the right diddles and speed up the left in paradiddles. Accents and taps were given equal respect. It was just an amazing display of quality and sound which I don't think has been rivaled since. And it was ridiculously clean. SCV was a train wreck at the beginning of the season. I know, I saw them beginning of tour and had marched with Tyler Dempsey the year before in 'Coats. And yes, SCV pulled it together at the end. But if you're relying strictly on scores to measure the quality of Star's line that year, then I think you're completely missing the point.

As the founding member of the "1990 Star of Indiana 3:15" to 4:01" Appreciation Society" I most vote 1990. But I also dearly love '91 and '93. I know they had an amazing corps in 1992, but that show never really spoke to me. The hornline was, as always, amazing. The 1993 drumline is the best quality of sound drumline ever. Thom Hannum is my hero.

No worries

I never said it discounts your opinion. Your opinion is your opinion. I just had a feeling that you were younger based on those choices.

Just for the record, there were some of us who would RUN to the stadium after loading the equipment truck to see Star perform in '93. Don't want the boos to get all the credit.