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2014 Cavaliers marimbas


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Great article, thank you for posting!

Also, good lord that sounds like quite the logistical challenge to get all that going: stuff that most people would never think/notice unless it were wrong (such as having to set each marimba differently on the sound board to account for various degrees of sound delay). REALLY makes you appreciate that show more (not that I didn't already massively appreciate the work/effort/performance of that)

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None of the majors amplifies keyboard instruments by using actual mics - they use pickups located on the frame, which would NOT pick up sounds of non-key stroke actions around the frame (like guard members or bass drummers standing on the frame).

As for Cavaliers, I was assuming that they had pickups on the marimbas, particularly since that instrument doesn't project well to begin with, and putting them further upstage would only make it worse. Perhaps one of their ageouts will chime in.

I can tell you from experience this is not true. I don't know of ANY groups (in finals anyway) that use contact mics for keyboards. You would get a TON of "thump" from the frame noise if you put them on the frame.

Most groups either suspend their mics from bungee cable, which sounds kind of ghetto, but actually works REALLY well. The rest of groups use traditional mic stands clamped on to the frame with a shock mount to get rid of the afore mentioned "thump".

Most all groups use mics with some sort of directional cardioid mic. This helps a ton with not picking up other sounds, even though there will still be some bleed through.

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I can tell you from experience this is not true. I don't know of ANY groups (in finals anyway) that use contact mics for keyboards. You would get a TON of "thump" from the frame noise if you put them on the frame.

Most groups either suspend their mics from bungee cable, which sounds kind of ghetto, but actually works REALLY well. The rest of groups use traditional mic stands clamped on to the frame with a shock mount to get rid of the afore mentioned "thump".

Most all groups use mics with some sort of directional cardioid mic. This helps a ton with not picking up other sounds, even though there will still be some bleed through.

Randy May makes incredibly awesome suspended mic set-ups that attach to the frames underneath. I believe all of the Yamaha corps likely use those (or custom variations of them maybe)

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