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Darryl Vanamburg – Control – review

Phil Sweeting — Thu, 16 Aug 2018 09:36:06 +0000

Control is best described as a PK starter kit – and if that means nothing to you then read on for our full review.

What’s in the box?

The nicely packaged box contains your control gimmick – a m****t attached to a vaguely flesh coloured clip – and an assortment of magnets and PK props which will help you produce a wide range of magnet. Be warned – the nature of the props mean that some are very strong and very fragile – a dangerous combination! The box also contains a link to online teaching – which runs to over 2 hours of routines and ideas,

The teaching

This is quite varied. Greg Wilson hosts a chunk in his own inimitable style. He teaches some superb routines (about which more later) with excellent detail and tips. I didn’t much care for some of the rest of the teaching which included somewhat lame joking and somewhat lame effects – but you’re really buying the gimmick not the routines. These should just be starting points for your own ideas.

The props

There are some cool extra gimmicks here – including a PK Pebble, and a PK plectrum (guitar pick) in addition to a variety of different sized magnets.

The gimmick itself is similar to the ‘Movemint‘ gimmick – but has been improved and strengthened. It feels a bit bulky – which no doubt accounts for the strength of the magnet. I have average sized hands and found it a little loose. But there would be ways to increase the grip which would enable you to move your fingers more freely.

A few tips are given on how to adapt the colour of the Control gimmick so that it might be less obvious. But as with many of these kinds of things, much depends on the way you perform. They won’t spot it if they’re not looking for it.

Many of the routines assume that you will start and end clean and pick up and ditch the gimmick as required. To this end a further gimmick is included to enable you to do this fairly easily. From my perspective I’m not certain I would want to use it in the way they describe in a walkaround setting. But I think you could easily come up with alternative techniques.

Control v. Silent Assitant

I hadn’t planned it this way, but I find myself looking at the Control gimmick few weeks after I reviewed the Silent Assistant. And in many ways they are very similar. From what I have seen, the Silent Assistant is a little more discreet and more comfortable to wear. However, the magnet is considerably less powerful. Control also comes with some really cool extra accessories – which given the small price difference makes it much better value. Control can be used for pretty much any of the Silent Assistant routines, but may be slightly less silent! However, even this can be dealt with via a small customisation if you think about it…

The Routines

I should say I particularly enjoyed watching the Greg Wilson live performances which show you how strong this can be. I loved the ‘Impromptu Chop Cup’ using a banknote and polystyrene cup. This is a real worker routine which you should use.

There was a moving bottle routine which excited me less – but had a nice presentational hook. Also a 2 cup monte kind of routine which seemed to be getting better reactions than I would have expected. There was also a haunted deck kind of effect which was more useful.

You can do a whole host of PK type effects – and they taught a PK cigarette, moving pebble, flipping pebble and moving pen/straw routines. If I’m honest I’m not a huge fan of these kind of effects which feel a little ‘obvious’ to me.

If you want to get started with PK effects, Control seems to be a great way to do it. A versatile set of gimmicks, a couple of strong routines and a variety of further ideas to get your imagination flowing.

Control is available from MagicShop.co.uk for £58.99 (at the time of writing).

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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SansMinds – Silent Assistant – review

Phil Sweeting — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 23:01:38 +0000

Silent Assistant – the latest must-have magical accessory or a dumb helper? Read our review to see what we think!

What is it

Given that the advertising video (see end of review) essentially shows exactly what this is, I feel at liberty to be explicit in my description of the Silent Assitant. It is a little like half a Sanada Gimmick with a magnet inside. If that means nothing to you, then it is a small piece of moulded plastic shaped to go around the lower joint of your finger.

If you’ve got the same colour skin as mine then it is a pretty good match. Depending on your skin tone you might want to try applying some make-up to it. But as with the venerable Thumb Tip – people really don’t notice what they’re not looking for – and given normal lighting conditions this really is going to fly by.

Why Silent Assistant?

The sales blurb suggests that this is designed to capitalise on the strengths of a PK ring, but with two major advantages. Firstly, it is all but invisible – so doesn’t even draw the (limited) attention that a ring does. Secondly, the material it’s made from helps to mask the sound when something is attracted to it.

And I have to say I buy both of these arguments. I’m not much of a jewellery man – so I certainly appreciate the hiddenness of it. The design also means it can be put on and ditched fairly easily – leaving you completely clean. There is also the further potential advantage that you’re less likely to fry your credit cards if you’re not wearing it all the time!

What’s it for?

Well as suggested, anything you can use a PK ring for. The package you receive includes the Silent Assitant gimmick and three small magnets which you can attach to other things. Also a link to an online tutorial of just over an hour. This explains the thinking behind the gimmick and some ideas on getting the gimmick in and out of play (though beware – some of these ideas require craft work and further purchases).

There are quite detailed instructions for using the gimmick to change one item into another. These include some useful thoughts on the psychology of ‘emptiness’ etc. I suggest these would be very helpful for someone starting out in magic. The presenter is a bit of a relentless talker and to my mind over-explains. But I’m getting old

There are also three ‘routines’ taught silently. Video with annoying background music and captions on top. The Dual Transpo effect is a clever idea, but requires quite a bit of prep and I’m honestly not sure how good it would look in the real world. The Cap in Bottle feels more practical, but still requires a certain amount of preparation. Best of the three was the ‘Casual Chop Cup’ using a paper ketchup container and a coin and a chocolate for a bonus load. I’m a bit of a sucker for chop cup routines, but I thought this idea though not necessarily this specific implementation of it) could work best of all.

But you could use it for all sorts of things. It strikes me it might work quite well with Angelo Carbone’s wonderful The Gift – though I didn’t grab mine to check it out.

Some people have complained about the strength of the magnet – I didn’t find any issues in my own experimentation – but I guess you could put stronger magnets in the items you are ‘attracting’ if that’s really an issue for you.

Two gripes

My minor gripe is that there are no live performances to watch. I just think this is unforgiveable on a magic release. We want to see it working in the real world please. I know that you’ll edit it to make it look better than it really is, but give us some idea!

The second is more significant. I think it is way too expensive. To put it in perspective, a very similar though slightly less elegant solution called Blista would set you back only 30% of the cost. Or, you could buy a Sanada Gimmick (for about 7% of the cost) and chop it down and add your own magnet!

So I’m left in two minds. I think this is a potentially extremely useful little gimmick. It overcomes several genuine issues with an existing gimmick and is implemented well. I would just like to see it about half the price…

You can buy Silent Assistant from the MagicShop.co.uk for £50.99.
They also have a limited edition Duo Edition which includes two gimmicks and 12 magnets but that is an eye-watering £81.50.

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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