APD questions

[ohbaby]

I did not renew my subscription this year after two years of service and to this point I am glad that I did not. It seems to be taking DCI (and yes,.. I did ask them directly) way to long to upload the APD's after the shows this year. I am glad to have the ones from the Crown show and they sound great. Speaking of Crown, they have a studio release of their show, does anybody know if you can download the entire program? I am not sure if I want to pay $.99 for about 30 seconds of Paint It Black. I am not sure if you have to download all of the tracks in order to have the entire program.

[KakkoiiOtaku]

Yes there are four tracks you must download to have the entire program from the Pre-season Recording Session. They are, in order from the Fan Network but not show order:

Ballad

Paint it Black

Symphonic Dances

Emerson Lake Palmer Mix

Symphonic Dances contains the entire Pre-show, Bohemian Rhapsody Impact and, of course, Symphonic Dances. It's about 5 minutes long. Paint it Black has the entire Paint it Black section and the "Eruption" like section. Ballad is the entire Ballad (Bohemian Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini). And the last is the entire closer. With those four tracks, you will have the entire show as it was at the time of the Pre-season Recording. The Pre-show is a minute longer and there were other things that were changed before the Muncie APD was recorded. The other four tracks are, I'm assuming, all part of their Encore Material (the only one I'm not sure of is the Karnevil no 9) except for one track which is just a single track of the first part of the Pre-show (up to the Synth entrance between the Percussion Feature and the Bohemian Rhapsody Impact).

I do agree with you that this is becoming a bit frustrating with the Fan Network. They uploaded the Muncie APD's the day after the show. However, it has now been four days since Stanford and, as of this post, still no APD's. Also, it's been three days since Old Bridge and no APD's. VOD's for Stanford are up and, in my opinion, those take longer to produce. In previous years, you could count on the APD's being up by the end of the day the day after the show. So, I'm starting to get frustrated with the fact that the Fan Network was $20 more expensive this year, but not the quality of years past, at this point.

Also, I'm frustrated at the lack of the Behind the Scenes content that we're seeing. I know that the Podcasts the corps produce are a free part of the Fan Network, but still. For example, The Cadets are now doing all their stuff on their newly free All Access. I think Blue Devils are doing everything on their own subscription service MediaBox now. Then, even those corps still using the Fan Network are not uploading as much as they used to. Again, for example, Carolina Crown only has one CROWNminute up so far and it was uploaded 12 days ago. In years past, most corps would have released probably at least 5 - 10 videos at this point. In fact, I think there are very few corps this year being really active with their podcast type videos like the Blue Stars and Cavaliers who have released 8 videos each so far. Phantom Regiment have also released 6 from the beginning of Spring Training up to now. I don't know if the corps have just lost interest in doing these videos or what ... but I know that a lot of fans loved these videos. I know the first year it was done in 2007 when it was known as CorpsTV ... I loved seeing the CrownCast videos that were put up. They were fantastic. It's always great to see what the corps you love is up to. Also, I am just using Crown as an illustrative example and not trying to slam the corps staff or their video staff in any way. Another example is Santa Clara Vanguard who have not released a Behind the Scenes video since a video that was dedicated to their January Camp on February 17. Madison Scouts have released nothing since 8/8/10. Spirit of Atlanta, a corps who is trying to get back to it's roots and has seemingly found it's identity again have only released 2 videos from the beginning of Spring Training until now. If it were me, I would make sure lots of videos were released by Spirit of Atlanta to illustrate HOW they are reclaiming their identity and HOW they are getting back to their roots. Even if it was just a weekly or bi-weekly video of a member answering the questions "What does Spirit of Atlanta mean to you?" and "How do you feel you are helping the corps reclaim their identity?" or even "What does it mean, to you, to be marching with this corps now that they are called Spirit of Atlanta again?" It's just disappointing.

Anyway, all that being said, I'm not trying to slam any corps for not making these videos. I know they don't have to make these videos at all. I just wish that if they decide to make them that they would make more. There used to be way more content uploaded across the board for every corps.

Edited June 29, 2011 by KakkoiiOtaku

[skywhopper]

Yes there are four tracks you must download to have the entire program from the Pre-season Recording Session. They are, in order from the Fan Network but not show order:

Ballad

Paint it Black

Symphonic Dances

Emerson Lake Palmer Mix

Symphonic Dances contains the entire Pre-show, Bohemian Rhapsody Impact and, of course, Symphonic Dances. It's about 5 minutes long. Paint it Black has the entire Paint it Black section and the "Eruption" like section. Ballad is the entire Ballad (Bohemian Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini). And the last is the entire closer. With those four tracks, you will have the entire show as it was at the time of the Pre-season Recording.

This really bugs me how it's set up. I might buy the recording if it were one track for 3.99 (I've bought past years' pre-season APD by Crown, gladly), but the way it's set up, even if I know that those four tracks are what I want because I looked on another site to find that out, only in a different order, I can't see it being worth the hassle. Please, Crown or DCI, either make it clear which tracks are which or better yet, provide just a single track. Are there people clamoring for multi-track APDs?

[skywhopper]

Also, I'm frustrated at the lack of the Behind the Scenes content that we're seeing. I know that the Podcasts the corps produce are a free part of the Fan Network, but still. For example, The Cadets are now doing all their stuff on their newly free All Access. I think Blue Devils are doing everything on their own subscription service MediaBox now.

BD and Cadets definitely seem to be trying the hardest in this area. But with their current setups, you have to go to multiple places to find things. And while Facebook and Twitter are great in some ways, they also lack any good way to aggregate everything in one place. Not to mention that while I love to see any video or audio clips or corps news that gets posted, I don't want to see all the question-of-the-day stuff that, eg, Crown posts to Facebook.

What I'd love to see is some central service sending out corps news, videos, audioclips, etc. Sign up, check the corps you want to get updates from, and then have one page to go to, or RSS feed, or app or whatever that all that stuff streams through.

As for video updates from the corps, I think they are all trying too hard to make them slick productions. They don't have to be HD, they don't need an audio track, they don't even need to be edited. Just take a Flip, talk to a corps member for a couple of minutes, take a couple of minutes video of warmups or rehearsal or setup or on the bus or at mealtimes, or whatever, once or twice a week, and upload it. It doesn't have to be complicated. In fact, I much prefer to see a five minute, barely edited, low-res video with real members being themselves, and snippets of real rehearsal etc, rather than the slick productions with dramatic music and titles.

But if you could get all of that in one place, organized simply (what of this they had on the Fan Network was very hard to dig through), you'd get a ton of people more involved and more interested, for a longer period of time.

[audiodb]

What I'd love to see is some central service sending out corps news, videos, audioclips, etc. Sign up, check the corps you want to get updates from, and then have one page to go to, or RSS feed, or app or whatever that all that stuff streams through.

That's what the Fan Network would be, if all involved parties worked together. Have you submitted this suggestion to any of the corps? I think you should.

[MikeN]

Yes there are four tracks you must download to have the entire program from the Pre-season Recording Session. They are, in order from the Fan Network but not show order:

Ballad

Paint it Black

Symphonic Dances

Emerson Lake Palmer Mix

Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I've even seen the show and couldn't figure it out.

Mike

[drumcat]

Stanford is posted now.

A couple things... the originals all needed TLC for a balance issue at Stanford. Lots of TLC, but they're good now. That accounts for some of the delay.

For the Carolina Crown tracks, Crown sets the pricing, and the way they want to sell their tracks. I, like you, didn't know if or what the order was by listening. I'll see if I can go back and sort the display without breaking it. However, many customers do like the tracks cut up. To each their own, I guess.

Finally, if you want more than a few APDs, we're going to put up a mega-bundle tomorrow for all three early shows for $19.95. And for a couple of itchy posters I've seen lately, I do not know what time tomorrow... so don't shoot me if it's not up by 11am. Thanks. :)

[KakkoiiOtaku]

Thank you for letting us know what's going on. I, personally, knew something had to be going on because APD's were usually up the next day or the day after, at the latest, in years past. And I can definitely understand if there were problems with the raw audio how that can take a while to clean up. I've done some audio cleaning myself and completely understand how long that can take. Anyway, I'm downloading what I wanted from Stanford and am eagerly awaiting Old Bridge.

Thank you again for always being so good about answering these questions. Not many people would.

[leed17]

Stanford is posted now.

A couple things... the originals all needed TLC for a balance issue at Stanford. Lots of TLC, but they're good now. That accounts for some of the delay.

For the Carolina Crown tracks, Crown sets the pricing, and the way they want to sell their tracks. I, like you, didn't know if or what the order was by listening. I'll see if I can go back and sort the display without breaking it. However, many customers do like the tracks cut up. To each their own, I guess.

Finally, if you want more than a few APDs, we're going to put up a mega-bundle tomorrow for all three early shows for $19.95. And for a couple of itchy posters I've seen lately, I do not know what time tomorrow... so don't shoot me if it's not up by 11am. Thanks. :)

Two questions -

1. Where is the Pioneer APD from Muncie?

2. $19.95 for all three shows? That means those of us downloaded Muncie already got burned financially????

[drumcat]

Bundle Link

OK, as promised, the audio is posted.

Old Bridge is posted. The SuperBundle is an early-season steal.

And @leed17 - Pioneer had a licensing issue that we took care of. They're available, and included in the big bundle. Also, if you purchase the bundle, send in a support request and we'll credit back for anything you already bought. We don't have a "complete your album" function. :)

Thanks all for your patience in the big experiment.