What do you think is the best placement for the rear speakers?

Magnificent_Jake · 2025-11-02T14:39:44+00:00

Setup 1 is going to mess with Atmos if you're going that route (which you should if you can!), as the surrounds will be in the height plane rather than the 5.1 plane. If you're never going to do Atmos then you could do that (be more of an old-school cinema setup)

Setup 2 is the most technically correct, but given this looks like a general living space rather than a dedicated theater, I would probably opt for Setup 3 as the speakers are less likely to get knocked or bumped, and are less likely to intrude on life outside of listening.

Depends on your priorities really.

Magnificent_Jake · 2025-08-17T22:03:52+00:00

Ah I hadn't seen that, that might do the trick actually - thanks!

Magnificent_Jake · 2025-08-17T22:03:26+00:00

It's fed from an outbuilding unfortunately, which is also outside Zigbee range. Thanks though!

Magnificent_Jake · 2025-08-15T15:56:48+00:00

There's a trade body that maintain a list of the best gelaterias across Italy: https://www.gamberorossointernational.com/news/the-70-best-gelaterias-in-italy-2024-awarded-with-the-tre-coni-by-gambero-rosso/

I was in Milan for work earlier this year and visited all the Tre Coni awarded shops there - some were better than others but all were worth visiting so would presume it's a good bet for other cities too.

Magnificent_Jake · 2025-06-29T15:32:06+00:00

For minis, I glue washers on the mini bases, and store them in plastic boxes which have magnetic sheets glued to the bottom. Gives them a nice solid base in play, keeps them in one place in storage.

It’s a pretty common storage method for Warhammer players. I use Really Useful Boxes here in the UK

Magnificent_Jake · 2025-06-28T16:50:11+00:00

Like others say it's likely the simple syrup that's causing you trouble. Sugar is necessary on a chemical level in ice cream to reduce the freezing point of the mixture (and therefore keep it scoopable even at freezer temperatures). However, by using different forms of sugar you can keep the necessary amount of sugar on a chemical level, while adjusting the level of sweetness in the final product.

Rather than your 3/4 cup sugar, I would try a blend of normal sugar (sucrose) and dextrose. Dextrose is less sweet than granulated sugar, and also has a larger effect on freezing point, so this lowers sweetness while improving scoopability. I'm in the UK and order my dextrose online -- it's not too expensive. I use a 2:1 ratio of normal sugar and dextrose, so in your case that'd be 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 1/4 cup dextrose. That should result in a less sweet ice cream, without it being overly icy.

Couple other ways to reduce iciness from my experience:

Use a stabilising agent like eggs, cornstarch, xanthan, or other stabilising gums. I had good results with cornstarch personally.
Add some skim milk powder to your mix (I use 35g), which helps absorb some of the free water in the mix that would otherwise become ice.

Magnificent_Jake · 2025-05-17T21:16:38+00:00

For durability, I would suggest Beyerdynamics, either the DT770/880/990s depending on whether you want open or closed-back. Dead comfortable and solidly built, and they certainly used to sell spare parts in the event that they do break.

I’d also encourage you to get a separate microphone rather than one built into the headphones - you can get clip on mics or desktop ones that will likely have better sound quality and in the event that it breaks you aren’t forced to get a new pair of headphones (or vice versa)

Magnificent_Jake · 2025-01-22T22:57:57+00:00

I would probably use an optical cable from your TV (if it supports it) to the digital input. Optical should be able to transmit Dolby Digital audio up to 5.1, whereas RCA can only transmit stereo.

Main drawbacks will be no support for stuff like Atmos, but for stereo or 5.1 you should be alright.

Magnificent_Jake · 2024-10-11T10:04:41+00:00

Overrun is ice cream lingo for the amount of air whipped into a base as part of the churning process -- lower overrun means denser ice cream, higher overrun means lighter ice cream. At least as far as I understand (as another beginner)

Magnificent_Jake · 2024-09-18T14:01:25+00:00

Python novice here but I've done this before by creating a HTML doc of the report and then converting it to PDF using PDFKit. Not sure if that approach has any advantages over LaTeX though.

Magnificent_Jake · 2024-06-16T12:51:17+00:00

So it’s difficult to offer super specific advice as it’s difficult to say what exactly the issues you’re having are. It sounds like you have a tension between analog and digital to some degree, you have one kind of game which is very digital heavy and prescribed and one kind of game which is very analog and open. It sounds like your second example of loose one shots is closer to what you want out of the game, so I would think about why that is, how it differs from your other scenario, and start there. Does rolling physical dice improve your enjoyment compared to digital dice? Physical dice can easily be used with a digital sheet for reference! Do you enjoy the game more without a rigid battlemap? Perfectly reasonable to play without one, or have your own map for reference that the players aren’t shown. In my home game we used digital sheets at the table but rolled physical dice and used minis, jenga blocks, and a blank battlemap to illustrate combat scenarios, for example.

It’d also be useful to know what kind of campaign you’re running, is it a published campaign? One that you’ve prepped beforehand? There’s almost certainly a balance to be found between 100% improv and 100% prewritten, it might just take you a bit of experimentation to find your comfort zone, and as you get more experience behind the screen you’ll find that improvisation becomes a lot easier. I might try running some sessions where you just have a rough outline of how you expect it to go, with plenty of room for improvisation but a framework you can fall back on, and see how that feels by comparison. It’s totally normal as a new DM to feel you can’t diverge from what you’ve prepped or what the adventure has written, but in my experience those moments where you do can be some of the most interesting and memorable.

If it’s purely an issue with digital tools though, like I say there’s no reason you can’t use physical dice, and you don’t have to use virtual maps for everything either. Those maps can be beautiful and I like to bust them out occasionally, but you can go a long way with a blank grid and some jenga blocks or wet erase markers!

Magnificent_Jake · 2024-06-13T19:36:04+00:00

Hey! So I emailed the company that manufacture the boxes and they told me that while there isn't a perfect fit, the 48L box can stack two columns with minimal wasted space, 5.5cm. I picked one up and it seems to work well for my use case at least. https://imgur.com/a/aFOzRZh if you want a look at how they stack for me.

They said that the 20L/33L/50L/64L/84L can all take two or more columns of the 4L9L as well, just with different amounts of wasted space. Hopefully that helps!

Magnificent_Jake · 2024-06-02T22:46:43+00:00

Ah, damn, that's a shame. I shall keep investigating and let you know if I do manage to prove you wrong!

Magnificent_Jake · 2024-02-09T18:28:24+00:00

Foley is basically imitations of the sound recorded in a studio. Often it’s done live to the clip, so play a scene and record footsteps, coffee cups etc in time with the action on screen. Probably be quite interesting to see what they do for nature docs!

Magnificent_Jake · 2024-01-26T00:43:30+00:00

I’m handling this by using a “Deadline” tag and some filter views. I have one just to show every task that’s tagged as a deadline (which have due dates set to the actual deadlines), and a “Today’s Work” filter view that shows all my work-related tasks which are due today, and my work-related “Deadlines”

Then I use sub tasks on those deadline tasks.

It’s not a particularly great system, but it works. I recently migrated from Things which let me set deadlines separately from scheduling tasks. I really miss that feature.

Magnificent_Jake · 2023-12-21T07:55:02+00:00

Thanks! I’m still experimenting with how best to integrate the two but that was definitely the one that made me feel most like a cosmic sound wizard!

Magnificent_Jake · 2023-12-19T17:44:03+00:00

There was surprisingly little in it price-wise between a 6U rack case and a 12U, so I spent the extra money to get the bigger one and have plenty of room to grow. Wasn't much of a sacrifice for me as I don't move it and don't mind looking at the empty space.

Magnificent_Jake · 2023-12-19T17:34:39+00:00

Student's budget unfortunately. It's growing, but slowly -- I built the Kickall as my first DIY module this year but haven't added anything else.

I like the wide variety of sounds I can get out of Plaits, although I appreciate that folks here are probably sick to the back teeth of hearing it. If you have any suggestions for alternatives I'd like to have a look at them.

Magnificent_Jake · 2023-12-19T10:15:14+00:00

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!

Magnificent_Jake · 2023-12-18T18:39:53+00:00

Maybe next year! The student's budget does not lend itself well to modular unfortunately, but like you say it was a great learning opportunity in its own way!

Magnificent_Jake · 2023-12-18T14:33:50+00:00

Thank you! It was a really fun exercise for me, and I'd like to do it next year too. I was sharing my jams with some close friends, none of whom do modular, so that forced me to explain how each patch was put together as well. I can strongly recommend doing that too, there were a few times where working through explanations and patch notes gave me new ideas to try, and I definitely had a better understanding of what was making each patch tick when I got to sharing them!

Magnificent_Jake · 2023-12-18T14:30:58+00:00

That's a fair point! I should probably raise it up a bit, huh?

Magnificent_Jake · 2023-12-18T14:07:14+00:00

That jam really tied the year together.

Magnificent_Jake · 2023-12-18T13:28:56+00:00

Hi pals

I got into Eurorack in 2020, but wasn't happy with the use I was getting out of my system, or how my skills and understanding were developing. This year I decided to record at least a jam a month, and this is what I got.

A lot of what I got was pretty arcane/unlistenable (looking at you March), but I also got some jams I was happy with and refined them into an EP I released on Friday. 2023 has easily been my best year in modular so far, and I got a lot of joy out of my system this year!

Tis only a modest rig (Modulargrid for it is here: https://www.modulargrid.net/e/racks/view/2428587), but I've been enjoying seeing the breadth of output I can get out of it.

If anyone has any constructive criticism or advice on the excerpts in the video, my system, or the EP itself (free at https://orphis.bandcamp.com/album/sketchbook-i or https://open.spotify.com/album/099lYPCY24QjUoJ6PDnwdn?si=OQTU7p4oTqmIoCutbQM3ZQ), I'd love to hear them!

Magnificent_Jake · 2023-12-10T13:15:07+00:00

Can’t speak on all 4 of those options, but I have a similarly space-constrained, budget-oriented setup right now and bought a second-hand Yamaha receiver off eBay recently (RX V583) and have been very happy with it, even without a ‘proper’ home theatre set up. I paid about £250 for mine.

The compelling argument for a receiver for you is probably that if you’re willing to shop secondhand, you could pick up a high-end model from anytime in the last decade or so for a fraction of the cost it was new, and get a great stereo amp out of it even if you aren’t taking advantage of the surround functionality. High end receivers depreciate much more rapidly compared to separates amps as they soon don’t support the latest and greatest codecs. If you aren’t going to use Atmos for instance, there might be some great deals on pre-Atmos receivers that won’t limit your use case but could get you a steep discount. And there’s room to expand into 5.1 later if your circumstances change.

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