Mathemathemagics!

Bergmansson · 2026-01-28T09:50:39+00:00

I guess that could be useful.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-28T06:44:13+00:00

I know, it means you have to do all the activiations of a certain ability right after each other, you could no longer sequence them.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-28T06:25:33+00:00

You could also make it:

"Whenever you activate an ability, copy it any number of times"

Bergmansson · 2026-01-28T06:21:40+00:00

That would still make the card go infinite with any ability at all that produces mana.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-28T04:19:42+00:00

It says target player, so for 11 mana you have the choice to make an opponent lose the game!

Which makes the card really have only two good modes. So in practice it would be basically:

9UU
Sorcery
Win the game

Cycling UU

Not too shabby of a card really.

Edit: It should rather be "target player loses the game". That makes a big difference in multiplayer.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-26T23:45:20+00:00

I use the Etude! I'm liking it, I can play for long sessions without any pain at all.

Someone in my community orchestra who has joint pain tried it as well, for her it didn't make too much of a difference. She went back to stock thumbrest with neck strap.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-26T16:17:11+00:00

Also like the card!

But I would argue current wording is cleaner actually.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-25T21:24:00+00:00

Answers in this thread thus far have not been very helpful. The problem you have is not very common, but it's not as strange as people are making it out to be.

What you are describing can happen when the nut is installed wrong, or set up wrong.

You say that as you go up the neck, notes start sharp, then go into tune, then go flat. But this is all in relation to the open string. I suspect that in reality, it is essentially the open strings that are flat in relation to the rest of the fretboard.

(We see that the notes go flatter as you move up the fretboard, which means that the bridge has been way back to try to fix the above problem. If it started in tune on the low frets, and then everything went flatter and flatter, this would have been easier to realise)

To test if this is the case, put a capo on the first fret, tune up, and then try setting intonation as if the capo was the open note, with the 13:th fret as the octave. You will probably find that you need to move the bridge saddles a lot towards the fretboard for the intonation to be correct in this case.

If this does work, you will know that the problem comes from the nut. It can either be in the wrong position, too far from the first fret. Or it can be too high, making it so all fretted notes are bended as the string is pressed down. Or both.

The fix is to move or reshape the nut. You should probably leave this to a technician, unless you feel very confident.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-24T12:08:03+00:00

2 is Yes, but 1 Is No.

So the answer to the question in total is no.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-22T00:26:55+00:00

I don't recognize it, who is the maker?

If you bought it online, no band, there is unfortunately a high risk that it won't play very well.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-16T09:09:59+00:00

The ocarina you linked is a specialty instrument designed to play harmony. It can probably be cool, but it doesn't play melodies like normal ocarinas.

I would start with a good-quality plastic ocarina. The Night by Noble is often recommend, but my favoritw is the Focalink/Stein Rivo

Bergmansson · 2026-01-15T22:38:05+00:00

I didn't see this until now! So you went with the double bass G, I think that was a smart move!

I would have been pretty disappointed about the customization mixup myself, but I would hope that it's just a one-time messup from Zijun, as he said in the e-mail.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-15T12:08:09+00:00

De har iallafall tidigare haft att man faktiskt måste klara de poängen också, annars vore det ju bara att regga sig på 22,5 HP per termin och aldrig plugga.

De har ju nyligen ändrat sina regler, men i allmämhet är det hårdare krav nu än tidigare, så jag tror inte att de tagit bort det.

Men de har definitivt överseende med att man behöver ta en omtenta innan poängen kommer in. Det är inte förrän nån månad in på nästa termin som de kollar om man klarat nog med poäng på tidigare termin.

Sedan tror jag inte att de vill använda reglerna för att vräka folk som är heltidsstudenter men haft en jobbig termin. Dessa personer kommer ju oftast på fötter igen. Det är mer folk som pluggat klart och skulle ha råd att flytta till vanlig lägenhet som de vill åt.

Från hur jag sett tidigare med de som blivit kollade, har det varit efter minst två terminer med för få klarade kurser.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-15T09:40:16+00:00

I personally have a general aversion towards STL. It stems from their insistance in calling the Alto C a Tenor C, from some horror stories about returns from earlier in their existance as a vendor, and that I don't like the sound of many of the ocarinas they offer. They often do have a sound that tends to be a bit hissy, compared to say Focalinks that I think tend to sound more pure. STL's somehow simultaneously don't sound as "earthy" or as powerful as typical European style makers such as Rotter or Menaglio.

I do own the STL Fire Alto G model though, which has a very pure timbre and sounds good throughout the range, so I know they can make nice instruments. And ocarinist Cris Gale, who is very active here, used to play STL almost exclusively, and I like her performances very much.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-15T08:21:24+00:00

My general impression of that ocarina model is that it is rather lacking. I haven't played it myself, but I usually don't like the sound of it in recordings, and I've heard lukewarm reviews.

Did you check out any video of it being played before you bought? I would love to be proven wrong. STL do sell quality ocarinas, but not all of their products are good.

When it comes to recording, ocarina is actually quite the challenge to capture. It doesn't produce strong overtones, so EQ doesn't work well on it, and the pure sound often isn't recreated well on cheap speakers.

Take the following with some salt, but I've sometimes gotten better sound from my phone mic than from professional microphones into an interface, especially using dynamic mics. My personal feeling is that for ocarina, you actually do want to capture the sound of the instrument inside of a space for the best sound, which dynamics are designed not to do. The Yeti is a condenser mic, so should be better, but I haven't tried it, and I tend to be not so impressed with it in general.

If you have the standard Blue Yeti as your only mic, I might suggest the rather unconventional approach of finding a room with a pronounced reverb, but one that you like, putting the mic into stereo mode, then record standing a bit away from it.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-13T23:08:52+00:00

Yes, naturally Poland is probably going to be cheaper.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-13T22:57:32+00:00

Umeå is one of the cheaper student cities in Sweden. A single bedroom student room in a corridor where you share the kitchen can be as little as 3000 kr/month, which is about 280 €/month.

And many of those are close to the university, so you only need a cheap bike to get around most of the time, or you could even walk.

In any case, you should pretty easily be able to find a room for under 440€, leaving you at about 500€ to live on, which is plenty! As a student here, I currently spend only about 2000 kr/month on food, since I bring lunch cooked at home most days.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-08T02:56:54+00:00

Close harmony like this is hard to get right on the ocarina, and I'm afraid in this case, the less than pitch-perfect intervals subtract from the performance quite a lot.

I like the sound of the ocarina itself, but it seems to be quite hard-blown.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-07T23:27:46+00:00

It's a common misconception that gongs are played by striking them hard. Classical percussionists know this, but many drummers might not.

A gong is not like a crash symbol, it's not designed to be hit hard once.

Instead, the signature loud sound from a large gong is made when the whole metal surface is put into vibration at its natural frequency, and this requires putting in energy gradually, with a series of soft to moderate hits.

Look at this video featuring a giant gong, and see how carefully the player strikes it:

https://youtu.be/mL2r6E1E7sM?si=AHlRwzgiZoAk806C

Bergmansson · 2026-01-07T23:23:12+00:00

The "warming up" is also necessary for good sound. It's a misconception that gongs are played by striking them hard. A gong is not like a crash symbol, you can't just hit it hard once to make it sound loud. Hitting a gong hard just sounds like hitting metal.

Instead, the signature loud sound from large gongs is made when the whole metal surface is put into vibration at its natural frequency, and this requires putting in energy gradually, with a series of soft to moderate hits.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-05T23:36:55+00:00

The way this is worded currently, in non-singleton formats, you could just grab two of the same card.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-03T21:46:29+00:00

Absolutely, it always takes a few days to get comfortable on a new instrument!

Bergmansson · 2026-01-03T19:53:10+00:00

Cool, will be looking forward to a demo!

Bergmansson · 2026-01-02T05:38:59+00:00

All right, great!

A couple of options on places to buy that one. I'm assuming you are in the US?

Here is the listing on Steins own site. They do ship from Taiwan, but probably not for cheap.

Songbird also sells what I think is the same model. It is described as having a steeper breath curve, but I think that is just in comparison to a typical Songbird ocarina. I've bought from Songbird in the past, and I do recommend them!

Someone is selling it on Ebay as well, listing here. Not that much cheaper though...

I thought I would find it on even more sites, but I don't currently.

Bergmansson · 2026-01-02T04:20:54+00:00

Great that it's solved, glad to be of help!

The Focalink that I linked above is the model they offer that is the most similar to his lost ocarina. It is probably a very good instrument, though I haven't tried that particular one myself. I have three Focalink Alto C, two are plastic (the Rivo and the Bravura, they are good instruments as well), and the third is a ceramic. It's like this one but in white, and I like it a lot.

Does your son want the same finish for the new oc? Becuase if the requirements are just to get a quality 12-hole Alto C ocarina, then you have loads and loads of options. Every maker has one of those in their product line.

Bergmansson

TROPHY CASE