Marching Band Sound Design
Sound design is half the show, and it's the half most likely to get built wrong. The mistakes aren't subtle to anyone who knows the field: speakers placed the same way in every stadium, microphones run without EQ, electronics mixed by ear from the rehearsal tower instead of the press box. Done right, sound design isn't an add-on. It's written into the music from the first sketch, and it's what puts the bottom end and the punch into every release.
Placement and EQ decide stadium sound
Most bands set their speakers in the same spot no matter where they're performing. Stadiums aren't the same: concrete walls, a sideline that sits closer or farther from the bleachers, a press box that's off center. Take the time to give your woofers and tweeters a clear line of sight to both the audience and the press box. Then EQ, especially on the microphones. A microphone without EQ on it might as well not be there. Every instrument has its own color, every microphone distorts that color differently, and the EQ is what warms the sound back to right.
What sound design actually adds
Sound design has become how you add to the bottom end of a band's sound. A big release that lands acoustically on bass drum and cymbals hits harder with a bass hit punching underneath it. Lead into that release with synthesizers doubling the bass voices, and the subwoofers start to rumble and fill the stadium. And it isn't only power. Judging lives on the effect caption, do you see what you hear, do you hear what you see, and sound design is a big part of the accents that bring color and life to what the guard is doing on the field.
Why your electronics sound too quiet at the show
The most common fixable problem is balance, and the electronics are usually too quiet, not too loud. Here's why. Speakers and acoustic instruments dissipate differently. The band sounds about the same from the rehearsal tower as it does from the press box. The speakers do not. They are significantly louder from the tower than from the press box. So a director hears the electronics burying the band at rehearsal, keeps turning them down, and then at performance can't hear the electronics at all and assumes something is malfunctioning. Nothing is malfunctioning. The mix was set from the wrong spot.
Don't buy gear you don't understand
The trap is seeing what DCI or WGI groups use and assuming you need the same thing. Shotgun microphones are the clearest example. They're built to amplify pinpoint areas of the field, not to pick up a wide spread of sound. A DCI group uses them to bring up a specific section at a specific moment. A director buys them expecting to amplify the whole field, and then spends the season chasing the balance problems that gear created.
Design the sound in from the start
Sound design has to be part of the total music design from the beginning, not an add-on bolted on at the end. Most good arrangers and percussion designers have sound design chops, and when one of those writers also handles the sound design, it fits the winds and percussion organically instead of the three voices stepping on each other. A well-written show leaves room for each effect to speak clearly when it needs space, and to lock together when it's time for a crafted ensemble moment.
This is why sound design and show design aren't two jobs. Written together from the start, they're one.
Dr. Ryan J. Williams designs competitive marching shows with the sound design written in from the start, and composes for electronic media.