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DeKalb, IL - Saturday, July 13, 2019


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32 minutes ago, HolyNOLA said:

Do they? We didn't have Amps and people heard us just fine. 

Times change. I’m not loving the amp stuff but it’s a different time with different opportunities and expectations.

Amplification is here to stay, like it or not. I just wish there was a way to limit it and make it equal for all crops.

Edited by MikeRapp
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Well,.everyone has their own unique mics, speakers, amps, and mixers, so....

What I really object to is the "cheating" of using amplification of the entire brassline. Hornline's unamplified volume levels used to generate plenty of excitement and were a certain measure of comparison for us to discuss. There's no way to know who has the loudest hornline anymore, and the audio engineer just needs to dial it up to 11 whenever they want, for a little extra music GE.

And I think can all agree that amping the pits, while not without some benefits, is overdone a lot during the season. Some of us see only a show or two early in the season and it would be nice is corps weren't still figuring out how to not deafen the audience with the pit volume level.

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1 hour ago, Mello Dude said:

Not of the entire line though.  80+ horns should not need it.  There is ZERO organic feel to Bloo's music.  Amazing show don't get me wrong but....judged activity based on what..a sound system?

 

Yes, Bluecoats entire show sounds and feels pre-recorded.

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1 hour ago, Terri Schehr said:

In the old rca dome, I was watching a corps that had put their horns down and you could still hear them playing.  It was that bad. Pre amplification. They’ve gotten much better at it, for one thing. With the speaker stacks, the sound is directed. The higher quality of equipment creates better audio.  That includes the sound engineers, too. 

 The first few years in that building(Lucas Oil) my seat would shake and I actually had my hands over my ears for one Corps.  It was almost painful. Back then, they just turned those things to 11. 

The old Hoosier Dome (pre naming rights!) was a nightmare for playing.  ISSMA State Finals were there so I marched it four times. The whole design of the place as a 'cloth top' dome suspended by structure and air meant the sound gets lost.  When you're in the tunnel they'd open the door and you'd get this vacuum like effect of air rushing into the tunnel.  There'd be whatever noise (the band before you or crowd) for about 15 seconds then it was like cotton balls went into your ears as you left the tunnel.  

On the field, you couldn't hear someone even 15 yards away it seemed so it was unlike any other venue you'd played all year and all your training to 'listen across the arc' was pretty much gone.  It became a need to follow the DM for your section of the field and the DM's responsibility to keep the band from phasing side to side.  After a bit, you could get more 'used' to the new sound and manage better even though you weren't hearing across the field, you could hear the sections or blocks nearest to you and in a patchwork way, keep together better.  

But. the echo was notorious. Once the sound got sucked up (or so it seemed) it'd bounce around in that dome. Like Terri said, you could stop playing and horns down and it'd be awhile before the sound stopped.  The phasing up the stands was weird too so the pit would have to actually play ahead of the DM on the box a bit and the DM's for the backfield sections would push a bit ahead to try to time everything to the press box.  If you were down low or up high from the box, You could expect some visual/audio unsync ... in person.    I remember it was illegal to use a drum click for timing to march off field because even that click would reverb around the dome to the point it was distracting between bands.  You'd have a band trying to click on and the other click off and it'd just be disaster time.  So we'd sotto voce "left left left" in what is now a form of dutting.

More than one band had nasty tears their first run in that building. I remember my sister's senior year when they moved ISSMA finals there from Terre Haute for the first time (1984).  They were playing Savannah River Holiday for the opener and it phased something horrible, they got it together for the rest of the show but still finished second to Ben Davis if only because all the bands struggled to adapt to that place.  

I have no idea how Lucas Oil Stadium compares as I've never been in it.  But that Hoosier Dome was a hot mess.

Edited by KVG_DC
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10 hours ago, MikeRapp said:

Maybe Cavaliers need to go co-Ed.

Made you look!

They already have; they’re alive & well and located in the Silicon Valley. 

Made you look!

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13 hours ago, FlamMan said:

Yes, Bluecoats entire show sounds and feels pre-recorded.

watch visual rehearsal sometime when just the pit and drumlines are playing, you will hear how little the pit is actually enhancing the horn line.  those horns are doing it all on their own.

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