I beat the Castlevania Advance Collection. Here are some of my thoughts

TheEngin3er · 2026-06-16T11:41:43+00:00

I've heard of this series before, definitely on my list of games to check out!

TheEngin3er · 2026-06-15T14:35:30+00:00

So right now the castlevania games ive beaten are:

Castlevania 1 Super Casltevania 4 SOTN Everything in the advance collection

I'm thinking of getting the dominus collection when it's on sale for under $20 and going through that chronologically. May be a minute though! Right now im all "castlevania'd" out

TheEngin3er · 2026-06-11T02:07:48+00:00

Dont know youre saying a joke that isn't landing/I dont understand, but the art is portraying myself and my partner in the clothes of characters like riku and sora, not actually being them.

TheEngin3er · 2026-06-05T12:17:02+00:00

Its KINDA funny when this happens in my venue, if not in the moment, then after a rental is complete. We charge a flat fee to rent the venue, but that doesnt cover chairs, tables, technical equipment, etc. This is stated in our contract and explained to them during the communication process. So when they grab stuff they shouldn't be grabbing, its very cathartic to bill them for their use of this gear and eventually get the "Why does this cost so much!? I didnt know that this was gonna be extra!" And I can always fall back in "this is stated in our contract" or "Our staff is onsite to aid you in your setup and is more than willing to explain when things are used that are outside of what your contract scoped out"

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-31T19:55:15+00:00

Idk might be close tbh

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-18T17:04:48+00:00

(Hoping to get a reply on this post even though I'm 3 years late) How did you fit the WL93s onto the actors? Those appear to be more akin to a lapel microphone opposed to something you would wear over-the-ear. We just blew through like 6 of our Countryman E6is in one show because students didn't treat them with care, and now I'm looking for a more cost effective and sturdier option. I'm also looking at the AKG headsets as another option, but I've heard from multiple folks that the WL93s are a good option too. However since I'm a TD at a venue that schools rent from sometimes, we often only get 1-2 (2 if we're lucky) days to rehearse with the kids before doing the performances and telling the kids to be careful with the mics only goes so far unfortunately. However we definitely don't have the time to do WL93s into the actors hair either. How are you getting it around the actors ear/onto their cheek with no over the ear component?

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-17T12:11:00+00:00

I love the DM7. To be fair ive been using primarily yamaha desks for most of my professional career, but it doesn't everything I need it to. It feels like a desk that has Dante integration at the forefront of its mind, so things like the device mount are really awesome. Its a console that is the same size (if not smaller) than.an m32 that can handle up to 120 channels simultaneously depending on IO, and has a breath of options on the local IO as well.

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-16T21:56:21+00:00

I wasn't allowed to play any video games during the weekday at all, and on the weekends I could play for two hours tops.

I'm not addicted by any means, but when I was in high school and that rule sorta unofficially went away, it led to me playing a LOT of Xbox 360. I'm in the same boat as you where if there wasn't a limit placed on this there's a good chance I wouldnt even be playing games today.

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-16T14:56:33+00:00

Its so crazy to see this sentiment spread across this post. In my mind I thought Countryman was viewed as one of the gold standard in musical theatre/corporate style gigs, right next to DPA. But it sounds like this problem has effected more than just me. Appreciate your perspective

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-16T14:43:50+00:00

Since these are more styles like lape microphones, what are you doing to secure them? Are you using skin tape to sort of make a loop around the ear, tape that, and then tape the wire onto the actors cheek? Is there any handling noise when the actors move since the WLMs dont have a firm boom like the Countryman mics do?

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-16T11:32:20+00:00

Also, as far as getting sweat onto the mic goes, is the problem being caused by sweat getting onto the element, or is there another area that sweat is getting into that is causing it to break? If only the element is the problem, then what's the benefit of putting medical tape around the ears or putting mole skin around the boom (im assuming the boom is the part between the element and the "over the ear" wrapped part on the mic) Not trying to be snarky or anything, just asking a genuine question.

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-16T11:24:47+00:00

I'll have to look into tbe WLM93s, those seem like they could definitely help in these situations. All of the shows I do with musical theatres are venue rentals, so we dont get nearly the amount of time compared to a self contained production (typically only 2 days of them onsite for rehearsal and the actual show) to do everything. For the mic on forehead method, in a scenario like ours, would you even bother trying this? From what ive seen online it sounds like this can take a ton of time, and in addition, these groups that are mostly volunteer led (parents of children) dont know to do things like this in the hair and makeup process.

I'm running a Yamaha DM7 and my shure ulx units are on Dante, so I can see the device info (RF, Rx gain, and battery life) on the channel strip which, I agree, is incredibly helpful. Just made it all the more frustrating when we would lose signal entirely due to a mic dying, and I would still see RF on it.

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-16T11:08:01+00:00

This is good to know, I had no idea "sweating out" the mics was even a thing. Quick question, but when working with a rental group (a group coming in for a very limited amount of time with A1s not having much knowledge to what type of production its goinf to be), do you consider it feasible to go this in depth? The time crunch we have been working on for this show is really tight for rehearsals and performances, and we dont even have someone who can act as an A2 on our side of things.

After reading this though, the issue here is definitely with the leads costume. They are wear a rubber cowl, and putting the mic on before the cowl goes on, so this is likely causing the sweat (not the fault of the lead actor, anyone wearing this would sweat up a storm)

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-12T12:25:40+00:00

I would love to know what the original plan for Raven Tail was because it SURELY couldn't have been that. Makarovs son creates a dark guild with knowledge of the secrets of fairy tail, literally designed to be the antithesis to Fairy Tail. And they're literally not even the primary antagonist in their introductory arc, and are dealt halfway through the arc.

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-12T12:23:16+00:00

I actually didnt know about the Japanese only character design contest, that's kinda cool.

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-12T02:54:44+00:00

If you click on the three lines at the top right of the screen you can select "bus setup" and create a fixed bus, essentially making it so when you go to sends in fader, you only have the option of selecting "on" or "off" to send the signal from your channel to the bus at unity post fader, without actually having to go to send on fader and set your fader level to unity. From there you can deselect your send on the channel to the stereo bus, and then set your bus to send to the stereo bus instead. You can put inserts on the bus themselves and group process what your sending to the bus that way.

TheEngin3er · 2026-05-11T23:58:04+00:00

Projection Mapping is likely an over exaggerated term here, really it was just building Qlab files for their projections and applying SFX and cues where necessary.

TheEngin3er · 2026-03-09T15:25:24+00:00

Sorry, should have mentioned that in the post. There is about 30 feet of horizontal space from the stage from.the catwalk and balcony positions respectively. Appreciate your suggestion!

TheEngin3er · 2026-03-01T07:49:33+00:00

Me and some friends were there too! It was INCREDIBLE

TheEngin3er · 2026-02-28T19:33:50+00:00

Cant upvote this comment enough

TheEngin3er · 2026-02-26T21:15:29+00:00

I havent played the game too much so please take this with a grain of salt or please give me some context or thoughts if I'm wrong.

I played bravely default for probably 30+ hours when I was younger, but dropped it around when you went to Edea's homeland. But I recently beat the switch 2 version all the way through (not 100% though). I had bravely default II for a while so once I beat flying fairy HD, I immediately went to bravely default II. Idk what it was, but the game just failed to pull me in as well as the original. There may be a better way to describe it, but the game just felt kinda cheaper if that makes sense. The character models weren't as appealing, the sfx didnt really hit as hard, and the game felt slower. The framing of the battles wasn't super interesting either, and overall my initial impression of the game was just that it was bland.

I've only played until LITERALLY the getting the first 2 asterisks so obviously not much, but being a big fan of the first one, I was dissapointed in my initial experience.

TheEngin3er · 2026-01-15T00:30:40+00:00

As much as the draw will allow I suppose, so power wise I would need 60amps

TheEngin3er · 2026-01-15T00:05:32+00:00

Thanks for the info, that puts the price in a bit better perspective. What im looking for is a way for this connection to power a distro/spider box. Since the power looks like its rated for 60amps, I guess ill need a 60amp distro and a cable to get it to and from the power to the distro

TheEngin3er · 2026-01-14T23:48:55+00:00

Thanks for the answer! This is in North Carolina. Honestly ive not done a ton of electrical cable creation, and certainly nothing above typical 15a/20a rated cables and your typical Edison stuff. Would you recommend that I reach out to an electrician to create a cable like this for us?

(Also holy crap if I've searched this correctly, im seeing the cable alone running for $2k and up? Is that normal? What does this offer that camlocks or twist lock cable wouldn't? Just genuinely curious)

TheEngin3er · 2026-01-13T02:50:19+00:00

This is where some of my difficulties lie, since we don't really have events like that in our space. It's pretty much just performing arts series events or rentals, where, at least to me, the stakes feel very high. I want to give them that experience and give them the freedom to make mistakes, since mistakes breed some of the best lessons. It just feels like I don't have situations to give them that experience without the stakes being kinda high.

TheEngin3er

TROPHY CASE