Should this tech device should be illegal?

[ranintothedoor]

You can make the "no met" rule, which I applaud... but, same with the age limits, I'm positive you have some kid, in some corps, who slipped through marched as a 23 year old, or whatever.  Hard to enforce, so you gotta build and maintain a culture of honor.  

[Lance]

is there a specific content category that takes into account difficulty and achievement regarding "lining up tricky passages, lining up cold attacks/front to back moments, etc?

Or is that accounted for under "rep" with GE?

[KVG_DC]

4 hours ago, mingusmonk said:

It is not realistically attainable to manage 165 IEMs moving dynamically across a 57,000 square foot field for precise execution needs of all performers today. Want proof? Nobody is doing it. Not that the creative minds we have in audio engineering haven't considered all of this and beyond. Their evaluations of the benefits of attempting such feat have left them on the side of "not today."

The 'no one is doing it' might also have something to do with the curse of LoS on wireless mics in the first place.  With the number of times mics in DCI and BOA shows going haywire due to what channel to be on and the next group working their system the potential disaster of a corps trained to use this sort of tech perfectly to the point they're relying on it to do more complicated cross field listening and coordination of the ensemble suddenly having an transmission/reception "dead spot" in a section of the field would be...tragically exposing.  

[ranintothedoor]

12 minutes ago, KVG_DC said:

The 'no one is doing it' might also have something to do with the curse of LoS on wireless mics in the first place.  With the number of times mics in DCI and BOA shows going haywire due to what channel to be on and the next group working their system the potential disaster of a corps trained to use this sort of tech perfectly to the point they're relying on it to do more complicated cross field listening and coordination of the ensemble suddenly having an transmission/reception "dead spot" in a section of the field would be...tragically exposing.  

Yup.  This is the very brakes that keep everyone from going nut-ball on all this. 

I see it as a good thing... Limitations like this, cost, logistics, etc. keep the "toys" of DCI (and WGI) in check and allow the heart of it all (brass, percussion, guard) to continue on.  It also gives the little guy a chance to stay competitive.      

[Lead]

Just saying... we all know that the fact that we are currently discussing it means people have already been doing it for 8-10 years, right? Because they have. 

High school bands are now getting into it too.

[wolfgang]

This is tangental, but definitely tech-related. Big XII LED-powered floor

See ESPN link. Big 12 announced they will use LED floor for their basketball conference tournament.

Now, this is a stadium thing and not a corps thing, and I cannot imagine an NFL owner or city spending extra $ **unless** there is advertising revenue to be made, but...

If Lucas Oil Stadium had a fiber-optic turf field that could create graphics like the basketball floor, can you imagine what the top corps could do to integrate with drill, guard, staging, and GE if they were allowed?

Side note, if a stadium did have this, put microchips in the football and yard markers. The line to gain for a first down automatically displays on the turf and we instantly know if the runner got the first down or not. Back to corps...

Edited February 11 by wolfgang

[mingusmonk]

1 hour ago, Lance said:

is there a specific content category that takes into account difficulty and achievement regarding "lining up tricky passages, lining up cold attacks/front to back moments, etc?

Or is that accounted for under "rep" with GE?

Without getting into nuances, it mostly:

 

The vocabulary, range/depth = Brass/Percussion/Music Content Sub-caption

 

Execution of that vocabulary = Brass/Percussion/Music Achievement Sub-caption

 

Edited February 11 by mingusmonk

[KyleS]

For RCC's show specifically, I believe it's only being used to hear the drum set groove in the beginning of the show. Historically, with the exception of the Bluecoats in 2016 and 2017, the only members that use IEMs are synth players, with the occasional 1 or 2 on-field members (Bluecoats keytarist in 2022, Crown center snare in 2024, for instance). I used in-ears when I marched DCI, it was completely impossible to hear myself playing without it.

[Lance]

52 minutes ago, mingusmonk said:

Without getting into nuances:

 

The vocabulary, range/depth = Brass/Percussion/Music Content Sub-caption

 

Execution of that vocabulary = Brass/Percussion/Music Achievement Sub-caption

 

nm, dino mode deactivated.  

 

Edited February 11 by Lance

[cixelsyd]

4 hours ago, mingusmonk said:

This is splitting hairs. 

Of course.  The same timing benefit can be exploited just by having key personnel using IEMs to solve key timing challenges.  It does not have to be every musician, full show.

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It is as simple as the scope and scale of your scenario is still not worth the gain. It is easier today to work the ensemble via more traditional tower techniques, ears, and eyes rather than adding IEMs to the mix. IEMs are not a set-it and forget-it magic bullet. Even for small ensembles. 

Then why is anyone doing it on any scale?

As for the following, you seem to be reading things into my posts that are not there... 

Quote

You imply above that this has something to do with lack of support from the equipment/gear scene for IEMs. 

... no.

Quote

And that the activity receives some great benefit driven by  other suppliers.  

... no.

Quote

But simultaneously, you are constantly talking about how electronics are some kind of $2 million budget suck. 

Budget suck - yes.  $2 million just for electronics for one corps - no.

Quote

What segment of the audio engineering industry is currently manipulating the activity's usage? And how are they doing that while still costing us millions of dollars?

Your question is too narrow.  I have a more general response which may help.

It is not controversial to point out that the instrument/equipment suppliers have had an outsized influence on the format of the drum corps activity for the past 100 years.  Fact is, before any of that happened, they were already making a bigger score marketing another one of their formats (band) to schools.  

Suppliers are not all bad when you realize they played a key role in creating these things we enjoy.  They do not, however, make the best decisions for the long-term interest of all these activities.  Their mission is to sell more of their product.  And we can all see how much more of their product they are selling to scholastic bands.  Fair play to them - there is a lot of tax-subsidized funding behind scholastic band budgets.  

The problem is that drum corps do not have that kind of funding, and therefore cannot make the same choices as scholastic bands and still operate sustainably.

 

(Again, that should not be controversial to point out either... but if you want to debate that, be my guest.  That is what the forum is for.)