Module 1 — Marching Audio Foundations

• Signal flow

• Gain structure

• Wireless best practices

• Safety & SPL

Module 2 — Mic’ing the Ensemble

• Winds, battery, synths

• Placement strategies

• Avoiding phase & bleed

Module 3 — Mixing for the Field

• EQ strategies

• Ensemble balance

• What judges actually hear

Module 4 — MainStage Programming

• Patches

• Templates

• Routing
  

Advanced System Design

• Field coverage modeling

• Front ensemble vs field array strategies

• Mono vs stereo vs zone-based deployment

• Delay rings & phase alignment

• Speaker rigging & safety

Wireless & RF Mastery

• Frequency coordination

• Intermod & dropouts

• Antenna placement & diversity

• Managing 10–40+ channels

• FCC compliance & interference mitigation

Advanced Mixing & Dynamics

• Multiband EQ strategies

• Dynamic EQ & compression for ensemble control

• Parallel processing

• Creating clarity without destroying power

• Making electronics sit inside the acoustic ensemble

MainStage & Playback Engineering

• Multi-output routing

• Redundancy & failover

• Snapshot automation

• Show-mode vs rehearsal-mode templates

• Click tracks, timecode, & triggers

Troubleshooting at Scale

• Diagnosing phase problems

• RF conflicts

• Signal loss

• Power distribution

System Engineering

• Building a the “right” kind of audio system

• Distributed delay networks

• Weatherproofing & environmental response

• Redundancy for high-stakes performances

Show Audio Design

• Emotional arc through sound

• Electronic orchestration

• Using space as a compositional tool

• Psychoacoustics in marching arts

• Supporting the visual design with audio

Circuit & Judge Optimization

• How sound is adjudicated

• Designing for different circuits

• Building mixes that translate to judges and audiences

• Avoiding penalties & compliance failures

Leadership & Program Management

• Building an audio team

• Training students

• Budgeting

• Equipment lifecycle planning

• Writing tech packets & SOPs