Pit Amplification Almost Worthless..You Decide

[charlie1223]

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Edited August 13, 2013 by charlie1223

[charlie1223]

I hate to break this to you, but miking a marimba and blasting its sound over loudspeakers at a football field is also ridiculed in the concert world.

DCI Percussion Ensembles are now often featured at PASIC and the room is always packed. A decade ago that would not have been the case. The new generation of mallet players are very into WGI and DCI design, approach and style. Many college percussion performance programs have a few members in the activity. And a large portion of the FE members in DCI are in Percussion studios at their university. There are even classical percussion university professors that design and tech world class pits.

Also classical percussionists have been using microphones and electronics long before DCI had allowed them and classical percussionists who are against electronic use shut themselves out to a vast number of 20th century percussion ensemble literature. They do use amplification!

Edited August 13, 2013 by charlie1223

[jonnyboy]

Randoms:

The reasons given for amping the pit were the reasons at the time, but things change, and quite possibly they were only given as reasons so the rule would pass.

Reducing the number of pit players (thus increasing horn lines) might have been a goal at first, but didn't we jump from 136 members to 150 shortly after the amp rule? This negates the need to shrink the pit to add horns.

The "legit" percussion community has always looked sideways at DCI. Who cares. Amping pits hasn't brought more fans either....no biggy. Corps style percussion is so fantastic it can not be denied, it is a stand alone art form in the percussion world.

DCI drumlines have always packed the house at PASIC as far as I can tell. I've attended a few going back to 1990, people in the percussion world want to see what this is all about. Quite a few other percussion rooms or demonstations were less than half full, but not the marching or DCI stuff.

I really have no comment on amping keys, but the slippery slope we jumped on when we allowed amps has gotten steeper and more slippery. Pits so loud your ears hurt? No being able to tell if something is sampled or played live? Thunderous goo? Heck, playing an extended clip several times? Amping horns is tragic IMO.

I might even wish we could go back to the days of just amping the keys.....the good ole days.

[scottgordon]

Let me preface my opinion by pointing out that I have a small recording production and post-production business. I love electronics, mics, mixing, midi, sound reinforcement, etc., use it frequently, and enjoy all of its marvels.

But in drumcorps, I HATE ALL of it - synth, mics, amps, speakers, amped pits, ALL of it.

Every argument I hear in favor of electronics is that it will finally allow drumcorps to sound like something else. Make it sound like concert hall music, or like rock, or like jazz, or nature, or like water.

I love all kinds of music - classical, jazz, rock, folk, techno, celtic, Bulgarian, you name it. And drumcorps. When I go see drumcorps, I am going to hear the rich sounds of 60+ brass and 30+ percussion fill a stadium with a sound that cannot be heard anywhere else. I am not attending to hear synthesized sounds or amplified triangle or thunderous goo being poured out of speakers. All of those sounds are available elsewhere.

I know that it allows other sounds to be heard above the horns and drums - THAT is why I don't like it! I am there to hear the horns and drums and don't want to hear other sounds above them. I know it allows designers to produce all the sounds they wish they couuld produce with the full cornucopia of instruments they've always wanted to use - THAT is why I don't like it! I am there to hear what great drumcorps arrangers can do with 60 horns and 30 drums, because that is a medium that is particularly sublime outdoors - so much so that I would drive for weeks in the summer just to hear it again and again. I don't need to drive to hear synthesizers through speakers - I can do that myself in my living room.

It saddens me to see drumcorps continually diluted because of all this inferiority complex, when drumcorps has a 75-year history of being THE uniquely thrilling apex of acoustic brass and drums.

[Rifuarian]

DCI Percussion Ensembles are now often featured at PASIC and the room is always packed. A decade ago that would not have been the case. The new generation of mallet players are very into WGI and DCI design, approach and style. Many college percussion performance programs have a few members in the activity. And a large portion of the FE members in DCI are in Percussion studios at their university. There are even classical percussion university professors that design and tech world class pits.

Also classical percussionists have been using microphones and electronics long before DCI had allowed them and classical percussionists who are against electronic use shut themselves out to a vast number of 20th century percussion ensemble literature. They do use amplification!

While I support pit amplification - at least in theory - I'm not sure where, or who, you're getting this stuff from. For starters we must not have been going to the same PASIC a decade ago. Pretty much everything you've said held true, in my experience at least, in the pre-amplification era. There was never the level of drum corps vs. classical animosity like what exists in the brass world. While technique might have been different (it wasn't "banging" though), it was generally understood that technique is situational.

The problem is not amplification writ large but rather how we're going about it now. Forcing the sound of dozens of instruments through a handful of speakers in a setup that does not change with the venue and which are controlled by guys who often have little to no experience with electronics.

[skywhopper]

Right on! He is so right. Listen to the Semi's sound quality of BD 2013. it is amazing!

The front-ensemble stuff sounds like something that has been mostly produced in a studio, which it has.

[skywhopper]

You may or may not have been aware but drum corps percussion had been ostracized by much of large Percussion community in the past because of manner of playing was so violently different. What was deemed acceptable and musical in drum corps was down right ridiculed in the concert world.

This is silly. The same arguments could be made about the brass and battery lines, which aside from the trumpets and cymbals don't even play concert instruments. Certainly very few concerts I've attended or played in involved running around, squatting, squashing bugs, and dancing while playing at fffff volume. Are mello players being ostracized by the French horn community? Are the battery players being ostracized? They don't use "concert technique".

Edited August 13, 2013 by skywhopper

[N.E. Brigand]

Every argument I hear in favor of electronics is that it will finally allow drum corps to sound like something else.

Great comments. Thanks!

[Triple Forte]

Number 1: I'm not sorry you hate it.

Thanks....but at least feel sorry for the thousands of other fans I have spoke to directly who also don't like (Never said hate) amplification and electronics in drum corps

Number 2: If you are not a keyboard player how so you even know what is correct technique? If you look at all the top corps they play with exceptional technique and YES amplifying the pit has helped that along. The one thing people don't understand is that amplifying pit doesn't mean they don't have to play loudly or high it allows the entire spectrum of technique and sound to sound correct from far away.

You are correct. I am not a keyboard player or a player of anything percussion. I am quoting the 'Correct technique' from people I know who have played drum corps percussion, instructed drum corps percussion and judged marching percussion (DC, Band, indoor...etc.). There are a couple from right here in the dcp community.

Number 3: The number of people you have in the pit is not just about volume but colors and harmonies as well. Cadets pit had the same number of keyboard players and synth players as every other top pit in DCI. If there numbers were actually 1 or 2 people more its because of there timpani and rack players who's certain colors are changed from far away without the help of amplification.

Cadets had 16 in the pit fulltime. The closest to that was 14. I counted all world class corps pit members in allentown and during loud and live.

Number 4: Amplifyed Front Ensembles with electronics are ####### amazing and Pits have never sounded better than they do now. NEVER. There is no valid argument to dispute this otherwise. I cannot believe that people want to return to the rinky tink pits of the past.

To me...the pit should be considered like marinade and seasoning on food. It should never overpower the meal...it is meant to enhance it. One step at a time...the pit has become overbearing (Massively overbearing in some cases) to all of the other musical elements on the field. Something is wrong when 10 - 16 people can overpower 80 (In some cases over 100) people. There is nothing ####### amazing about that.

>>I cannot believe that people want to return to the rinky tink pits of the past

I want to return to being able to hear all musical elements in balance with each other. How terrible of me....

Edited August 14, 2013 by Triple Forte

[Triple Forte]

Everything is George Hopkins fault yet is was voted on and I see almost every corps doing it so....

With that being said, I think amplification could be used correctly but the other electronic "junk" and mic'ing of horn soloists are a little too far in my opinion

GH gets the majority of the blame from me because.....

He proposed the idea

He got the ball rolling

He planted the seed

You pick.....