txpride

Hey Piper. Got it. :-) it was late last night when I posted and I was tired and cranky. No worries. :-)

Oh and I almost forgot myself....(I can forget too). You can get all types of brass instruments and in some cases...bells that are solid sterling silver with no brass. You can get different types of plating that respond differently. Does it mean one is better than another. Heck no! I have about 6 different horns in about 5 different cases and I use ALL of them depending on the need. So why do you feel that the type of drum head you would use should be "one size fits all". In most cases, I myself prefer the sound of kevlar. But obvisouly even the Cavie caption head felt that there was a need for a change to mylar for part of their show this year. I think his expertise is reputable, no?

Hey Piper. I get it. This discussion was not meant to be an argument as to which was "better". Perhaps read on a little and detect that we are discussing why the caption head for Cavaliers chose mylar for part of this year's Cavalier show...and how it created some unique charactoristics that fit the music better.

Here's an interesting question to call for some speculation. Now that the Cavies have by association made these heads and that sound acceptable once again, do you think some high schools might start going back to them - if for no other reason than perhaps cost? I've always kind of thought that the Kevlar only works with high schools that have larger snarelines anyway. A high school with 3 snares tuned high and dry (absolutely no pun intended) sound a little thin and expose the errors more (speaking totally from an outdoor perspective). Mylar might actually be more practical for small to mid sized high school programs for the sake of cost as well as sound for a smaller and younger ensemble. Yes? No? Thoughts from percussion experts?

Yeah, I thought it would be a good thread and hopefully some decent (and civil) discussion. The article is great and the best part is that Mike appears to have no regrets over the decision. And I do hope that those ovetones mean that we can expect to hear that sound again in the future.

Yeah, I felt the same way - even though I'm not a drummer.

Ok, I found it. GREAT article! Interesting that the staff innitially had the same reservations as actucker up above - until they in fact tried it. He mentioned the way they blended particularly well with the mellos (which ironically our horn books are heavier with these days). He also mentioned how much better it fit the swing section due to the types of charactoristic issues I brought up. This leads me to wonder if we are making false assumtpions in thkinking that the dryer and more articulate sounds balance better in a dome. If you think about it (and ask any sound tech), the higher end frequency overpowers that of the mid range (which the mylar has) and especially indoors. When I listen to the dry articulate sounds of kevlar indoors (especially in a dome), it often just sounds like noise. Rim shots and diddles sound like clicking and bibis hitting bricks and the echo is over the top and sometimes downright annoying. We often blame the bass drums but honestly, I think it's the high end of the snares that overpower. Again, I love the mylar sound too...but maybe we have it backwards. Again, ask any sound tech what they would do with the high end in any arena concert and they will tell you that they try to eliminate as much of the high end as possible. This sounds backwards from how we often think of indoor drum tuning - which again makes me wonder if we've had it backwards all along (and Cavies may have just proved it). Just a thought.

Interesting you mention "education". There are also legal exceptions to media deemed as for "educaional purposes". Again, we're just throwing out the baby with the bathwater. How about we just use our brains? If it's TRULT copyrighted, absolutely! Censor it, PLEASE! But do your fricken homework first and make sure it's illegal. To just blindly ban all youtube material "unless linked from a corps website" is not only absurd and excessive, it's LAZY!

So again, I want to read that article. Where is it?

Epic use of sarcasm, Hammondbrass! :-) It plays to my point quite nicely. Thanks! I suppose what I would further suggest is that by just blindly banning anything drum corps related on youtube that's "not linked to an actual drum corps site" is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I fully agree with the censorship of copyrighted meterial. But not every private drum corps video on youtube is copyrighted material. Brass and drumline warm ups certainly are not.

Seriously though, there is NOTHING illegal about a hornline or drumline playing warm up routines. To ban those types of media is absurd!

Was just reading the youtube guideline threads. Really? Warm ups are even banned? You mean to tell me that a drumline playing 8 on a hand or a hornline playing a lips slur or chord progression is copyright infringement? I get the rest, but that one seems a little excessive - unless I'm reading it wrong. And by the way, even if a hornline uses a melody in their chord progression (space chords etc...) Technically by law it has to be a certain length to be considered copyright infringement. One quote of Close Encounters does not count. Can we re-think this and not be so OCD about it?

Cool, Fusebone! :)

Where is that article? I'd like to read it.

Hmmm...interesting. I would think the mylar sound would be more like a concert snare sound indoors - giving it a more true character in the context of the rest of the ensemble. I guess the difference is in the numbers within a snare line. Which brings me to another thought. What about smaller snare lines or perhaps splitting a snare line in half? I just really liked it and even if it's rare, I hope it's not the last time I ever hear that sound in a world class drum corps again.