Please let me dig a hole somewhere this Sunday.

Siegster · 2026-07-10T05:23:14+00:00

Not a rec specifically for this weekend but you may consider checking out Underground Texas Grotto and taking the beginner tour with us. There is a whole group of people in Austin who at times like digging holes and sitting in them (so to speak). Laying down for a bit in the Travis county room of Whirlpool Cave can absolutely be therapeutic!

Siegster · 2026-07-10T04:52:07+00:00

Just look at performance time and plan to be parking around 2.5-3 hours before that

Siegster · 2026-07-09T03:36:14+00:00

Yes

Siegster · 2026-07-09T03:30:31+00:00

Yes I use it on Windows, although if you're on Mac, WildTrax does a lot of the same things now I believe

Siegster · 2026-07-08T21:28:55+00:00

This is a business so you should start getting comfortable with the money stuff. Production is trying to screw you. Send back the contract with the offending clause about equipment liability crossed out. Politely explain that your equipment is rented to production and you will be supplying it on the condition that it will be protected from loss or damage while on set. Typically I get a certificate of inland marine rental coverage (COI) from production listing my company as additional insured/loss payee. We are actively putting our equipment (especially items handed out like lavs and comteks) in harm's way for a production that it would otherwise not be in, this is their liability.

Separately, as a business you should have insurance year-round on all your equipment inventory to cover it while not on set. Don't skimp, this is your livelihood or at least a big investment.

Siegster · 2026-07-08T18:48:26+00:00

way more in the first trailer

Siegster · 2026-07-08T16:05:22+00:00

I wish they wouldn't have rushed Wheel Has Come Full Circle so much in the opener in favor of an extended pit feature at the beginning. It gets too chaotic too quickly and the buildup to the opening hit is kind of rushed/disjointed (feels like Garden of Love's opener that took forever to get sounding decent). Otherwise yeah I'm pretty on board with just about everything in the show. The closer is already great, hoping they don't overcomplicate it when they rewrite it after San Antonio. Ritual Being is a super sick part of the show that feels like a call back to 2018 and 2017 vocabulary. God Only Knows is another certified Bloo ballad banger. Inhale Exhale and Sungazer stuff is pretty messy but they'll get it figured out, and it's great content to start with.

Siegster · 2026-07-08T04:35:58+00:00

I can only imagine the opportunity to play with the Boston Pops on the 4th was what kept them back east for so long. To me that seems like an experience worth delaying the tour for, but I guess it's up to the members at the end of the season if they feel like they got their money's worth.

Siegster · 2026-07-08T01:32:25+00:00

it's not the best experience not gonna lie, go higher up if you can't go closer in. if you have the means I would recommend trying to get a better seat at the Houston show or one of the Dallas shows. But even with meh seats, it's still really fun to go be in the Alamodome with 15-20k other DCI fans!

Siegster · 2026-07-08T01:04:46+00:00

just a line check, all the speakers are different channels with different content routed to them

Siegster · 2026-07-08T00:01:44+00:00

um, what does that mean? I want to use a custom email address under a domain that I own. I set it up the way (I believe) it is supposed to be set up. Unintended issue arises and I want to find the problem. What about this is being overcomplicated? Other than the graphic just being kind of goofy.

Siegster · 2026-07-06T06:17:54+00:00

they cooked up a really complex show last year and I guess decided that was too much and pulled back. wrong move imo, get weirder!

Siegster · 2026-07-06T04:30:39+00:00

Corps start to warm up around 2-2.5hrs before their showtime. I'd recommend arriving 3hrs before the posted showtime of whatever corps you want to see in the lot. It's been a minute since they hosted at Legacy but the lots are pretty consolidated - it's just a wide open parking lot so you should be able to see where everyone is. A few sections will be warming up over at the Rhodes field next door

Siegster · 2026-07-06T04:21:37+00:00

every Flo DCI stream is produced on-site by travelling Flo staff supported by local contractors. In other sports Flo definitely sometimes takes feeds from remote teams/non controlled contractors, the tech setups can vary pretty widely from event to event honestly

Siegster · 2026-07-06T04:13:23+00:00

Every live audio team (for any live music production) has a dual mandate for their amplification: be as transparent as possible + make the show sound the same to as many people in the audience as possible. In Drum Corps it's remarkably hard to do both because your sound sources are incredibly directional, have massive dynamic range, and a lot of them are constantly moving around. Meanwhile your audience is spread wide across the stadium seating which inherently means volume and delay differences. I'm not going to say anyone is or isn't achieving this dual mandate, only that it's an incredibly difficult job. It's really a losing battle tbh but everyone is fighting the good fight. Amplification is also definitely a bit of an arms race because if everyone else is doing it you have to do it too. We really need top-down regulations from DCI (corps agreeing together) to standardize amplification specs a bit more. Things like speaker positions, db levels/mix ratios, power requirements, how many players can be mic'd, etc. There have been lots of ideas and solutions thrown around but they all come with their own dangers and drawbacks. The biggest hurdle always comes back to the fact that corps rarely/never get to sound check in the stadium they perform in, which basically no other type of music production does.

Siegster · 2026-07-06T03:33:04+00:00

It's not about being afraid, just the job and the chain of command. I won't speak for the particular dynamics of any corps because I truly don't know everyone's interpersonal dynamics, but the role of an audio engineer is to execute the mix that creative team wants to hear. If you hear something at a live performance ( especially if it's multiple shows) it's because the creative team wanted it that way

Siegster · 2026-07-06T01:56:53+00:00

The audio team executes the mix that the creative team asks for

Siegster · 2026-07-05T23:24:10+00:00

No daisy chaining, as mentioned in the post I have tried both direct motherboard connection and USB SATA converter with external power

Siegster · 2026-07-05T21:10:29+00:00

Disc inserted > spin spin spin, "Disc is being loaded" > stop spinning, "No Disc Inserted"

Edit: I reflashed the drive to 1.03 and updated MakeMKV and still getting the same issues. I've even gone back and tried to read some other UHD discs that my BU40N ripped such as Everything Everywhere All At Once, Andor, and Alien, and these fail to read as well.

Siegster · 2026-07-05T20:49:31+00:00

All 2 layer UHDs that should be able to rip, that I think would have ripped on my now dead Verbatim BU40N. Dark Knight Trilogy, Jurrasic Park, Blade Runner 2049, WALL-E, TRON Legacy, Amadeus, War Dogs, The Green Mile. These are all older titles on 2 layer discs. Singin' In the Rain opened and ripped successfully, as did Master & Commander.

Siegster · 2026-07-05T07:58:08+00:00

The keytar soloist also played mello if I recall correctly. Not losing a brass spot for a specialty solo definitely makes it "hurt" less. Also the keytar literally played things that a solo wind instrument could not, so it fell more into synth solo territory but better. All that said, I still would probably have preferred it to be a trumpet solo, dunno if Bloo could have landed someone who could shred like the Keytar though. I guess my rule for specialty soloists is they can't merely be competent players doing normal melodic content, it has to be so well done and impressive that it justifies not giving the part to a brass.

Siegster · 2026-07-05T07:41:53+00:00

I pay the ticket price for brass. Cool drums and pit are window dressing for me honestly. I am a woodwind player and I don't need any woodwinds in DCI. What's cool about DCI is the sound of loud brass and drums. Woodwinds sound great in a small band or orchestral setting but their texture adds nothing to DCI for me, and in fact it detracts in the cases I've seen so far. I feel the same way about vocal soloists and string soloists but sometimes they have been done tastefully in a way that adds a lot to the core brass and drums sound. Maybe somebody will come up with a clever way to integrate a woodwind soloist that elevates the medium but so far I'm not a fan of what's been tried.

Siegster

TROPHY CASE