Field Mics for Entire Ensemble

[Ghost]

1 hour ago, WaxDCIFan said:

  There was a day when it wasn’t hard to hear Madison trumpet soloists in the stands without mikes...

G horns and let it all hang out maybe?

[MikeD]

1 hour ago, ajlemm said:

I read this topic as “field mice for entire ensemble “, and I was both mystified and a tad creeped out. I see that my reaction was similar to those that understood the actual premise.

 

Maybe it is about both....

 

Edited July 7, 2018 by MikeD

[WaxDCIFan]

20 minutes ago, Ghost said:

G horns and let it all hang out maybe?

Even more recently...  B flat horns, Empire State of Mind a few years ago.  Might still be able to find it on you tube if you look hard enough.  No mikes required.  Seems many Corps are defaulting to mikes for soloists even when they are standing on the front sideline instead of turning the bell towards the stands and playing louder.

[Lead]

2 hours ago, Fred Windish said:

I accept this (overuse) is what happens with any endeavor so creative. Decision makers stretch the limits of what they can get away with. Artificial enhancement really should be carefully limited.  Amplifying a soloist makes very good sense, for example. On the other hand, using electronics to insert a dub of a musician who pretends to be playing live really disturbs me. Some posters claim this actually happens. Don't know for sure, but there have been times while watching FLO when I did sense that goes on, too.

As in the Cavaliers dubbing the vocal section over the ensemble?

[WaxDCIFan]

25 minutes ago, Lead said:

As in the Cavaliers dubbing the vocal section over the ensemble?

Several Corps are doing the same this year - vocals dubbed over corps but not actually being performed by a musician on the field.  Ridiculous.

[luv4corps]

3 hours ago, WaxDCIFan said:

Shameless plug for Genesis .... their staff believes in making the kids PLAY, so no mikes on the field anywhere / ever, even if makes them less competitive against the amplified competition.

It sounds different... a corps just playing their butts off and a corps that is playing their butts off with mics.  I prefer just playing their butts off too!  

Edited July 7, 2018 by luv4corps

[Fran Haring]

On 7/7/2018 at 9:18 AM, Cadevilina Crown said:

 

Eventually, it was determined that the reason designers were trying to do this in the first place was not necessarily to make the corps louder, but to ensure everyone in the stadium is getting the same quality of sound (i.e. brass sound quality does not suffer if you’re sitting far away from the 50). 

That's an admirable goal, and I hope it's achieved some day.

 Last  summer, our seats for DCI East (the Saturday show) were out near the goal line.... and there were several instances when the brass sound coming through the speakers down by us was, for lack of a better term, artificial. At the time, we didn't know about SCV miking their " featured" players, and there were several "is it live, or is it Memorex" moments during their performance. LOL. It wasn't just SCV... there were various "not quite acoustic" sounds from several horn  lines.

 It made for a less than ideal experience for us.... and please understand, neither I nor my fiancee are "get off my lawn" curmudgeons when it comes to modern-day drum corps. We're fine with a lot of the new stuff... but the whole "field miking entire ensembles" thing is disturbing. Like I said up top.... I hope this can be worked out to the benefit of the paying customers some day.

 

 

Edited July 9, 2018 by Fran Haring

[Jim Schehr]

I get it. I understand why they do it. I don’t dislike it. I remember when brass lines filled the stadium without microphones and remember soloist who not only played over those brass lines but who could fill an entire stadium no matter where your seats were. Don’t know if it was because of the player, the instrument or both, but I remember. 

Edited July 7, 2018 by Jim Schehr

[Fracker]

I don't know about the rules but I will say that blanket shotgun mic'ing is AWFUL.  I was at two Colts shows where they had at least 6 shotgun mics, and every one of their big hits (and most of the rest of the show) were nearly 100% speaker volume and almost no acoustic.  Its gross, its blatantly obvious (even the casual show-goers were commenting), its not FUN for the audience, but sadly, I think it help them beat the Scouts who had (at least on a brass level) a MUCH better sound. 

Phantom and Cavaliers seemed to have learned their lesson from last year and their mic set up is pretty good, but the Colts are a huge offender and need to be called out.  I think they're a great group-- loved last year's show-- but this year its torture to listen to them play because of the shotguns.

[Bluzes]

1 hour ago, luv4corps said:

It sounds different... a corps just playing their butts off and a corps that is playing their butts off with mics.  I prefer just playing their butts off too!  

Hats off to Genesis and they sound just as good and loud as corps that do!!!!!