brichtimp

I downloaded a few of the Finals shows, primarily for viewing on computer and iPad....the video and audio quality are very good.....good enough that I am not going the Blu-Ray route this year.

Bingo!

That 2014 Tilt show was one of the best, especially the ballad. It wears well. A bit ironic that not until the very last night of the season were Coats able to score above the Cadets, which was the last time the latter landed in the top 3.

C2 brass and percussion both grabbed 2nd in their captions...impressive considering how strong Bucs were.

Kidsgrove was quite awesome....they basically gave a marching precision and drill lesson to a bunch of corps, and the quality of their brass sound was quite fine, IMHO.

Bucs scored 19.8 to C2's 19.7 in Percussion....C2 also took 2nd in Brass......props to Bucs and C2.

C2 Percussion came within one tenth of repeating as high percussion...so cool!

My son, who has teched C2 snares this year and last, tells me that C2 lost to Bucs in that caption by 0.1. A productive night!

Snare line was killer!

Same via Apple TV.....was great yesterday.

Similar to 2014 in terms of staging, and that was also a strong battery.

Seemed like the battery was tacet for close to 3 minutes last night at the start of the show. IMHO, a waste of one of the Cadets' traditional strengths.

Everyone has a different history of drum corp fandom. Way back in my college days in So Cal, our most talented brass players enjoyed watching VK and Kingsmen (pre DCI), but did not see them as the north star for emulation in their playing. They were, instead, carrying around the latest CSO recording (Mahler 5, etc.) and looking to get that orchestral sound on the football field. Now, over the decades, my view is that the depth of quality brass and percussion talent in DCI has never been greater; and when I can hear it, undiluted by poor amplification, the musical satisfaction and enjoyment is great, especially with the incredible arrangements and creativity in the activity. That said, I believe there is something to be said for the iconic uniforms that helped define the top corps, and I dislike the idea of that apparent change. This year, SCV and Coats are a little too similar in that regard, but that's just me.

I have to say that once I got home today, my Flo stream was ok for sound and really variable for video quality, and this is via Apple TV on a 250 MB Xfinity account. Hope the next two nights are acceptable.

Yes, what a concept...great sound and cool drill!

Feed is good on a train via iPad and LTE.... sound is awesome!

Which totally justifies throttling back on the crap that is largely uncontrollable.

The #### poor implementation is a root cause for a lot of this discussion, and with variables like wildly divergent performance venues and very short time allotted for set-up in competition, I think the 'adults' need to tamp down the bass synth and ampliified volume...seriously. When I view HD video up at the Berlin Phil's Digital Concert Hall, there are all manner of microphones being utilized, but it's primarily in a single venue where the production values have been expertly implemented over the past decade. The result is sound reproduction that does justice to that great ensemble. With DCI, we have to wait for a Blu Ray disc to hear what we couldn't hear well in the lousy acoustics of Lucas Oil, and the latter did no favor live, even to the famous Tilt pitch bend sequence....ymmv.

Sorry that you did not understand me! The fact that the top corps these days have great young brass and percussion masters exacerbates my annoyance with their natural sound being distorted, corrupted or otherwise degraded by amateur-hour electronics and amplification. In my mind, go back and watch Felliniesque...for me, that's a positive example of what I want to hear in terms of sound quality...the micing of the soloists was superb, and the tutti sections featured excellent sound quality from my seat at least.

Regardless of what one thinks about the relative balance of educational value and hyped visual aspects in the commercial world vis-a-vis DCI, I think the implementation of synth brass and poorly amplified electronics cheats the audience (including aspiring young players) out of the aural and visceral experience of learning what great brass and percussion actually sound like, which IMHO, is part and parcel of drum corps history, and an educational experience rarely obtained short of ponying up to hear the Chicago Symphony, et al.

I never view the SCV or BD pits and wish they were smaller. What they bring to the party is really off the charts! The over use of amplified everything in DCI is a FUBAR to my ears. Beyond spotlight mics on soloists, I want to hear these excellent brass and percussion ensembles in their 'natural' state. I imagine there must be more than a few talented Contras in some corps who are frustrated by the hyped bass synth which obscures a lot of the low end with crappy sound...."Synthnado" if you will. For my enjoyment as a fan, this needs to be addressed.

Instructive that two of the top shows this year, BD and Coats, do not allow their monster brass and drums to subjugate to vocals. IMHO, both Crown and Cadets are suffering with their over- emphasis of vocals.

Karel Husa would dig this, I think.

Very cool performance!

One design consideration that became obvious to me when viewing BD last night. Their voiceovers seldom (if ever) layer concurrently with the brass....nothing to get in the way of that beast of a horn line. IMHO, that would be a worthy objective for Cadets.