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00:00:01
On A Water Break with 4th Block Music
114 Plays3 months ago
Go On A Water Break with 4th Block Founders and creators Lou Rosen & Bronson Gold. 4th Block has taken their passion for the Marching Arts and turned it into a full music production garage band!
Guests:
4th Block - @4thblock_music
Lou Rosen - @lourosenmusic
Bronson Gold - @bronsonau
Listen to the main episode to keep up on everything going on in the marching arts with our hosts:
Jackie Brown - @spintronixguard
Stephen McCarrick - @stephenmccarick
Cindy Barry - @leandermomma
Nicole Younger - @o2bnpjs & @thecookoutcg
Trevor Bailey - @t_pain151
Trish O’Shea - @trishdish1002
Beth Beccone - @bether7189
Chris Rutt - @wildhornbrass1
Cynthia Bernard - @cynthiabern
Ashlee Amos - @famousamossss_
Theo Harrison - @harrisontheo07
Stephanie Click - @stephanieclick
Whitney Stone - @dancerwhit
Justin Surface - @J_dex07
Ashley Tran - @itsashleytran
Jack Goudreau - @goudreau_
Ricardo Robinson-Shinall - @ricardorrobinson
Callie Quire - @cnquire
Austin Hall - @Austin_hall10
Jose Montes - @joeymontes57
Music provided by leydamusic.com Follow him @josh.leyda
Avatars provided by @tch.makes.art
#marchingband #colorguard #dci #podcast #onawaterbreak
Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
All right, everybody, welcome back to on a water break and i'm your host steve mccarrick and today we're here on a water break with fourth block music I've got Eight off the mess and go Welcome to on a water break The podcast where we talk everything marching arts Everyone bring it in it's time for a water break got the two creators behind the scenes of fourth block music, ah Lou Rosen and Bronson Gold with me. And ah we're excited to talk about some independent art within the marching arts. So everybody welcome Lou Rosen and Bronson Gold. What's up? What's up?
00:00:47
Speaker
yeah Thank you guys for hopping on the call So I imagine many of my listener or many of our listeners rather might not have ah been aware of you guys yet I don't do a whole lot of ah like crossing the wires between the stuff I do with the a base and the stuff I do with the podcast but uh ah Why don't we get started here before we get into more about what fourth block music ah is about. Let's go through our 32 count life stories so that ah our listeners can kind of learn a bit more about who we two you guys are and what you do in the marching arts. ah Lou, do you want to get us started with your 32 count? Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:01:21
Speaker
cool so you should just be like like about me or about fourth lock or like this is whatever but whatever you already second cool cool you're gonna get eaten in from the Met and then just uh catch us up to speed about who you are cool cool all right eaten in off the Met
00:01:42
Speaker
What's up? We're a fourth block of me and Bronson. ah We make content for Instagram, YouTube. um Fourth Block was sort of born out of my attempts in fusing the things I was doing with ah marching percussion, with a lot of things I was doing kind of 2018 through 2022 with electronic music. I marched in the horn line at Vanguard Cadets, Santa Clara Vanguard, when I was
00:02:19
Speaker
really young, probably too young. And then I kind of got way out of that world, ah started getting into all different types of music, did a lot of orchestral stuff, ah did a lot of choir stuff, started producing electronic music. ah In 2018, I joined Elon percussion and just sort of randomly did a season on bass drum. I linked up with Bronson. yes and From there, it just sort of as I continued making electronic music from there, I more and more wanted to see what the potential was of marching percussion to be a part of that, and that's something we're still figuring out. um I think you guys are doing a pretty decent job of figuring it out. i mean When you lay it out like that, it almost sounds like it's a very like
00:03:11
Speaker
casual idea. But as you guys have kind of laid it into practice, especially through your like dedication to make a lot of content on it, like you've really, I think made your own brand and your own thing for like independent marching content, which it's not really, it's a budding type of thing out there. So ah we'll get back to talking more about fourth block in a second. But Bronson, why don't you ah also catch our listeners up to speed, alright your background, who you are, and maybe like your ah history in the marching arts.
00:03:41
Speaker
um cool My name is Bronson Gold. ah I come from Reno Valley, California. So my background in the marching arts program started when I was in middle school. I kind of would get my sixth period class to go check out the high school drumline rehearsals, ah made it to the winter or the spring concert, ended up doing high school band and then did drum corps during that time, long when I was 16 and then i ended up marching Cavaliers like during COVID when I aged out. Now I just teach pretty much.
00:04:13
Speaker
a
00:04:19
Speaker
Nice spot. Yeah, you got that, man. I went i went way over it. Yeah, you were like the life story in like a movement and a half but for real for real It's hard. It's like I'm gonna get you to tell you me everything about you in 30 seconds can't do that possibly So why don't we break it down a little bit further than from there? ah When did you guys first like make fourth block music and what was like the genesis of the idea? Um, it was
00:04:51
Speaker
sort of something that I came up with. I i started out on my own with making a few full length like EDM tracks with marching snare drum on them. So that kind of happened between like 2020, like right at the beginning of the pandemic through like the middle of 2021. And that was interesting they're like the first couple tracks if you listen back to them it's like I had the snare drum EQ'd like so high it was basically just like coming through as like a trap hi-hat sound like yeah that stuff low key cringe like i I can't even can't even go back and listen to those tracks
00:05:38
Speaker
anymore. That's the ground that you had to forge through a little bit though because like in a lot of ways I think what you're doing is something that I at least never saw anyone like really do in a very serious way before like you guys start doing it. Do you think like was there any content that maybe like inspired you or or was this more of like a brain an idea that came to you where you were like look I just really want to do this I've never seen anyone do it. yeah Oh yeah, I mean, all credit to like, BYOS and like, that crew for abs, and others, you know, in that space, but they're I think really the main ones that laid the groundwork for mark for marching percussion as like,
00:06:22
Speaker
I guess an internet content thing, but also like really developing the potential for that to be the style of drumming to be its own thing outside of of the competitive activity, right? Because like when you're designing outside of the competitive activity, it's like a whole different set of ah like, boxes you want to check, essentially, like, yeah, absolutely. There's definitely there there definitely are boxes still, it's definitely not like you
00:06:59
Speaker
can get out there and be like, okay, cool, we can do whatever we want with this. But like, you know, if you're trying to create in any kind of genre or style, there's like the inherent limitations of that. And then of course, When you're outside the structure of the competitive activity, it's just like, how do we find equipment? How do we coordinate yeah people? If we're trying to get multiple people together to record, like, how are we going to make that happen? I think those are, yeah.
00:07:32
Speaker
Why don't we go through that process a little bit bit by bit because like, Lou, it seems like you probably do a lot of like production on this, but like Bronson, I'm sure you're also involved in like different creative aspects of of what's going on beyond just like where I've seen you playing instruments in the videos and things like that. So how does a project come together? It's pretty crude and I'm not that smart, but I kind of like to compare myself to Rick. He's familiar with Rick Rubin. ah He kind of just sits there. Yeah, just doesn't really play an instrument. I mean, I obviously play an instrument, but ah usually during the production of tracks, like Lou usually has like 90% of it done and then I'll show up.
00:08:18
Speaker
and be like, yeah, maybe we change, put this here. Maybe we change this, put this in the, like, towards the end. And then they're like, cool. And then we do it. And then Lou usually is inspired and adds something else to it. And then, yeah, usually this kind of just motivates, keeps the ball rolling. And then, yeah, it helps that we live together. That like process of bouncing ideas is so helpful though. Yeah. so Yeah. Oh, okay. Another, another detail that I, that makes sense why you guys do all this stuff together. That's cool though. um You guys can probably see behind me. I've never even picked up the camera since I've set up this room, but we've got like two rooms that's set up behind us. So yeah, that's totally can relate to the idea of like making art with roommates. It's fun.
00:09:06
Speaker
ah yeah ah yeah Your whole background, and I love that elephant tapestry. It's so cool. I wish I had the ah remote handy. But when we have like multiple colors going, like the spectrum of colors, since that thing's got like a bunch of different splotches of colors, it kind of looks like it's morphing in a really trippy way while like the ah ah colors rotate through. But it's cool, man. I've been like ah an itching to make a cool little stew for like a year since we've started this podcast. So like it's nice to have a cool. Thank you.
00:09:38
Speaker
um But anyway, so you you guys write the project initially, and then actually recording it is a wildly different ah experience than a regular like band performance or a band rehearsal. like I actually know from like making a few licks of my own like that doing band in this context feels more like being an artist in a studio where it's like, I'm going to punch in maybe. like We're going to start here. um record like a really fine audio of like this bar and then we're gonna like
00:10:12
Speaker
It's a whole big artistic process there. So when you guys are recording, maybe compare and contrast how that varies compared to being in rehearsal or performing. What's different, being in a marching arts studio? Well, at least for me, the only performance, or I guess the only set of videos that involve actual sheet music was where the bass drum tracks, the curcuing and starting five. ah but everything else pretty much I'd say the consistent is just you have to be focused all the way through like towards the end of the track um you could like this I like to just play roles a lot especially on surfaces in which it's not very easy to ah and it's very yeah
00:11:04
Speaker
with with with hot rods or a couch. What's it called? but
00:11:15
Speaker
It was, it was nice. He did drum on a couch recently. It was, it was pretty lit. Reminds me of like the old school chop outs. I've used to see guys in like Facebook that were like 50 would post on like marching arts pages that I'm just like playing the most massive diddles I've ever seen on their thigh. And I'm like, dude, like god like that's an insane way to build shops. What were you doing in the nineties? oh why Crazy. but ah um But anyway, um so you guys work with a bunch of other folks on on at least the bass drum videos. um
00:11:57
Speaker
Is there any aspect to fourth block where you're trying to like build maybe sort of a platform for people to be able to express that like their marching arts skill after aging out? Is that maybe something that you guys consider as well? Or what a what do you guys kind of think the future looks like for fourth block music in that regard? um we In short, yes. like we In a way, it feels like this project is still like in its really early days, even though then it's been out there for like over two years now.
00:12:34
Speaker
like we We want to get the ah bigger things going, both in terms of like the number of people we're able to have um on the music and also like creating more long-form content, ah like releasing more actual songs on streaming and stuff, ah getting more content onto YouTube. um expanding the video aspect of what we do, that's like something Bronson ah has like contributed to so much. like i've I've never been extremely passionate about like the video side of things. like i you know I have all the tools and like I know how to use them. I feel like every time I'm doing that, it's always just kind of
00:13:22
Speaker
what do I need to do to like get the music across? And like Bronson has brought a whole different creativity to that side of the process and like I'm really interested to see Where we can go from the how we can use the visual aspect of that in terms of like video production to so elevate what we're doing. Right. It almost seems like there is a bit of a parallel there to like putting together a marching show where like.
00:13:56
Speaker
You know, after a little while, you get to start thinking about the vision of this production and how you can elevate the music through the vision and elevate the vision through the music. quara um ah and I was just doing camera work for it, and I did notice like right schedule like doing storyboarding, figuring out the camera like what camera moves I want to do with the music. It's very, very similar to writing drill, ah only instead of writing Uh, the performers where the performers going you're writing on the audience is going to be and it's a very a very it feels like a very different but pretty similar Yeah, Yeah That's interesting. Yeah, that's a totally flipped perspective in a way or you can apply a lot of the same ideas and things like that like
00:14:46
Speaker
It's actually like really hard in like a real life performance to draw the eyes certain places and to like make sure people are paying attention to what they're supposed to pay attention to. But like we as band people have a lot more ability to say like, Hey, this is exactly what I want you to pay attention to when I'm making like a video for an Instagram reel or something like that. Um, do you ever like, uh, kind of sit around and think like, man, this would be really cool if we like, If we reached this point, we got some more, like, ah we grew a little bit more, we might be able to do this. Is there any sort of music video idea that you think would be cool, Bronson? A bunch of equipment. I think it would be great to go to the Bahamas and get a video. um
00:15:31
Speaker
But, yeah.
00:15:35
Speaker
Okay, yeah, I know that we have a huge listener base. I was just looking at the staff. Huge listener base. We're pretty much just using iPhones. Luckily, the newer iPhones have 4K 60 frames per second cameras. You can, especially if... um And then we luckily have pretty decent audio equipment, but um I would say like in terms of video production, like more camera equipment. We have some like lighting stuff that we've recently like invested in. But yeah, obviously that and just access to locations is really just the hard part. you know
00:16:17
Speaker
um Yeah, for sure. Because I guess when you're like going to show up someplace in the drum, it's kind of hard to be low key. It's like, probably we we got kicked out of our location when we were filming curfew. Like, oh, no, we started filming, we started filming a little bit later in the day than we had intended. And we got to reach the point where it's like, I think we just need to come back in the morning and finish this up. So we were like, out We recorded the whole thing in this like studio space, in this like warehouse park.
00:16:53
Speaker
Um, type, type complex. So we were recording the video outside, uh, the next morning and like the manager comes in and is like, Hey, got some complaints. Like, yo, can't be doing this out here. So we like went into the lobby of our studio space and just like got everything set up really quickly. And it's just like, like that. I think that has to be one of my favorite moments of like being a part of fourth block like ah everyone was just like on like everyone was setting up cameras and like setting up the drums and I was all happy. I'm just unable to like favorite thing about that. Okay, this all works good. It's happening.
00:17:41
Speaker
And I decided I had like plastic plants, like fake plants, but I thought would look cool in the background. So you could see like plants in there just randomly. Oh, yeah, no, I i don't even think that like registered to me at the time. That that was mine. I feel like that also relates back to the fact that like, it When we're trying to get like a ah you know a bigger ensemble, just like a bass line or like a snare line or whatever, and you know the people in the ensemble are like people who are also active in the marching activity. like
00:18:20
Speaker
you only get a few opportunities throughout the year to do that kind of stuff. Like, yeah, that because everyone is either doing drugs, it's like the drum corps to fall band to indoor cycle just doesn't stop. So it's like, okay, it can do like Thanksgiving break, maybe Christmas break, spring break. Maybe there's some time in May, maybe there's some time like right after the DCI i season. And then of course, you get like everyone. It's like everyone's one break is right there. And, it you know, I'm like really grateful that people have like made the time in those times to make that. And it's also like, yeah, people are moving during that time. People are crazy how we like that moment to like also get their life together. So it's
00:19:16
Speaker
That is cool that they would come out in that very little bit of free time that they do have. I know exactly what you mean because I feel like all of us band people like give up all of our free time to do band, which like maybe we should learn to take a step back. but and i don't yeah I don't see myself doing it. I just signed up to probably do even more band than I was doing before. Can't get away, cannot get away. yeah Capitalism does make it so our free time is extremely limited. Well, maybe perhaps someday fourth block would get some gigs and paid opportunities to do some more music. do you ever think like
00:20:02
Speaker
So I imagine it seems like you guys probably already have like dreamt about this sort of a thing but you ever think about like could fourth block play a music festival like if if we had enough resources like Yeah, if we had If we were able to create you know a full set's worth of music and get... The biggest thing is just like rehearsal time. and
00:20:33
Speaker
like e like meaning about point like uh indoor like a drum corps show it's like we put in all this rehearsal time to do a show that's like 11 minutes long and then thinking about like a festival set it's like cool that's like 30 minutes minimum like How what what does the rehearsal process need to look like? And obviously, like, that's kind of been done before with a kind of like blast blast. Yeah, exactly. I do have the the the core director of the drum corps that um I used to shout out Golden Empire, shout out open class.
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah, he was part of BLAST a long time ago, so I've been meaning to find a time to just like get up there and talk to him about that and that whole process. That would be cool. I should see if I could get BLAST people on the show sometime. I honestly didn't even know that like blast was still a thing because I was under the impression throughout most of my marching career that like blast happened. It was a thing for a little bit and then it stopped, but like it seems like it's it's coming back. I think it's like yeah touring internationally maybe or something.
00:21:55
Speaker
I know they do things in Japan every once in a while. Japan, yeah. Which is crazy. That's what I think the ultimate aspiration for something like what you guys are running would be, though, at least looking in from the outside. It's not even like that you would be rehearsing for one event. It would be like to have a performing yeah professional paid ensemble for the marching arts. It's independent in the sense that it doesn't compete, but it's not independent in the sense that it's an illegitimate or small or not.
00:22:27
Speaker
When you look at them, you guys have the intention of that activity. It's less about, well, it's very much about entertainment and producing a very entertaining product. But at the end of the day, you're not, there's some groups, you don't, their intention is not to win drums or DCI i finals or WJ finals. um It's to pretty much, I mean, it was started to enrich youth development. and Pretty much just make sure people don't grow up to be bad people. um For lack of a better word. um And I feel like what we're trying to do, since it's less of a like competitive thing, we're not we're you're more so to make music. you know like i've been As soon as I aged out, I was a huge stickler on, oh, everything needs to be good technique, everything needs to be good.
00:23:17
Speaker
Like everything needs to have the best sound quality. And then as I've gotten like older, the more I've done, I'm like, you know, the focus should really just be on what's entertaining. I mean, that's like a perspective that I think that I gained both through college band, but also through Eagles drumline, which is like that. For most of the world, like they couldn't really care yeah about the things that we are trained to care about in like doing marching arts. It's just like completely irrelevant and unnoticeable in some senses to like drunk people at an Eagles game that the snare line in the Eagles drum line is clean. You know, like in a very literal sense, it's actually better for someone to break in the Eagles drum line and do something entertaining or funny.
00:24:03
Speaker
than it is for them to even stay in the role.
00:24:19
Speaker
hey everyone it's jeremy and here are your announcements coming from the bo don't miss all of our bonus content including on a water break in rhinestones with your host, Lexi Duda, exploring the world of the Twirlers. Don't miss parades and drum majors, at step off with your host, Jack Goudreau, and get lost in translation with your host, Cynthia Bernard, exploring all the words that confuse all of us in the marching arts all across the world. And go behind the lens with marching arts photographers all across the country with your host, Chris Marr.
00:24:56
Speaker
plenty more bonus content from on a water break so listen anywhere you get your podcasts if you want to be on on a water break as a guest or you know somebody that would make a great guest for on a water break email us at on a water break podcast at gmail dot.com
00:25:22
Speaker
So it's an entirely different set of things you're designing for it almost actually want to bring it back. You were talking about Rick Rubin earlier. um And Rick Rubin has a perspective on all this. That's basically like, when you're designing art as an artist, you shouldn't be designing art for what other people want to hear, like, and like his belief is that in doing so you're going to create worse art. that no one will actually really want to listen to. And that what makes art good is that you're designing something that you think has value like that. By designing ah like music in marching arts for competition, we're directly designing for what the judges want our art to be, instead of designing inherently for just what we as the artists think is the most interesting or creative or entertaining decision we can make. so
00:26:15
Speaker
That's why like projects like what you guys do really excite me is I think that you have the opportunity to actually be creative and actually do things that are cool to the like average person that the Blue Devils or the Bluecoats could never do. They would never do. I mean, these ensembles are the best at taking risks in the activity, but in a lot of ways, they could never do the things that you two do.
00:26:41
Speaker
Which is a bit of, like, that's one way to put it. I'll show you your laugh in a little bit. But the more and more it grows, go ahead. Something to be said for just, like, recording an entire track in one day, and it's like the, you know, the standard of cleanliness this is, like, Not gonna be as high but there's still such a pressure on I Imagine like on the performer and it's still got to be there because it's like we only have Like 20 30 minutes to record this chunk and we've got to move on right the next and like to the next
00:27:21
Speaker
And that's also like been just something I've been learning the whole time is like, how to how to write and like design for the resources we have and the time we have when we're going to record and like, figuring out how to do things that like will will be entertaining and like will be effective on a video medium without necessarily being super hard. yeah also It doesn't doesn't always have to be. You're exactly right. um So something I've been curious about always with you guys too. like You talked about you only have 20, 30 minutes to record a chunk and then you've got to move on.
00:28:02
Speaker
um When I'm doing this sort of like what I would consider like a drumline studio project, like not a live piece of drumline art necessarily. And it's not for competitive band either. I don't really feel too bad about cleaning something up in the doll. So like to what extent do you guys like try to clean up the recorded product in the doll? And then to what extent do you guys like process the audio? oh um
00:28:33
Speaker
yeah i there there's There's a lot of post-production work that goes into it for sure. I think the the baseline especially, there was a lot of processing going into it just to figure out how to make it speak on phone speakers. like Exactly. kind of speakers that most people are going to be listening to that don't like have those frequencies so like if you if you were to isolate just the bass stem from like the track, it would sound like really weird and distorted and not like bass drums at all. But
00:29:12
Speaker
Um, you know, sounds fine. Once, once you get to it, we've got the snare line track, um, coming out soon. That was definitely way easier just because of like the, the frequency range reads better. But yeah, there is, there is only so much cleaning up you can do in post production. And like the easiest way to do it really is to just I would say that is a to go back on the earlier topic. but Oh, I will say in the process, it is pretty difficult to be consistent with the music and video aspect.
00:29:53
Speaker
A lot of people say, like ah like, I would say the music or the sound because of how it is processed to sound good for phone speakers, which normal, I'd say there's a limit when it comes to lot videos, you know, where also lot videos aren't recorded with mics close up. ah um Pretty much You have to be consistent, and that is the most relatable thing when it comes to of doing and the activity. Yeah. In that sense, that is a direct translation. There's nothing different there. The best strap you can get is going to still be the best strap you can get, whether or not you have the ability to apply ah apply all these post-processing effects.
00:30:34
Speaker
It's also like some, there's only some, so many things that you can clean, like in the Baystrom world, for instance, you can't really like post-process clean a unison. It's just not gonna be possible. It's gonna sound so murky and these sounds are gonna overlap. You could probably clean up your squig, like as long as it wasn't. outrageously bad, you'd have the space between those transient sounds and you could map it out to the grid and you can make it happen. But other things, you just have to actually be good. Most of what we... Playing together, you can't really take playing together clean. Those baseline projects are just unison. Yeah. Yep. Which is funny, that's exactly what real life bass drumming is, too. The splits are easy and whether or not they're dirty or clean, it's harder to sell. But for unison, you'll know. You'll hear that that was bad.
00:31:20
Speaker
I want to nerd out with, uh, for a second, uh, Lou, as a producer, I want to nerd out for a second. Can you tell me about, um, like the different specific, like sorts of things you do to process, uh, at least the bass sound in particular, like what kind of plugins, what you kind of do to it? I use Ableton Live, so a lot of it is, um at least with, you know, making the low end speak um speakers, it's just like the stock Ableton Live ah saturator. Well, again, what I'll do for my base
00:31:55
Speaker
ah bass drum tracks too, I will make like an audio effect rack and basically separate the bass channel into like the high end and the low end. So like the attack and the resonance of the drums. Yes. And just work with those completely independently. So in that way, are you like trying to work with the transient of the sound and the long tail of the sound in a like a different way, almost? saturator I use is like specific to the low end to bring more like harmonics to that. um I you know don't put that on like ah higher fruit on like the attack of the drum. yeah you know That is already speaking. i know With bass drum, that's always the
00:32:47
Speaker
the struggle of like how much is obviously the the rhythms will speak more if you just like turn up the high end a lot but then also you lose the splits and it all just kind of like starts to sound a little bit like one drum I feel like I went a little too much in that direction with starting five and then i think when we mixed curfew i went a little bit too much on the other end um especially on like the spotify version of the track it's like harder it's a little bit harder to hear the drums but i think flow and like melody of the splits comes through a little more clearly yeah so like what i'm pulling up right now to look at is some of the uh
00:33:38
Speaker
Comments from that starting five music video, which not to not to brag to the audience of honor or on a water break So that's like five far the most successful video that we have ever had on on a my like page that I run for bass drumming the a base Let's see where where we're at with that one right now. I think it's got like 40,000 likes and Seven hundred and seventeen thousand plays. The comments on here are insane because people are trying to figure out why it sounds so good. But most people don't know like about ah most people don't know about like audio processing and things like that. So from being in that world a little bit, I knew I had it in my head. I was like. They're processing at it in the in the doll. It sounds so good because these frequencies are speaking in a way that like
00:34:29
Speaker
it wouldn't naturally, which is not a knock to it in the way that I see it. Like I think that's a good thing and what you should do if you're doing like an independent bass drum project is like bring to life the sound of the bass drum through the power of like the different modern tools we have for audio production and things like that. But dude, there's all sorts of comments on here. People are saying like, this is definitely MIDI, bro.
00:34:56
Speaker
uh other people saying right honey other people calling it the cleanest best baseline they've ever seen which like i'm sure you guys would agree it's like thanks but that's a little bit of like we practiced for like a day and recorded nah nah they're the best yeah they're the best baseline ever but
00:35:22
Speaker
But no, dude, it's cool. it's like This is what I think we need more of in the marching arts. is like It's this like commitment to saying, like no, i we need to be in real life evaluating the pure tone of this instrument for how excellent it is on a scale of 0 to 100. It's like, all right, shut up. Why don't we like just do what everyone else does in music and make stuff sound cool, process the sound, like evolve the sound, do different things. I think like it's case in point example of like how good things could sound if we even just did basic amounts of processing. Like why doesn't every drum corps have a properly recorded and processed and edited version of their that i love about what a studio of their show?
00:36:12
Speaker
when they're able to get the copyright stuff figured out. Yep. And they're like one of the only groups that do it. It's crazy. I guess copyright's a lot of it, but like I don't know. I don't feel like... at least your drumline is like not really that copyright. But something that we've done that I feel like at least that's hard for most every other thing other than like maybe even Monsters Inc. is we put mics, we close mic the instruments. ah
00:36:43
Speaker
You know, we yeah for the snare drum video, we had like SM57s right on that bottom head. We had some condensers on the bass drums. We had SM57s on the top drums, I believe. Nice. SM57s are dynamic mics, are they? Yeah. okay yeah pretty much like the standard ones that any front ensemble uses for their mallet instruments. we We tried using a few different mics like as we went through the ah couple bass drum videos and the I remember when we recorded curfew we had like SM57s on top two and condensers on bottom three and it was just like the the top two sounds so like some something about the way the SM57 compresses the sound just works so well for percussion.
00:37:38
Speaker
Yeah, no, it makes sense because like those dynamic mics are generally designed for live performance is my understanding. So like they're designed to be involved in like loud circumstances, whereas like I feel like compressor mics are generally and ideal for like your perfect circumstance in a studio where you're sitting there in like a controlled sound environment and you want this like warm, full bodied recording, you know, um makes sense to me that when we're doing drumline which is so loud like these dynamic mics shine through because you want this like more raw with less like underlying background noise kind of version of the sound and it's like what I expect would be best there. Definitely like getting that sound like at the close mics with the dynamic mics is um something that's really setting us like our sound apart from everything else that we're getting from marching percussion.
00:38:33
Speaker
And so, ah yeah, i I feel like that like definitely adds to it. um Yeah, because it's like, that's kind of like the road that you guys get to and like should forge down is like, how do you evolve the studio sound of Drumline? It's like, that's more of your niche compared to this whole world of like people recording live Drumlines in the wild, you know? Um, one thing I noticed with these dynamic mics too, I'm real curious to see if you guys noticed this. Nothing's ever sounded dirtier to me. Like then when you listen back to the actual raw audio file of like what the mic picked up that your drum line sounded like, dude, God, every time I've tried to like record my bass drums that or anything like that, it always listened back and I'd be like, Oh, that's, yeah, we're not ready yet. Like making the short videos.
00:39:27
Speaker
Um is i'll play it back and i'll think it sounded great where I love I have my in-ears And sounds great and then i'll listen to it back i'm like nope that one that nope can't have that I've got to do it again. Um, and yeah a lot of times that's I mean that creatively post That's when I started like I we started making the uh multiple angles with the videos. Um because we we're we're pretty much, it's a little trick. um just so you know we're we're but At least I pretty much ad-lib everything in the shorts.
00:40:06
Speaker
um and yeah We usually switch up the angles and it helps have that sometimes. because i do I said earlier, like it's we're here to entertain, but I do want to make sure. um yeah but thing i could I mean of course yeah I mean I feel like every artist would feel that way too like you want to get the best version of your craft out there that you can put out there but it's like it's good to recognize it's kind of like a relief honestly being in like ah more entertainment based drum lines to remember like oh it's okay yeah
00:40:38
Speaker
It's okay. ah That was bad rap. It was fine. We're not out here competing with Vanguard. like that all kind of pe all yeah you know We're with ourselves. like Just every video, I just try to make it better than the last like in terms of my performance. That's awesome, man. I love what you guys do. um I probably am going to kick up something similar sometime in the near future, just for like music that I make on my own. Something that I wish that like plenty more people in the marching arts would do realistically. It's like so many people just age out and that's it for them performing. They're not really going to continue to play their instrument. They're going to maybe teach.
00:41:18
Speaker
But they let that skill kind of go by the wayside that they spent so much time developing. I think like projects like what you guys do should be a good inspiration to like all sorts of performers out there that, like hey, you can just like continue barreling down this road that you've like stormed down from age 14 to 21. You could just take those skills and you could go have even more fun with it as an adult on your own than like potentially you even had doing like core style band. I hope it inspires other people. I've at least found it kind of inspiring. So I was happy we were able to have you guys on the show today and ah you know get to share it with our audience as well. Is there anything that ah you guys would maybe want to leave our audience with before we go? At least tell them your social media handles.
00:42:08
Speaker
Oh yeah, um Instagram fourth block underscore music, TikTok fourth block or the fourth underscore block, YouTube just fourth block. That's the only that's the only one we were able to get just the pure form. ah fourth Yeah, shout out Long Beach, ah all of SoCal, Shop Bakersfield, support independent music, protect trans kids, free Palestine. Fantastic. um i'm awesome It's awesome that you guys came on here. um
00:42:46
Speaker
And everybody else, you know, if you after you're done going and checking out fourth blocks page, if you haven't already done so, I don't know how you made it 45 minutes into this show as a listener without having done so. But follow us at on a water break on all social media platforms for more awesome ah content like this. We like to try to branch further and further away from just the strict, you know, DCI and WGI kind of talking points that everyone else hears about. So. Of course. I can't wait to have more talks like this about independent art in the future. Thank you guys both for coming on. Yeah. Thank you so much.
00:43:26
Speaker
Yep.
00:43:33
Speaker
intro and outdoor music was produced by josh lighta to learn more visit writerusic dot com and until next time thanks for tuning