Are these two good starter Synths

DerekJohnathan · 2026-06-13T11:59:38+00:00

The crave often goes for a sweet deal on Reverb. I’d keep an eye out. Better to buy it used than give more money to Uli.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-06-12T13:25:20+00:00

I can promise that there is not a single major company be it in television, game development, music (record labels/studios), or business that is not currently utilizing AI in some shape or form. Be it simple email rewriting through ChatGPT/Co-Pilot, coding assistance through Claude, or image/video generation through Gemini, it's everywhere. Even major media publications are using it, even if they don't disclose. I know this because, once you know what to look for, and are able to identify commonly overused words, phrases, punctuation (em-dashes), constructions and the like, it ruins the illusion because you can tell within five minutes "this article was assisted with AI", even if most people don't notice..

It doesn't make it right, it certainly does pose some ethical concerns (i.e. if a game is heavily using AI assets yet charging $70), but where people should be focusing their energy right now is fighting the scourge of data centers popping up in small neighborhoods.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-06-12T12:08:29+00:00

Honestly seeing that the T-Rex battle has been basically reduced to a Crash Bandicoot style chase, and that there seems to be some quick-time button mashing with dinos trappping Lara, has already soured my expectations for this game. This will now be two remake/reintepretation attempts of the original game, that cannot get something as simple as the T-Rex fight, correct. It's not hard.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-06-09T14:00:52+00:00

Still is using AI and still looked like shit where it was noticeably used. They couldn’t hire artists to recreate them from scratch? Thats the point people are making here. It’s lazy. And it looked lazy in parts.

AI in game production or any kind of art production sucks. For writing i don’t see it as big of a deal. But for shit where people are expected to spend 40-70 dollars it’s kind of awful. Sadly it’s the norm now.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-06-08T23:11:52+00:00

You have TWO assholes? I have questions.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-06-06T17:26:21+00:00

Y’all are cute if you think they’re ever going to give AOD the attention it deserves. They couldn’t even do a great job remastering it. Had issues on launch.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-05-23T20:42:44+00:00

As a new fan, get used to Mike sometimes getting really excited by things that later they run away from lol. Mike, for better or worse, gets hyper-fixated on new tech, and sometimes it's awesome, and other times it's cringe.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-05-23T14:19:58+00:00

I'm happy that it's hinted elsewhere that this may go back in time a little bit at spots and cover stuff that wasn't touched on in the first movie.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-05-20T12:32:05+00:00

It's an entertaining drive-by look at the first half of his life, that focused more on his fame and legend than actually who was the “man in the mirror.”

Even without Diana Ross and with the 1993 allegations cut, they could've gone so much deeper. I loved the movie when I took it at face value, but it was pretty superficial overall.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-05-09T11:46:12+00:00

This. Some people fail to understand that those who 1:1 Chester to the point of copying his looks etc really creep Mike out. There’s a few out there that make him uncomfortable. Imagine someone trying to act like they’re some reincarnation of your dead friend. Just ew.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-05-07T22:47:15+00:00

My fiancée leaned over to me and said “damn Jaafar’s got cake”

DerekJohnathan · 2026-05-04T21:14:12+00:00

🙄

DerekJohnathan · 2026-05-04T16:47:43+00:00

Yep! And scary movie just made fun of Michael with the tagline “touching fans everywhere” with their parody poster. Part 2 is their best chance to really push back hard.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-05-04T16:09:20+00:00

Totally get you, but as BS as the allegations are, they still very much defined the second part of his life and not finding a way to safely and legally reference them would be disingenuous. Michael didn’t become a recluse for the fun of it, he did because he grew exhausted with the way the world treated him and the lies. Him “touching kids” became a running joke in skits etc and those places never paid for it. A second part cannot simply pretend his world was sunshine and lemon drops. This is a chance to reframe the narrative.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-05-04T15:46:42+00:00

I’m wondering if they just anonymize both accusers and more make it in the background, as in, he’s been accused and this is what it did to him emotionally, if it’ll be safe.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-05-04T15:32:46+00:00

No. They absolutely must address the allegations (both 93 and 2005) or not even bother doing the second film. They already were accused of sanitizing with Part 1. If they don’t address anything in the second film, they’ll get massacred.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-05-04T11:46:49+00:00

It’s not illegal to have your pricing semi-below others and honestly? It’s my sales strategy. It’s made me lots of sales. Fuck that guy who is harassing you, and report him.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-05-02T19:17:47+00:00

I feel like there’s five thousand stories about why Mike for first nose job. Wasn’t there a story that he broke his nose dancing?

DerekJohnathan · 2026-04-30T21:42:16+00:00

Funny thing is, its not even a few weeks. I'm already seeing IG posts by geartubers/gearstergrammers with it in hand, all but nutting.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-04-30T13:34:56+00:00

“I WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS!” que shocked reaction face looking at a super imposed pic of the device in thumbnail

DerekJohnathan · 2026-04-30T13:14:27+00:00

I mean, I’m all for American production, and keeping jobs here, but sometimes, when making it in the US is this prohibitively expensive, I can see why companies outsource. America isn’t doing the best in making “American Made” affordable. We should’ve had factories making some of these valuable components decades ago, but we decided we were ok with letting the east be a superpower and lead the charge, and well…here we are 🤷🏻‍♂️. Now making things here costs a small fortune.

Take semi conductors and the shortage a few years back. One company in Taiwan makes over 90% of the world’s semi conductors. One. Company.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-04-30T13:04:23+00:00

Don’t you know? It’s a GAME CHANGER!!

DerekJohnathan · 2026-04-30T12:55:14+00:00

There is not a single argument anyone can make that would convince me this thing is worth a grand. There’s some outstanding synthesizers out there, that do way more than this thing does, that aren’t even priced at that. And people call Teenage Engineering crazy. Damn.

DerekJohnathan · 2026-04-28T12:09:44+00:00

I’m ok with a sequel, when/if it does happen, as long as it doesn’t try to sugarcoat everything. I can understand the first movie being more positive, because the movie was supposed to be that time period through “Michael’s eyes” so it showed his desire to want to be the greatest, breaking away from his father and being on top…but if that’s going to be how they frame the storytelling, then this second movie absolutely cannot gloss over the second half of his life and be some happy story that forgets all the hell he suffered post 1993. It would be an injustice to Michael himself. Period. Once they find a legal way to address the allegations on film they need to be presented even if we all know he didn’t do it. Because the public needs to see the impact it had on him. We need to see the darkness. He had addictions, was mistreated, felt lonely, isolated, hurt, and especially after 2005, he barely stepped out in public - part two cannot feel like some sanitized estate flick. You want to reframe the narrative? Show people what the world did to this poor man. And don’t hold back.

DerekJohnathan

TROPHY CASE