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Dear Tom Blair


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Having watched the semis and finals stream, I can say that the audio on Finals night was much improved, balance wise between the field and amps. At least with the corps I was paying the most attention to. There were some weird things going on semis night with the audio, particularly from Crown. But it sounded fine on finals night. Obviously, the audio on the Blu-rays is completely remixed, but you can't fix everything.

Edited by skywhopper
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I was talking about the APD from FN. They only have the World Prelims available for download.

I tend to adjust the volume each year myself on those. If you use iTunes like I do, you can go in and raise the volume in the options of the file. I usually do this when I go in and organize and change all of the tags so they display as I want them.

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Why would you want to "replicate audience perspective"?

I look forward to recordings so that I can hear the details I missed due to screaming fans, crying babies, talking neighbors and mid-show ovations.

Probably for the same reason most people feel today's music is too overproduced and too "perfect". Overdoing the mix takes the personal element out of it.

I'm a huge fan of the band Phish and collect their live audio soundboard recordings. With their recordings as well as my drum corps recordings, I want to feel like I was there even though I may not have been.

The event is what it is, a live performance. Don't over produce it and try to make it sound like it was done in a studio.

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If the audio recording was done correctly, and I believe they where. EACH separate microphone would be recorded on a separate track. Then back in the shop the engineers will mix and use their magic to blend it all together. If it was mixed on site and recorded it will be hard to clean up. The same goes for video feeds from each camera.

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Are you talking about the Semis videos on Fannetwork?

I think those are different than usual, the quality seems to be really subpar. Most of the audio doesn't even seem to be in stereo and the resolution is terrible.

Listening to it on headphones you notice that it is in stereo. I'm always going to demand better quality, though.

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Those of us who 'do audio for a living' will merely suggest that the topic's subject assumes too much.

I would not assume that Tom's team is handling the live stream or the audio for any streams other than Nationals finals -- I don't suspect Tom's team does much exceptt provide a video feed from the truck to the web administrator for web replication. As someone who has had to deal with many German, Korean, Chinese production trucks feeds in NTSC and PAL formats over the years, trust me when I say the web stream has many more chances of losing quality due to the limitation of the truck / feed replicator that provides source to the web stream.

I watched every web stream this year and at least 75% of the web streams produced by DCI were done independently of a production truck with one camera and it's own microphone setup, independent from the 'pros'.

What I'm saying is that there are other team(s) that do the live internet stream than Tom's team, sometimes with different microphones and setups. This simply depends on who is available to DCI to perform this service.

I'd suggest that the consistency of DCI's audio recordings from CD to DVD to web has been suspect over the years simply because of differing manpower and ears making the mastering decisions. It has not always been Tom since the beginning, and those with good taste can probably accurately label the years that Tom has and has not mastered these recordings. When it has been Tom, I have noticed and loved it. Even made mention of it to him a couple of times and had a short email conversation about that.

At the end of the day, mastering is all about taste.

It's possible that the Blu Rays are recorded and mastered from a completely different set of microphones than the ones used to capture the stream sent to the web. Consider everyone that DCI may not be interested in providing the best master of the corps via the web but rather via the permanent archives they sell us, i.e. Blu Ray CD and DVD after some time to master them. The live 'master' of the stream would simply be a reflection of the best mix they could come up with given time, budget, manpower and equipment restraints. TTThere is also simply the limit of bandwidth at the event that can be used safely to provide a smooth streaming experience for we end users.

For Tom: I love your work and appreciate the time you donate to DCI for this work. We see here how the masses (even pro audio guys) put you on the hook for things that you may not control. However, maybe internal communication and planning can be facilitated by DCI mgmt to provide the fans at home who aren't aware of this to receive a more consistent listening experience from event to event to avoid these assumptions.

Simple standards and practices can be defined to standardize the sound for DCI. But you know this already, Tom, because you are the man. Thanks for everything you do for DCI. <3

Thanks to the OP for having high standards. This leads to consistency and success, especially in recording.

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This might explain why I diskike the electronics... been listening to Fan Network and not going to enough shows, LOL.

But garfield, aren't you a Fan Network season subscriber who's preordered Blu-Rays... so can't you check the finals mix now? Or are you waiting before ordering the Blu-Rays to see what gets cut from the disks due to licensing issues à la Jeff Ream... fool him once...

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Do we expect licensing issues?

yes. While Madison's ESOM was a known potential issue all year long that year, last year we found out about stuff after the vids/cds shipped. Stuff you never would have imagined

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If the audio recording was done correctly, and I believe they where. EACH separate microphone would be recorded on a separate track. Then back in the shop the engineers will mix and use their magic to blend it all together. If it was mixed on site and recorded it will be hard to clean up. The same goes for video feeds from each camera.

Yes, I think they recorded something like 24 separate tracks.

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