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Author Topic: Do marching bands have comb filtering?  (Read 11105 times)

Steve M Smith

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Re: Do marching bands have comb filtering?
« Reply #20 on: October 25, 2014, 05:44:30 AM »

You want to be much further away from bagpipes than 100 metres. 100 miles would be better.  Perhaps you typed it wrong!


Steve.
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Re: Do marching bands have comb filtering?
« Reply #21 on: October 25, 2014, 07:25:51 AM »

I first thought of a comb and tissue paper marching kazoo band.  This is the best I could find on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/-ks9WQ7PnHY
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Robert Lofgren

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Re: Do marching bands have comb filtering?
« Reply #22 on: October 25, 2014, 09:07:57 AM »

No, like others have said.

Expanding to our field, you also won't get comb filtering if say you DI the bass left and mic it right.  Same reason, the signals are different.  They may have the same source but the DI is going to result in a different signal than the head/cab/mic combo.
I would say that both signals share all the fundamental frequencies derived from the same source and therefor are coherent. Allbeit with slightly different harmonic content due to the added imperfections from the bass cab/amp and a constant phase shift due to the added delay.
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Tracy Garner

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Re: Do marching bands have comb filtering?
« Reply #23 on: October 25, 2014, 01:39:45 PM »

OK, this is prompted by a video posted of my friend's marching band.  The video showed a whole platoon of trombones, and most of the instruments have duplicates as well.

So, when a noob like me tries to get louder by adding boxes, comb filtering results.  Do the actual instruments exhibit the same behavior?

Outside in a 100,000 seat football stadium it not likely to be noticed, but I am curious about how sound works.  Probably irrelevant or at least unresolvable in live sound, I guess it could be a factor in mic positioning for recording??

When I was in marching band, our director would tell us you know the drums are right when multiple drums sound like one drum....row of snares sounds like 1 snare, row of bass drums sounds like 1 bass drum, etc. He said the same thing for attack/release of all of the wind instruments.

As a general rule, anytime we wanted to have maximum volume we would always be in tight formation usually in a triangle with everyone as close together as possible. The choreography would often have us spread out for real soft passages. As a drummer we had to concentrate on keeping the beat because instruments on either side of the football field would have major delay. Our recording mic would always be on the 50 yard line and I never remember there being a lot of weird delay in the recordings.
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Tim McCulloch

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Re: Do marching bands have comb filtering?
« Reply #24 on: October 25, 2014, 02:15:34 PM »

When I was in marching band, our director would tell us you know the drums are right when multiple drums sound like one drum....row of snares sounds like 1 snare, row of bass drums sounds like 1 bass drum, etc. He said the same thing for attack/release of all of the wind instruments.

As a general rule, anytime we wanted to have maximum volume we would always be in tight formation usually in a triangle with everyone as close together as possible. The choreography would often have us spread out for real soft passages. As a drummer we had to concentrate on keeping the beat because instruments on either side of the football field would have major delay. Our recording mic would always be on the 50 yard line and I never remember there being a lot of weird delay in the recordings.

This is also why the players get their timing cues visually... it's why the Drum Major has that tall staff and a conductor has a baton.  If you wait to play your note until you hear another player, you will ALWAYS be late.

In college I sang with the a capella chorus and we did several antiphonal works where the chorus was split, half in the back of the hall and the rest of us up front.  The conductor stood in the aisle, midway between the ensembles.  He could pick out individual singers who were not watching him, based on timing.
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Tom Burgess

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Re: Do marching bands have comb filtering?
« Reply #25 on: October 25, 2014, 04:33:25 PM »

Why would they need it?  And how would it work if they are marching?

is this something marching bands actually do?
Yep, they definitely do but it's only the front ensemble (marimba, vibes, synth, etc.) and soloists that are amplified.  Here's a rack and 1 of 2 stacks I built this year for that very purpose:
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Tim McCulloch

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Re: Do marching bands have comb filtering?
« Reply #26 on: October 25, 2014, 05:00:19 PM »

The whirring noise is the sound of John Phillip Sousa spinning....

I readily confess to curmudgeonly, Luddite thinking when it comes to "marching bands".  Electricity?  Bah, humbug!  Marimbas? 3 players, 2 to push and 1 to play.  Times 20, if they're not loud enough.  Synth?  Tin cans and string!  /end use of literary devices

Probably was inevitable as tastes and expectations of donors, sponsors, TV producers and the public will change.  Nobody's gone broke underestimating the taste of the American public, art is in the ear of the beholder, etc etc etc.

I take it this cute little rig is for a high school?  How's the rest of the music program?
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Tom Burgess

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Re: Do marching bands have comb filtering?
« Reply #27 on: October 25, 2014, 05:30:23 PM »

The whirring noise is the sound of John Phillip Sousa spinning....

I readily confess to curmudgeonly, Luddite thinking when it comes to "marching bands".  Electricity?  Bah, humbug!  Marimbas? 3 players, 2 to push and 1 to play.  Times 20, if they're not loud enough.  Synth?  Tin cans and string!  /end use of literary devices

Probably was inevitable as tastes and expectations of donors, sponsors, TV producers and the public will change.  Nobody's gone broke underestimating the taste of the American public, art is in the ear of the beholder, etc etc etc.

I take it this cute little rig is for a high school?
It is cute, isn't it?

Yes, I did 2 rigs from the ground up for high schools this year, and another I'm supplying some of the product. 

The whole "amplified front ensemble and soloist" thing started about 15 years ago and has grown to some ridiculous proportions for some groups.  The repertoire that these folks are coming up with these days is pretty astounding and, if you want to hear a flute solo across a track and 30 rows up, you better have a decent rig.  For example, roll this up to about the 5:30 mark...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVayNIyVSas&index=1&list=PL0oLsKsduIUHDbq8WnAzse5f0R3T_-Kyk

This is from pretty early in the season this year so the performance isn't exactly polished up yet but you get the idea.
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If the band sounds great, it's because the band IS great, if the band sound like crap, it's the soundman's fault.

Opinions expressed by me on this forum are my own and not necessarily those of the company for which I work.

Scott Helmke

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Re: Do marching bands have comb filtering?
« Reply #28 on: October 26, 2014, 12:24:13 PM »

It's a known trick for recording to track the bass part more than once, resulting in a flanging/chorusing effect. So it *is* indeed possible to get comb filtering from multiple instruments.
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John Roberts {JR}

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Re: Do marching bands have comb filtering?
« Reply #29 on: October 26, 2014, 02:02:02 PM »

It's a known trick for recording to track the bass part more than once, resulting in a flanging/chorusing effect. So it *is* indeed possible to get comb filtering from multiple instruments.
Not to quibble with you but I actually designed studio efx back in the '70s (Loft delay/flanger).

Actually double tracking an instrument is not a truly coherent source so will not result in  fixed combing, an effect identified by stable deep notches.

Chorusing also known as ADT (automatic double tracking) does involve delaying a single coherent source and then summing the dry with delayed. In theory this does generate combing but first the delay is long enough that combs are very closely spaced, and most chorus/ADT units also slowly vary the delay so the notches from any combing is diffuse, and unlike simple combing.

Finally "flanging" that was originally called "reel flanging" because it was made by playing identical tracks on two different tape machines and summing that first and then second slightly delayed version together. The very short delay from Flanging can indeed create audible combing and once again this short delay is generally varied to create a perceived sense of movement from the changing comb notches. With (tape) reel flanging the delay was varied by dragging a hand on the outside edge of one reel... Modern electronic flangers vary the delay electronically.

So yes flangers and ADT involve combing, but simply double tracking (re-recording) a bass part will not be coherent enough to sound like combing (IMO).

JR
   
PS: for extra credit to understand why a flanger's sweeping comb notches suggests movement is because it resembles the combing that occurs in our outer ear as the direction of sound source changes (mostly affected by vertical changes not horizontal). 
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Re: Do marching bands have comb filtering?
« Reply #29 on: October 26, 2014, 02:02:02 PM »


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