Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    This sounds like a lot of fun.  Whatever you do, don't let the speakers
    get too far away from the players.  Are you going to run all of this
    stuff on batteries?  Your thought about a transmitter opens up some
    possibilities: your amp could be an array of ghetto blasters.  The
    transmitter had better be frequency stable, though, and you'll probably
    want a compressor/limiter in the chain to keep the transmission clean.
    Of course, if you've got pro wireless gear that would be perfect.
    
    Might be easier to just get a high-powered car amp and 12v lead-acid
    boat battery & put them on the cart with the speaker cabinets.  Line
    outs from your drum machine could feed the amp.  Guitars would work
    if you routed the outputs from the little headphone practice amps into
    the amp's line inputs.  Then you would need a little mixer...
    

    
    There's a few notes on this in GUITAR notes.  Basically, due to battery
    limitations, battery amps top out at about 10 watts.  All have small
    speakers, the biggest I've seen is 10", although you could always hook
    up a bigger cabinet for the low end you's need for drums....who's gonna
    carry it?
    
    Peavey had an amp (may be discontinued) called the KB-15 for about
    $100.  Much pricier than this was the famous Mouse with rechargable
    battery pack, about $200!!!!
    
    Radio Shack sells a PA head that will run off 12V, 20 watts RMS, about
    $80.  This plus a rechargable lead-acid battery as mentioned in .1
    could make a good home-brew solution.
    
    						Brian

	I was going to suggest the "Mouse" or "Maxi-Mouse" amps too...

	My family and I were watching the Thanksgiving day parades this year and
I started wondering how they do the music (you know when the star sitting on the
float lip-sync's to the music...).  Do they carry a mega-system on their float,
perhaps powered by a generator, or do they transmit over a wire-less system to
key locations that have receivers and good speaker systems?  'Seems to me they
peobably have to do some kind of transmitting in order to get the fairly high
quality sound onto the television transmitters (you can hear a BIG difference
between when a band is playing live and when someone's "mouthing it" to a 
recording).

	With this in mind, perhaps you might consider a wireless system (what 
kind of budget are you dealing with?) - perhaps even renting such a system.
There are a few businesses in my general area that deal with mobil sound).
Either that or is there any way you can pull some kind of a wagon around with
you that will carry a larger speaker system (that is, larger than a pignose)?
Perhaps you could play acoustically while marching and then plug something in 
when you stop to do a special number?

	I remember Joe Jazniewski (are you 'round here Joe?) talking about
using a car battery with a car system amplifier.  It sounded like a decent idea,
but I don't know if it was ever implemented.

	Just some thoughts...

	Dan

    Well, so far I hear you wanting to do this:

	o  play a DrumKAT controller
	o  drive a Roland R8
	o  amplify the R8 using some kinda amp

    Assuming you go for the obvious solution (e.g., Fender Twin-on-a-cart)
    or something like that, you're gonna have at *least* 3 things that
    require power, unless the Kat and the R8 can be run off batteries. 

    From the sounds of .0, you're going to be fairly stationary *while
    playing* - I understood you to say that you:

	a) march somewhere (not playing)
	b) stop marching and play
	c) stop playing and march somewhere else

    If this is so, it might be possible to just put all the stuff that
    requires AC power on a cart of some sort with a power strip & an
    extension cord ... then when you get to a stopping place, send a gopher
    out to find a receptacle somewhere (most malls have *lots* of 'em). 

    Of course, if you want to march/move while you're playing, just
    ignore me.

    I would avoid the remote xmitscenario, unless you have modo bux; even
    renting these things can be quite expensive (unless you can get a local
    music store to provide them free for advertising purposes ... hmmm). 

    And thanks for the kudos.

-b