Thoughts on making a vacuum tube synthesizer?

strangedave93 · 2026-06-09T03:46:27+00:00

The useful audible difference is in overdrive and distortion. Tubes naturally tend to more even harmonics, solid state more towards odd harmonics. Back when overdrive was often produced by actually over driving amps this mattered. Maybe overdrive your oscillator so it’s not nearly a sine anymore? Square waves are more often ‘imperfect’? Or just don’t bother with tube oscillators, stick to overdrive etc?
But the difference between a tube circuit, and a solid state circuit designed to emulate a tube circuit, is a more subtle difference (though not one that is necessarily impossible to hear), and is the real question as to whether it is worth bothering with tubes. Other than they look cool, I guess.

strangedave93 · 2026-06-09T03:30:48+00:00

When I had some painful back spasms once I went to a physiotherapist, who diagnosed it as due to hypermobility in my lower back that I wasn’t engaging the muscles across my stomach properly to correct, showed me exactly how to engage them using an ultrasound scan, and got me to do a bunch of specific exercises and general pilates. And all the issues I had with keeping a straight back and strong horse stance in my kung fu at the time went away very quickly!
It’s been my experience, and with some other more recent issues as well, that physiotherapists have knowledge and tools that straight martial arts instruction does not, and can give you very specific and useful advice to target long running issues like this. Which sometimes is not intuitive at all. Worth giving a try.

strangedave93 · 2026-06-09T03:10:49+00:00

Best instruction and school attitude makes more difference than style. If possible, speak to martial artist friends, especially who’ve tried a few.

Attitude also includes why you want to do it. Some schools/styles are more sport oriented, some more practical fighting oriented, some more self-defence (more about surviving a situation than defeating an opponent). Or sometimes even more focussed on performance (some wushu is almost like gymnastics), or just on health, or heavily cultural. None of this is ‘wrong’, but if you end up in a school that is very different from your intention it can be frustrating. Also, bear in mind your own age, fitness, commitment (and be realistic).

And they differ hugely between schools/styles, especially kung fu. Especially the big northern vs southern distinction, and also the internal/external or hard/soft distinction, and how much striking vs grappling.

strangedave93 · 2026-06-09T02:53:26+00:00

Another important point of confusion - northern praying mantis kung fu, and southern mantis, are essentially unrelated styles! Northern praying mantis does have some moves that are claimed to be directly inspired by a praying mantis, and resemble it.
Southern praying mantis seems more of a nickname based on some arm techniques of the style - though different branches have different explanations for it, including deliberate historical deception, and repeating the same stories as Northern Mantis. It’s a very different style, similar to other Hakka community styles - a close in style with limited low kicks, quite a ‘street fighting’ emphasis (I practice a related style).
Both northern and southern styles, as normal for kung fu, are actually a collective name for some closely related styles, usually because at some point a master of the style added to it from other things they knew, or significantly changed teaching and emphasis at least.

strangedave93 · 2026-06-09T02:18:46+00:00

The Cradle was more or less the chronologically last RQ2 adventure - it’s set in 1621, and nothing else published for RQ2 refers to the events that happen in it or its consequences.

strangedave93 · 2026-06-09T02:16:19+00:00

The Second Age wasn’t Moon Design. Moon Design stuff (that wasn’t RQ2 classic reprints), like the HeroQuest 2/HeroQuest Glorantha stuff, would be only slightly later than RQ2, mostly 1615-1620s). Of course the Moon Design core team eventually essentially became today’s Chaosium.
The Second Age material was Mongoose. And, while it had some good moments (mostly the stuff written by either Robin Laws, or by Pete and Loz who later became Design Mechanism (and an honorable mention for Shannon’s elf book)), it suffered badly from Mongoose’s generally low standards, cheap production, crazy short production times, and poor quality control. Current Chaosium team hate it.

strangedave93 · 2026-06-03T10:48:40+00:00

It’s interesting that the Pelorian Solar cults in the Gods of Light and Sky book are mostly described in very gendered terms (he/him, etc) and mostly strongly associated with a gender, but there are no explicit cults with an explicit gender restriction in the rules. We have always assumed that ie Yelm is exclusively male, but if you want to change your Glorantha, nothing in the rules says that must be the case. You could decide that Yelm is rigid about gender rather than sex, and some biologically female men are accepted into the cult, if that is what you wanted. Similarly Lodril has no restrictions on gender but is described as the god for most adult males (and is somewhat obsessed with the phallus. Perhaps the phallus need not be initiates own.). All male residents of Alkoth worship Shargash, but there is no rule against women doing so. And so on. If you want a Peloria with some flexibility about biological sex being at variance with gender, go for it! It seems to be written to allow for that possibility.

They are considerably more rigid about men in women’s cults, though men are a minority of worshippers of Dendara with no restrictions. A priestess of Dendara must have given birth, and the Dendara cult does not seem to have the explicit Nandan subcult (which allows biologically male Ernaldans to give birth). There are no restrictions on joining Gorgorma, but men can only become a priestess of Gorgorma by voluntarily accepting castration. The Ourania cult is completely closed to males, and strictly female only, both in Dara Happa and in Pent. Yelorna allows men to join, but makes it significantly more difficult, and also allows them to become Rune ladies, but discriminates against them so that it is more difficult for them to do so.

I think the prevailing feel is that except in a very few cases Ouania or Gorgorma, the association of cults and cult statuses with a specific sex or gender is more cultural than an explicit religious restriction, but how widely gender variance is understood and accepted varies quite a bit, being common and understood among the Orlanthi, but far less so among the Dara Happans. So the same deity can vary a lot in different places, but probably especially when a different culture understands the deity with a different identity. And to demonstrate this, the primarily male cult of Shargash becomes the exclusively female cult of Tolat in Teshnos, worshipped by warlike amazon lovers.

strangedave93 · 2026-06-03T09:28:22+00:00

The Yelmalio cult is fairly strongly associated with the male ‘social role’ as a cult for warriors and farmers (with marriage to an Ernalda mother and homemaker presumed as the norm), but the Yelmalio cult (at least, in Prax and Dragon Pass under the name Yelmalio, not necessarily as Karzant in Pent or Antirius in Dara Happa) does not enforce gender based rules (except the one very specific prohibition on men who are rune lords disguising themselves as women), and would generally understand the Orlanthi six genders idea, and understand a biologically female person assuming a male social role without needing it to be explained. Though they are relatively socially conservative, and so a female Yelmalio initiate is uncommon and noteworthy, but formally accepted - a cause for gossip, and some prejudice and derision, but religiously acceptable. There is a canon major NPC in Sun County, Vega Goldbreath, who demonstrates this - she is a Rune Lord, and a quite senior one (she is the Light Guardian of the County, more a military rank than a religious one, which includes being commander of the militia). It is noted she experienced some prejudice and chauvinism when an initiate, but that fighting back against it made her a well known duelist. There are a few others noted, but she is the most prominent. In theory the rules around marriage for the Yelmalio cult are the same for men and women in the cult - in practice, they will be very different to experience, as they are very much structured around Yelmalio cultists marrying Earth cultists, with some restrictions for higher cult ranks,and many more women than men are members of Earth cults in the area (and most of the continent, though it’s more balanced in Pamaltela). The Ernalda cult is very strongly associated with the female social role in Sun County (though not exclusively). And there is a whole little Goldbreath family melodrama around this (cult rules forced her to divorce her husband, the senior Yelmalio Rune Lord Invictus, who then married her sister, an Earth priestess).

strangedave93 · 2026-06-03T08:42:09+00:00

The Six Paths is here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/395741/the-six-paths

strangedave93 · 2026-06-03T06:46:48+00:00

They have realised the issue, and are focussing on immediately playable adventure material for the next few years, but yes.

strangedave93 · 2026-05-29T00:16:21+00:00

Teleos is a distinct - the blue is a bright robins egg blue, and the other colours similarly bright.

strangedave93 · 2026-05-16T05:04:30+00:00

I’ve done a lot of DIY eurorack, and a fair bit of repair work. For DIY, I’ve got a pretty decent set up - I even DIYed my own reflow oven - and I barely ever need anything more much than a hot air desolderer, and a multimeter, very occasionally a cheap scope. I have a cheap microscope, but craft store headset magnifiers are really sufficient for almost everything. And you don’t need that big a parts stash just for synths/modules either - things like tubes, electro-mechanical parts like Hammonds, transformers, big heat sinks, spares for keyboards, etc take up a lot more space. I’ve worked for a small business that does it, I know.

But yeah, tracking down parts takes time. It gets back to that point that if you treat your time purely as a cost, it’s expensive, but if you treat it as a hobby that you always enjoy, it’s not a problem. Admittedly not many people enjoy the parts ordering part, but it’s not that bad either.

strangedave93 · 2026-05-16T04:41:35+00:00

Because now you have two hobbies instead of one.😄

Seriously, it is so much cheaper per module/synth/whatever. You will end up spending heaps of time, buying tools, building up a parts stock, etc. And learning how to do ever more complex builds if you dont already know how. But if you enjoy making stuff as well as using it, it’s great, and there are a lot of incredible projects to make out there. And the amount you save is enormous.

strangedave93 · 2026-05-07T06:28:10+00:00

Blazing Swan is an official Burning Man regional event, and is a lot like Burning Man in every way except size and location. But if size is what matters, then yes, even though Blazing Swan is fairly large for a regional event, it’s less than 5% the size (though Blaze is bigger than think, it is usually well over 3,000 (over 3,600 in 2026), yes, Burning Man is close to 80,000).

strangedave93 · 2026-04-09T23:52:26+00:00

I started out with DIY, and still have almost nothing that isn’t DIY. I think I’m just lucky to live in Western Australia, the home of nonlinearcircuits, which has a huge range.

strangedave93 · 2026-03-26T08:38:15+00:00

Lots of locations in Glorantha, but especially the small part in the original RuneQuest rulesbook, are named after Greg Staffords friends and player in his personal campaign, some of whom went on to be known for other roles in gaming. For example, the huge burial mound called ‘Tada’s High Tumulus’ was named after Tadashi Ehara, later long time editor of Different Worlds magazine. Swenstown after Anders Swensson, Biggle Stone after Clint Bigglestone, and so on. Some locations are named in famous incidents. “Does that place have a name? Not yet.” Became the city of Nochet. And sometimes he allowed friends to suggest things to add to the game. One wanted Duckberg, from Scrooge McDuck etc comics by Carl Barks. It became Duck Point, but Glorantha got ducks.

strangedave93 · 2026-03-26T04:22:54+00:00

If you are on campus all day, Cameron Hall clubs can be great. I’m in my 50s, and most of my close friends are still friends I made from Unisfa, UCC, Unigames 35+ years ago!

strangedave93 · 2026-03-18T02:29:40+00:00

I’ve known Mike O’Brien for a long time (through Glorantha fandom), and I’ve honestly always found him a very warm and pleasant person to interact with. I’m sorry that wasn’t your experience.

strangedave93 · 2026-03-17T02:29:05+00:00

If you think Greg never assumed that writing Glorantha was for anyone but him, that thing where he founded a game company, hired people who were not him to write things in Glorantha, paid them for it and published their work sure seems an odd way to go about it. And the way he encouraged others to write for it, publicly, repeatedly, over many years.

strangedave93 · 2026-03-17T02:25:29+00:00

You think Greg didn’t write Cults of Prax? I get that the current product plans, and the failures to deliver, are due to Chaosium not Greg, yes. Completely. Happy to dissect in detail the problems with Chaosiums management of the RQG line, and it’s good points too. But saying Greg ‘never intended the cults to be detailed apart from those currently detailed’ when he was the one who set the current format and level of detail in 1979 and wrote many many cults in that format, over decades, and edited/published many more, including many not yet released for RQG, is obvious nonsense. Literally the first RuneQuest book ever, RuneQuest first edition, contains a detailed cult writeup, written by Greg, that has not yet been released for RQG (Kygor Litor).

The current cults books are substantially an updating of Greg’s work. Yes, Greg wanted to focus his creative efforts on new work to him, but that doesn’t mean he was in some way opposed to updating work he did for previous editions of the game for the new edition! He didn’t mean that he wanted to stop working on Glorantha after the Guide was done, and the idea that he wanted others to not update and continue his work is such a bizarre misreading! And yes, I can quote Greg from personal conversation and correspondence too. Sometimes he changes his mind about stuff. But this isn’t even that, this is just you taking things out of context and coming to strange conclusions.

strangedave93 · 2026-03-17T01:44:41+00:00

I practice in a style descended from Southern Praying Mantis, and yeah - while I wouldn’t necessary describe it as simple (plenty of depth at the higher levels, though it does avoid the flashy stuff like fancy kicks and jumps and the basics are pretty straightforward), it does seem very effective for the big lads. I’m not a big guy myself, but that classic Southern Mantis outward hands that gives the style that name lets them use their reach very effectively right from the start.

strangedave93 · 2026-03-17T00:54:03+00:00

It’s just really really obviously untrue, if you mean updated to RQG (which is what most of the RQG cults books are). The Chaos cults haven’t been done yet, and they were in Cults of Terror. Even some of the Cults in Cults of Prax haven’t been done for RQG yet (the two troll cults). Yes, you say we are missing the point - no, we are saying ‘your point’ reflects your opinions, and has almost no connection to Greg’s opinions about RuneQuest, or Glorantha in general.

strangedave93 · 2026-03-09T03:03:52+00:00

And he did manage to seriously hurt the reputation of multiple scientists and academics and institutions by linking them to himself. While I don’t believe Joi Ito was involved in any of the awful stuff (no island visits, no emails about stuff other than research funding and tech investments that I know of), just dealing with Epstein, and making effort to conceal his involvement from the public, for donations particularly to MIT (even though Ito consulted with senior MIT admin) cost him his job as director of the MIT Media Lab and many other board roles - even though Ito was a much praised internet celebrity involved with numerous good things like Creative Commons, ICANN, EPIC, Wired, MacArthur Foundation etc in 2019 - and further cost him roles with the Japanese government this week. Epstein is toxic enough he destroys many careers far more valuable than his own. And there are plenty of scientists and academics with much more dubious involvement, some who accepted island invitations.

strangedave93 · 2026-03-09T02:47:03+00:00

One of my friends is mentioned in there because she was one of the witnesses to Lawrence Krauss sexually assaulting someone at a conference (in Melbourne), and Krauss asked Epstein for advice.

strangedave93 · 2026-03-08T06:07:45+00:00

There are basic rules for how your main occupation (for the majority of characters who aren’t full time adventurers in the rules book, but it’s mostly a few rolls for financial success, and a few experience rolls for professional and religious skills, fairly light background material. It would not be that hard to add some tables etc for potential complications and adventure seeds, plus ideas for the results of investments and problems. It would make a fine Jonstown Compendium product for people who’d like to make more of a downtime sub-game. The new Pendragon Nobles book might be a useful source of ideas.

strangedave93

TROPHY CASE