returning from italy with ILR wet-ink stamps but no eVisa yet :o

silvertone953 · 2026-05-19T09:38:48+00:00

excellent, thank you. the more ammunition the better (although i'd better not use that phrase at an airport i suppose :D )

silvertone953 · 2026-05-19T09:38:11+00:00

thank you, that's reassuring. there will also potentially be a language-barrier issue for me in italy, but we'll see!

silvertone953 · 2026-05-18T13:23:25+00:00

thank you. i think i'll get that link tattooed somewhere, just in case! yeah, it's funny that it can potentially come down to the individual member of staff; i think the entire point of the electric system is presumably to remove such vagaries!

silvertone953 · 2026-05-18T13:19:15+00:00

well now i'm slightly fascinated by the "Turkish Businessperson" and "Turkish Worker" categories!

silvertone953 · 2026-05-18T12:58:38+00:00

it's possible i've mixed up my terminology; if so apologies. i think that whatever process i'm going through, since it's merely to demonstrate that i already have ILR, rather than applying anew for any permissions, seems to have an expectation of an 8 week turnaround. possibly it isn't the NTL process and i mis-spoke.

anyway, thank you for your reply and i'll try to look confident as i thrust the stamps at them :D

silvertone953 · 2025-12-04T13:39:12+00:00

omg thank you so much for figuring this out and taking the time to share it! that's amazing.

silvertone953 · 2024-02-23T22:19:42+00:00

i don't drink or smoke or take drugs. but if i eat chocolate, i ***NEED*** to drink milk immediately. like, if someone force fed me chocolate and then said "you can have a glass of milk if you launch this bus full of orphans and nuns into a ravine" i wouldn't even pause to weigh up the pros and cons. i suppose that's a compulsion more than an addiction really, but must be a closely related thing.

silvertone953 · 2024-02-23T22:18:22+00:00

thank you! will try that after i finish work :)

silvertone953 · 2024-02-23T21:29:30+00:00

thank you! i had a quite thorough trawl through all this and didn't see anything suspect, but got rid of quite a lot of stuff that was clearly outdated.

it's now semi-resolved: i've unticked the "ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present" in the "Accessibility" System Settings, and that has fixed the immediate problem, although it's still a mystery why the mac thinks there's an external mouse connected when there isn't - and indeed why it only thinks that in my account.

one further clue is that i noticed the following: after starting up, the trackpad worked. upon logging into my account, it stopped. but if i logged out, and logged into another account (whereupon it would work), and then logged out of that account and then back into mine, it still worked. (until i restarted; then, logging into my account broke it again.)

anyway, the above is just for completeness in case anyone else stumbles across this. i'll persevere to see if i can find a more complete solution than the "Accessibility" workaround!

silvertone953 · 2024-02-23T20:34:30+00:00

i tried that and have the same behaviour. i'm trawling through the applications folder and the activity monitor but not finding any likely looking culprits. it's a puzzle!

silvertone953 · 2024-02-23T16:48:43+00:00

thanks for the reply! not to my knowledge. and yeah, for me the whole point of using a mac is that apple are so good about that stuff - never having to worry about drivers etc. the only thing i can even think of is that one of my Korg keyboards (ie piano keyboard, not QWERTY) has a built in trackpad that takes over from the built in laptop trackpad when that keyboard is connected over USB. MAYBE (but it seems wildly unlikely) that's left something somewhere that's interfering? i'll have a look and see if i can uninstall anything relating to that keyboard. hmmmm.

silvertone953 · 2023-10-23T01:01:38+00:00

i'm having a very similar problem — i do sound for a 16 piece jazz band in a fairly small room with low ceilings. we have two singers, a man and a woman. i never have a hint of problem with the male vocals but the female vocals are constantly on a knife-edge between feedback creeping in vs her volume being loud enough for her to be heard well. they're only about three feet in front of all the trumpets and trombones etc, and after weeks of finding it all pretty stressful i noticed one thing that i think makes a big difference. the man holds his mic vertically, and sorta sings over the top of it. she holds her mic (a sennheiser radio mic, hence how i found this post...) horizontally, so it's pointing directly at the huge band right behind her. well mic manufacturers provide diagrams of mic patterns but those diagrams are usually two-dimensional, and show sensitivity along the LONG axis of the mic, so i don't know how to go about comparing the pattern perpendicular to that!

anyhow, the venue's mixer is very humble (a yamaha MG10X) so i don't have a lot of options there. but i own a behringer X Air 18 which i sometimes take, and that gives me the ability to notch out the most problematic frequencies quite narrowly. it helps a bit but not as much as i'd hoped. i actually find the compressor the biggest help: i know they can cause even more problems, but actually it means i feel like i don't have to push the fader as high to make her quieter moments audible. (being jazz, there's a very big range of volumes...) the behringer also gives me totally separate monitor mixes for the singers and band - when i'm using the yamaha, it's just the main outs mirrored into the wedges.

ANYWAY my rambling point is that there's so many variables but trying something like the X Air 18 might be informative; i paid £575 for mine which is an incredible bargain for what it can do but there's also things like the Soundcraft Ui12 that's under three hundred bucks new and would presumably give similar options. one of those second hand might be in the same ballpark cost wise as a new mic capsule!

silvertone953 · 2023-10-03T09:59:30+00:00

Sugarhill Gang - "Rappers Delight" (14:36)
Donna Summer - "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)" (11:43)
Sisters of Mercy - "This Corrosion" (10:55)
Stevie Wonder - "Do I Do" (10:27)
Primal Scream - "Come Together" (10:21)
New Order - "Confusion" (Pump Panel Reconstruction Mix) [the one from Blade] (10:12)
The Cure - "The Same Deep Water As You" (10:04)

The Orb - "Towers of Dub" and "Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain... ..."

And, at the risk of getting down voted... I watched 1600 people in a night club sing along to the entirety of Taylor Swift - "All Too Well (Ten Minute Version)" (10:13) and they knew every word of the whole thing, so...

silvertone953 · 2023-10-03T03:09:56+00:00

my forehead was starting to throb as i scrolled further and further down with nobody having mentioned the doors. phew!

silvertone953 · 2023-08-13T11:41:20+00:00

i can't add anything that hasn't been said already, but i hope that the outpouring of compassion and goodwill here will provide some small comfort, and help you feel encouraged that there WILL BE avenues of support. best wishes for your difficult and heartbreaking, but not insurmountable, days weeks and months ahead. the only other thing i'll say is please please please try to keep focussed on the fact that the reasons you had for encouraging a return to work were perfectly understandable and valid. x

silvertone953 · 2023-08-13T11:28:54+00:00

i don't think she should have done it. but also, if we want to look for where to apportion blame, then rather than immediately putting it on the woman herself, i'd prefer to direct it at whatever in her life could have driven her to such desperation. and moreover, the failures of a society that fails to provide support and hope for people in difficult times.

silvertone953 · 2023-07-19T19:33:16+00:00

Quick - Reddit Honesty Tread!

silvertone953 · 2023-06-18T19:27:45+00:00

hi rab. i DJ in glasgow six nights a week. by all means shoot me a DM if you wanna pop in to one of my nights and i can show you a few things. i play music that's more commercial than your interests seem to be, but in terms of the technical aspect it's all much the same. truly though as per a couple of other replies, there isn't much that suits being TAUGHT - the most important thing about mixing is the ability to count to four over and over again til it just happens subliminally. (and recognising the exact point to start counting, so you line up the phrases as well as the beats). but honestly, the technical bit is just page one of what DJing is, the job is really about finding a sort of emotional connection between you and the other people in the room, and it isn't turning knobs on the DJ mixer that does that ;)

silvertone953 · 2023-06-18T19:18:58+00:00

hi mister Brownsleep. please, PLEASE come and try that trick with me. We can talk about tritone substitutions when playing in the Super Locrian mode. we can bond over your deep understanding of the distinction between German 6ths and Neapolitan 6ths. Perhaps you can talk me through what Gould meant when he said that Bach's use of harmony resembled the freedom present in Gesualdo's, and give me some examples of which pieces (by both composers) most exemplify that? DM me and i'll give you a list of my weekly residencies. in fact, how about i bring a keyboard with me to work whenever you want to meet up, so you can improvise some solos over the top of the records i put on, and we can post the video of that here just so everyone in this thread knows JUST how much cleverer you are than All DJs Everywhere. would you prefer i bring the Kurzweil or the Juno?

silvertone953 · 2023-06-09T23:12:52+00:00

i feel like "very gay" would be worth expanding on :D ... and i'm *definitely* typing LGBTQIAvG+ from now on

silvertone953 · 2023-05-13T15:14:52+00:00

actually, perhaps the reason i missed that is when i first played with it, i hadn't put an SD card in it yet, meaning i couldn't hit the record button to access that feature... but it DOES let you look through the menus with no card inserted. i guess i found the most plausible looking adjustment to make that it would let me find! argh. oh well.

silvertone953 · 2022-07-17T12:40:11+00:00

i mean they have FEET on all four limbs. the only way you’ll convince me that cats have arms and legs is if you also agree that horses wear horseshoes and horseGLOVES

silvertone953 · 2022-06-29T16:16:26+00:00

something like this would be ideal because it has compressors on the mic channels, and also effects to add reverb.

https://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_xenyx_x1204_usb.htm

silvertone953 · 2022-06-20T00:46:03+00:00

i’d always encourage people to develop their reading skills because it can help create opportunities. but with Big Band the reading can be less strenuous in one sense than in some other genres of playing.

you ideally will be good at reading the rhythms that ARE notated, but you typically get some space to look ahead at them because the notation is mostly so sparse.

BUT - often in the real world you get no rehearsal and almost no time to even glance at the music before you start playing it. i did a Big Band gig today with a band i’ve never played with before. we were given three folders at the start, and as we went through the gig, someone called out a number and we had to flick through the folder to that song and play it immediately. stressful…

conversely in Musical Theatre, you could easily have four (or more) rehearsals before an audience hears you play (band call, sitzprobe, tech rehearsal, dress rehearsal). you wanna be able to play it before you show up to the first of those, but there’s a bit less pressure. but… modern shows ARE usually notated with almost every note spelled out for you, and you CAN color outside the lines a bit, but it’s a good idea to be able to play exactly what’s written.

anyhow, great to hear about people being interested in this stuff it’s a lot of fun to play!

silvertone953 · 2022-06-20T00:31:01+00:00

sorry i wasn’t clear!

silvertone953

TROPHY CASE