The Sacramento Mandarins are a world-class competitive drum and bugle corps based out of Sacramento, California. The group has history dating back to 1963, and has since grown significantly – with multiple Drum Corps International Championship Divison 2 and 3 wins.
Since 2023, Griffin Law has been a key member of the Mandarins’ audio team – now handling lead engineering duties and managing the production staff for live performances. “Like many people in the industry, I was put on the mixer at my church as a kid,” recalled Law. “I then studied percussion and became interested in the recording aspect. I really like drum corps, so it made sense for me to join the audio team.”
Mixing 160 moving performers on a full length football field, however, proved to be more challenging than mixing in church. Law and the audio team behind the Mandarins worked diligently to find a new system that would meet their needs.
The console that was already in place when Law joined the team unfortunately lacked some key features. “The way our previous console handled groups and buses just didn’t work for us with so many outputs,” recalled Law. “We absolutely love Allen & Heath consoles, so we opted for an SQ.” Eventually, as the mic inputs started to add up, the production team also added an Allen & Heath CQ-20B as a submixer for keyboard percussion, which outputs multiple stereo feeds into the SQ and can be controlled remotely through a tablet.
Law specifically cited the workflow of Allen & Heath digital mixers as the main draw for him. “It’s not even comparable with other consoles out there,” he explained. “I’ve mixed on desks from other manufacturers, and the routing is less intuitive. It was always difficult to track down and troubleshoot problems through the layers of menus.” Law finds the SQ’s matrix-style patching screen to be particularly helpful. “It’s fast for me to learn, and it’s also easy to teach to other people,” he explained. “I don’t have to worry about my staff having to learn something complicated; it’s all laid out in a simple X/Y grid. Everything is very intuitive.”
The flexible routing controls on SQ also serve the Mandarins’ audio team well, since they have unique needs for marching across a wide field. “We don’t use the SQ as most people would, with one main stereo mix to the P.A.,” explained Law. “We use mainly post-fade AUX buses to feed sets of speakers across the field, with the main layer as just a control for all the sends. The customizable fader banks on SQ are also mission critical for what we do.”
In addition, Law leverages the SQ’s user-defined SoftKeys and Soft Rotaries for communication channels within the production team. “I can press different buttons and communicate with the ensemble coordinators and synthesizer performers,” he explained. “If there is a stagebox near them, I can contact them easily through the board.”
Mixing for a marching band also involves a lot of wireless communication, which is a priority for Law and the Mandarins’ team when arriving at a new venue. “Before we even get on the field, we have to do some complex RF coordination,” he explained. “Sometimes there can be more than 20 other groups, and almost all of them are operating in some RF range that is shared with everyone else – since we tend to use similar equipment.”
Having performers march across a wide field is another challenge for Law. “In a traditional live sound performance, you maybe deal with a vocalist moving 10-20 feet across a stage,” he explained. “With a marching band, I have to deal with trumpet players moving distances of over 100 feet on the field.” To account for this, Law’s team makes crucial delay calculations and stays in close coordination throughout performances. “One of the things we really like about the SQ console is the ability to add delays on every input and output channel,” said Law. “Time alignment is very important with moving performers and multiple speaker stacks across the field, and Allen & Heath makes that very simple.”
The Mandarins’ audio team also pays close attention to the balance of the various acoustic elements and electronic elements. “We have lots of microphones, which are blended with 80-plus brass members at any moment,” said Law. “The brass members also have some microphones, and field mics, so we have to blend their acoustic sound with reinforced sound, plus electronic sound from the synthesizers. It’s a challenge to make over 100 performers all sound acoustically coherent for the audience in the stands, and give a real reflection of what it sounds like on the field.”
To manage these complexities, Law uses the SQ’s Scenes function – which can automate different parameters as the band moves across the field. “As we recall different scenes, it changes which mics are on and how each mic is amplified and balanced at any moment in the different speaker stacks across the field,” explained Law. “We also manage the way the brass comes through, since the high and low frequencies interact and it skews brighter – so we mic the tuba players to add some of that depth and keep the brass line balanced.”
While the musicians practice their routines, Law and the Mandarins’ audio team rehearse their mix over multiple weeks before heading into competition season. “We fine tune our mic angles and focus on getting the delays right so it sounds better each time,” said Law. “We use about 30 different scenes for a 12 minute performance, trying to get the choreography and time alignment as close as possible to what we need.”
Since Law is typically on the field during performances, he relies on another team member up in the press box to monitor how the mix sounds for the audience. “They listen and can talk into an RF mic that goes right to my headphones,” said Law. “So if we have to make adjustments based on how the venue sounds that day, I can make changes depending on the environment.”
