Timon

I think your right it would seem they would have to open it. On a side thought - It would make a great location for The Adventurer's Club. Gut it out inside, to make the space work better and add a 2nd floor with Hub/Castle views. 1st floor would be similar to the old show but with fastpass and standby admission. 2nd floor would be similar to a club 33 but open to reservations for dining have a bar lounge. (Yes drinks) Awesome

Regarding stereo soundtracks - According to my sources, soundtracks for various things often arrive that way but the playback system is mono and it all gets dumbed down. I can't address the MSUSA but would guess it's mono in the park. The problem is there is only a small sweet spot for stereo sound to hear it correctly and with speakers placed for aesthetics vs audio perfection, the sweet spot could be 30 feet up the flag pole! FYI: Parade sound tracks have up to 24 to 32 tracks depending on the need and budget for each parade.

The way I see it, they are going to have to re-open the Veranda eventually. The building is just too big of a hunk of Adventureland to demolish, and with the Magic Kingdom being very capacity-conscious, I bet having another open counter service restaurant would help a lot. Hopefully they would trim down on the greenery in the area as well.

I totally forgot that hotels pipe in the fireworks music- I guess it makes sense to have it from DACS.

Thanks for the information about the hotel loops. This stuff really is fascinating. Do you know if the audio is transmitted wirelessly or if they have a long cable running to DACS?

By the way, I'm not sure how true this is or not, but I had heard that the MSUSA background loop is the only loop at the MK in "stereo". Incidentally, it is the only "source" background loop I have that has audio in two channels.

Asked around about the audio sources for the hotels. Well my information is dated. The source of the hotel music is unknown to the Parade Room staff but they assume it comes from an Amp Room at each hotel. The fireworks feeds which go to certain restaurants uses a "ducker" to drop the local music for the incoming soundtrack. As to what technology is used per hotel it most likely is the Alcorn McBride Audio Bin Loop which will support up to 32 mono soundtracks per unit.

I believe the hotels, at least around the 7 Seas are sourced from DACS. This has to do for show control which involves the fireworks extravaganzas like New Years - 4th of July. On a nightly basis the restaurants with an MK view of the regular fireworks show are all switched from Parade Central by the MediaMatrix, which handles BGM music configurations for the Park and Hotels. I'll ask a parade central tech today or tomorrow for a definitive answer.

I miss the Steel Drum music around POTC which is now all pirate movie soundtrack, which while being very good music just isn't Caribbean to me.

Regarding the Veranda, just bring it back, they could play Toon Town Fair (!) there if it would just re-open.

You should check out "Building a Better Mouse" by Steve Alcorn. It's a great book about this sort of thing.

Do only the Contemporary and Polynesian have audio from DACS? I figure since the Grand Floridian was built years after DACS, they wouldn't have audio sourced from there.

I'd love to see the loop used at the Adventureland Veranda used as the general Adventureland BGM instead of what they're playing now, which is used at the Animal Kingdom and is too "busy" for Adventureland.

The Alcorn McBride systems have been used by Disney for at least 15 years if not longer. Originally they had small micro hard drives, then PCMCIA cards and now CF cards. Talk about future thinking they made all their frames slot loading from the front so as technology changed they slid out the old tech and slid in the new tech.

The hotel BGM also comes from the DACS like the parks BGM because of show control reasons and is centralized to DACS and most likely will stay that way. Also within DACS is the recording studio, Studio D for any kind of audio recording, changes etc.

Generally I don't collect Disney audio although I had a recording of DLP Phantom Manor back in 1993 with Vincent Price which was very cool. (Probably too many years of live road shows)

I know they are using Alcorn Mcbride systems somewhere, perhaps at the hotels. I wonder what they're going to do once the Tiki Room re-opens- source it all from DACS or have an on-site system?

UABMagic is my favorite Disney internet radio station. It has almost everything I've wanted to hear, and then some. I grabbed a lot of audio from Mousebits in the days before it started removing all of its commercially available material, as well as some stuff that some friends have sent me that's great.

The racks of CD players look like a historic CD player display of various industrial machines through the decades. As attractions around the MK remodel the audio is installed locally because the systems today are are so stable. Gone are the Cart tapes, Full coat film audio bin loops, and tape bin loops plus a whole lot of noise. Now there is extensive BGM/Event audio/lighting routing, Parade Central, a new wireless mic Parade Route system and of course the Castle Video Mapping equipment.

This site has some cool tracks http://www.uabmagic.com/

"La Bamba" it's amazing what you can hear when there is nothing to do but wait for the Tortuga Taco Salad to clear out your system. :)

The closest stairwell to DACS is through the back of the PhilarMagic shop, the actual location of DACS is mostly in front of the shop under the pavement. Originally the BGM music came from Cart tapes (looks like 8 Tracks) but were high maintenance. Therefore the reason the MK has a Central Audio mostly called DACS even today. In the early 80's they switched to CD's for obvious reasons and have had a back burner project to move so solid state players like an Alcorn McBride Bin Loop player. Sadly in a 40 year old park there is little extra time for this improvement until it finally becomes a real project.

I believe the Pecos Bill bathroom loop plays "La Bamba", something the entire Frontierland loop lacks. Perhaps it plays in the restaurant too but there's too much noise for it to be audible.

I understand that the hotel loops are sourced from CD's, but I wasn't sure about EPCOT or the rest of the MK or the other parks. From what I understand, DACS is underground near PhilarMagic, though not as many rides are hooked into it. The park audio aspect of WDW has always fascinated me (or rather, the acquirement of it.)

If I have some time later I'll upload the pictures I have of the path. It's a bit off the beaten path and is a bit high up from the river.

Pecos BGM ... Hmmm don't think I noticed that one. It seems odd they would have special track for flushing. Most are areas or an entire restaurant. Sidenote: As shocking as it might be BGM still comes off CD's at least for a while longer. About 6 equipment racks.

FYI: Tortuga has a beautiful Spanish tile roof now. The Cast Cafeteria bathroom just finished a remodel with a better tile job than I have at home! Wait I wasn't supposed to say that.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by a path at DL's Splash Mt. I remember only being able to see the splash down/turn from the MarkTwain whereas the MK has a bridge to watch from.

I think most of the food wagons could be consolidated to walk-up counter service like Golden Oak in MK Frontierland with some outdoor seating adjacent. The wagons just look cheap.

I'm getting to your e-mail soon- things have been very hectic in my part of the woods lately.

Wow! That's awesome how you got to work so closely with WDI. You must've seen a ton of projects come through!

I had thought that all of Pecos Bill's was original as-built, but I guess not! I never realized that they put so much work into that place. (Pecos is my favorite in-MK eatery. I wish I had more information about the bathroom BGM.) Thanks for the info on the changes though.

I like the idea of an eatery in that "Splash" island. That part of the park is my favorite in all of WDW and there's not counterservice on that side of the parade route for a long ways. I almost wish we had something like at Disneyland where they have a meandering path in front.

I would really like to take all the food wagons and make a small building just on the other side of the Splash Mt flume between the two bridges with some tree shaded terraced seating to watch wet tourists while you munch. This would open the river view up from the parade route, provide more parade viewing space and not look sooooo cheesy. The building could be made of wood and stone but maybe look like it's about to fall apart, all saggy, leaning and propped up with sticks and rope just for character. It could have multiple counters and serve all the things the wagons used to sell.

If your familiar with Pecos, everything past the bathrooms was enclosed and added for seating. The Mile Long Bar became just more counter service and was about where the automatic order machines are. All those condiment counters was just interior seating. Moving up to Caribbean Plaza the "dining rooms" were stores, one was Crystal and the other Leather crafts/Jewelry. I'm very grad the McDonald's Fry wagon is gone and that Golden Oak doesn't look like a cheap turkey wing stand on the other side of Pecos.

Most of my contact with WDI was for presentations to Executives and major announcement events, we specialized in making the presentations. I been all through Glendale and the Epcot WDI offices and my old department used to process the Florida created art before they shipped it to California for the sales pitch and archiving. Saw tons of non-disclosure stuff I can't talk about but it was just flat out cool.

The area looks different but I would say "better", Pecos doubled in size shortly after Splash Mt sent overcrowding skyward because of so many "E" attractions at one end of the park.

That's great that you still got to work with WDI, at least part of your dream was realized. What kind of projects did you do? If you're not at liberty to answer, that's fine.

The Liberty Square/Fantasyland/Frontierland and Adventureland/Frontierland portals are my favorite. However, I hear that in 1998, Pecos Bill's got a refurb that drastically altered the Advl/Frnt portal, have you heard anything about that?

Being an Imagineer was a dream that got side tracked although I've worked on-off with Imagineering in small ways. But, yes in a different life I'd love to be an Imagineer.

Some of the most effective transitions are passageways between lands. Like Liberty Square to Fantasyland, Frontierland to Adventureland, Castle into Fantasyland. I would like some portal between Fastasyland and Tomorrowland it would be very cool, of course walking thru fog would be awesome. Maybe a Victorian "Time Machine" portal on one side and the Faux Future on the other.

I would love to see those plans happen...you should work in Imagineering! The idea for a Victorian-style Dumbo ride and London area is great. If you continue the Victorian theme, you'd have a better transition to Tomorrowland, should Tomorrowland become a sort of "Discoveryland". Furthermore, the Victorian-style Tomorrowland would create a nice transition to Main Street.

Thanks for the news on Tortuga. I guess they spent the $1 mil+ they had on the project very nicely. let's hope that the rest of Caribbean Plaza gets some TLC (and gets its identity back as a "land" in the Magic Kingdom).

I'm not sure if the clock tower is staying...though I'm sure they could find a way to leave it in place. I'll send the plans off to you now.

Plans would be interesting to see. I hope they could keep the clock tower on the right which would be a nice salute to the Skyway.

If I could put something else in Circus-land it would be a Peter Pan-land. An London street to and including the station. A new 21st Century PP ride (E Ticket) totally different while keeping the flying vehicle concept but entering the Darling's house and loading in the bedroom. (old PP ride replaced with Sleeping Beauty ride - think fire breathing dragon finale)
Dumbo would lose the circus theme, be raised 6' feet on a landscaped and water featured level, set in a Victorian park with a 19th Century looking mechanical mechanism much like those parks had Carousels. There would be a logical expansion site over or under the RR station to outside the berm, for a Mary Poppins attraction with more London buildings.
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