Great review mate. I've been doing ITR (and just general IT) work for years, I've yet to venture into the electronic stuff though. Looks like when I do, it won't be with one of these.
@@MexieMex Thanks so much for the heads up. I didn't see it but did check the spam folder and YES it was there. Thanks so much. I will respond to the email.
What I noticed when you put it in your shirt pocket is how loose it is and flops over easily. Another downer immediately if you don't want to wear a jacket all the time??
Hey Victor. You hit on some good points. I honestly hate it when I have a pen in the pocket and it does not sit nicely in the pocket. It just looks a bit sloppy. Thanks for watching and hope you have a great day.
You won't be getting a Christmas card off Yigal next Christmas Jonny!!! Thanks for the honest review as usual. Propdog which has a good following gave you a plug in today's review show were they featured Michael Chatelain's coin in bottle which looks a good effect and demonstrated a great way to perform it,hope all the family are staying well in these crazy 🤪
Hey John, I love the Propdog guys and that Michael Chatelain's coin in bottle looks really good and I must admit I am not 100% sure what the method is. I have been debating on whether to pick it up or not. We are all doing good here and it feels like things might actually get back to normal here. Our mask mandate is lifted this weekend and I am headed out this evening to meet with another magician friend and do a little jamming. Take Care.
Thanks for the review, really helpful. Using IT is really daunting, i own both loops and the covert reel, but the learning curve is steep! Do you have any sugestions of places to learn or basic routines to learn to get the hang of it?
Hey Dani, you are spot on when it comes to IT work being daunting. I honestly don't have any recommendations for good tutorials. Ironically I think Yigal Mesika has some good tutorials but they are on some of his other releases. I would probably do an internet search on TH-cam and see what is out there. I wish I could be more helpful than that. Have a good one.
I have tarantula 1, 2, spider pen pro, and venom. If you are afraid of thread breaking, venom is good to consider. Really good ITR, you also have really thick thread that is almost impossible to break, might be a little more visible in certian situations so perform in darker areas.
@@otoshi1010 Thanks so much for this recommendation. I have been considering purchasing Venom and now may actually pull the trigger on it. Thanks so much.
I’m sorry to say this but it is IT and u need to work on its limits. After couple breaks u can understand what is its limits. I used tarantula , tarantula 2 , spider pen pro and the spider pen x. All works well. If you are working with it on stage there is tiny fishing carbon reel that u can’t break it at all. But downside is length reduces 6m . Don’t just throw it away. And when u use the fishing line I recommend to make at least 5 tie on same spot it won’t be tangle and there will be no way to break it till u want to break.motor is strong enough to work it .
I really enjoyed your comment. I must say I love thread work and use it frequently in live performance and am an advocate for performers to overcome their dislike of IT because they don't like that it breaks. With all of that said I didn't like this release at all. I really wanted to. I found too many challenges with this release. I still look forward to Yigal's future releases and will always give them a try. Thanks for leaving the comment and perspective.
@@fiddlinjonny actually yigal needs to work on thread. No one says bad things about the products but the thread. I’m sure that one day yigal will perfect the system just need to wait :)
Thanks Jonny honest review as always, I'll keep my money on this one and stick to my perfect pen.....Just on a side note Jonny what trick coins do you recommend for a beginner that will do most of the work for you....have looked at getting those Carpenter coins but the reviews about the tutorial for it is not great and doesn't show you with confidence how to do the moves....cheers Jonny♣️♥️♠️♦️☘
Alan this is such a great question regarding coins. I would think a little about which routines you want to do, but in my opinion a good starting point routine is The Hopping Half. It is one of my favorites and anyone can do it. There are a lot of companies that make these, but my personal favorite is Johnson Precision Magic Products, inc. I like their quality of coins. They can be a little expensive but worth it. One of the coin sets and routines that I like came out by Paul Vigil called CBS (Copper, Brass, Silver). It is a classic Copper Brass Silver routine. Both the routines and sets I mentioned so far use shell coins. If you are looking for ones that are using magnets then I would look at Gregory Wilson's Split Focus. It requires a little more practice/sleights and is expensive, but the quality of the coins is really good and I like the routine. At the end of the day I think when it comes to coins it is best to go to your local brick and mortar shop and see what they have and chat with them even touch the coins so you see what the quality is. Oh wait before I forget, going back a bit Michaele Amar released DVD’s quite a while back on doing coin work and matrix routines with shells. I don’t know if they sell that with the coins but great training. One last thought is that Sucker Punch by Mark Southworth is a really good starting point for learning coin magic. While it uses the poker chips it provides a full array of gaffs instead of coins but is basically learning the fundamentals. Once you have learned what you like with Sucker Punch then you can graduate to real coin gaffs. Here are some of the company’s that make coins and my thoughts. Tango Magic. Lots of choices and relatively affordable compared to others. Coins will do the job. Johnson Precision Magic. My personal favorite coins. Always good quality but may cost you some coin. Roy Kueppers. Lots of choices and good enough quality. Schoolcraft Precision Coins. Maybe the highest quality on the market but you are going to pay a lot for them. Ok that may be more than what you needed but are some of my thoughts. I hope it is helpful. Keep me posted.
Wow Jonny thankyou so much for your fantastic insight and help with this....you are very good for giving me your time on this and experience....really appreciate it Jonny ....Will take a look at what you have mentioned and let you know what I go for.....don't want to pay top dollar on the coins but I do want ones that if I hand them out to people they won't really notice too much....have a super weekend👏🏼👏🏼
Hi Alan,One of the first coin tricks I bought was "Coin Unique " so many things you can do with it and so easy to do ,the original one I purchased I did hundreds of performances so fooling for spectators
Hi, good review! But I must say I have the tarantula 2 and it works great for me, in the last three weeks the thread only broke three times and this was completely my fault. And I am not working long with invisible thread. I although use the spider thread from Mesika. I think it is very good in terms of stability and visibility. So it surprises me that the thread broke so often in your case. So I think that maybe the edges of the spider pen pro are too sharp for the thread. Because the edges of the tarantula are made out of plastic instead of metal. Or you have gotten a bad version of the pen, I would try to Get a replacement or your money back, because as you said, it is then pretty bad to work with!
Hey Everything about Everything. I am so glad you left this comment as I think others may have a more positive experience than I have had. It is a little weird because my other Mesika experience has been nothing but Really Positive. I have been practicing with the Pen X more and have had fewer problems than when I first started. The level of frustration I had in the beginning with breakage was insane. I am super patient with this sort of thing but I must admit it pushed me to my ultimate limit with this product. I agree with you on perhaps getting a replacement. I am giving it more work and hopefully we will see. Anyway thanks for the comment because I think it is helpful for the community. Thanks for being here.
Thanks Crawdini, That is a good question and to be honest I am considering returning it. I purchased mine through Penguin Magic and usually their customer service is really good.
Largely because I'm clumsy oaf, with the kind of vision that makes IT do what it says on the tin ! ..., that I've never really got on with "it" (no lowercased pun intended). It's a shame because when I see a good routine I'm fascinated. Thanks Jonny. Take it easy my friend.
Hey Gary yeah this is a pass if the eye sight is not as good as you would like and it takes a certain amount of patience just to work with it. (Pun intended). 😉Take care my friend.
I bought this a couple months ago and haven't even opened the package yet. I am a complete novice with ITR's. I have a ton of Loops and enjoy having a Loop on me when out and about and performing. For this, I took a gamble and understood I could be out $100. But one main thing was I wanted the Tutorial to get some ideas with IT since I know nothing outside of floating bill and Haunted Deck with Loops. I bought a bunch of Uday's $11 TR's from Penguin last year. I hope this tutorial gives me some ideas on ITR uses in general. I sort of feel like I wasted $100 on this but no final verdict for me until I really try it out. Thanks so much Jonny !!!!!
Hi David, I hope you have better luck with it than I. I think if you look around the internet you will probably see a number of routines with ITR and may be able to reverse engineer how it is done. Take Care.
I definitely would not have purchased this Spider Pen X if I had read more reviews. The thread broke the first time I pulled it out as soon as I removed the pen from the box. I haven’t even used it in a performance, just playing around with it, the thread has broken numerous times. Also as I removed the cap to find the thread, the metal cap separated from the plastic sleeve, which also catches on the thread and causes the thread to break very easily. For the price, I was very disappointed.
Hi James, I am so glad you left this comment because your experience is similar to mine and I imagine many others. I had a gig last night and had a moment where I thought I would bring it with me and maybe give it another try but decided not to as I could not rely on it. For me if I am going to drop the amount of money for this product I need to have better confidence in it. I do thread work and really like IT but this one doesn't measure up for the cost. Thanks so much James for being here and leaving the comment, this is good for the community to know.
hello sir, i'm a big fan of flying magic and I have owned almost all of yigal mesika's flying magic products. I know for sure how to fix your spider pen x and if you still have it and want to use this product, please interact with me, I will guide you in the most detail.
@@fiddlinjonny here we can divide it into 2 parts that lead to the broken IT thread: The first is the problem of motor division, if the strong rotation of the motor causes the thread to break, you can use Multipurpose Lubricant used for motors or machine parts, you just need to spray a little on the tip of the motor in the pen then reattach the coil to the shaft and you will notice a smooth pull when pulling the thread. The second thing is that if the thread is broken because the cap of the pen is too sharp, you can replace the cap with a plastic cap by purchasing a black replacement kit for the spider pen.
Thanks Romanov, It is nice to be validated that I am not alone in having a challenge finding the damn end of the string. I think since I originally purchased this it has become a little easier but I still have days where it breaks and it takes quite a while to find the end of the string. Thanks so much for being here.
amazing man! Love ur video!
Junliang, I really appreciate it. Thanks for watching.
Great review mate. I've been doing ITR (and just general IT) work for years, I've yet to venture into the electronic stuff though. Looks like when I do, it won't be with one of these.
Thanks Mexie Mex, I love ITR and was disappointed with this one. I will keep searching for the ones that rise to the top.
@@fiddlinjonny On a seperate thing, I emailed you the other day, did you see it? If not, can you check your spam folder.
@@MexieMex Thanks so much for the heads up. I didn't see it but did check the spam folder and YES it was there. Thanks so much. I will respond to the email.
Great honest review 👏
Thanks Mr H.
What I noticed when you put it in your shirt pocket is how loose it is and flops over easily. Another downer immediately if you don't want to wear a jacket all the time??
Hey Victor. You hit on some good points. I honestly hate it when I have a pen in the pocket and it does not sit nicely in the pocket. It just looks a bit sloppy. Thanks for watching and hope you have a great day.
Amazing review 👏
Thanks my friend. Hope you are doing well.
You won't be getting a Christmas card off Yigal next Christmas Jonny!!! Thanks for the honest review as usual. Propdog which has a good following gave you a plug in today's review show were they featured Michael Chatelain's coin in bottle which looks a good effect and demonstrated a great way to perform it,hope all the family are staying well in these crazy 🤪
Hey John, I love the Propdog guys and that Michael Chatelain's coin in bottle looks really good and I must admit I am not 100% sure what the method is. I have been debating on whether to pick it up or not. We are all doing good here and it feels like things might actually get back to normal here. Our mask mandate is lifted this weekend and I am headed out this evening to meet with another magician friend and do a little jamming. Take Care.
Thanks for the review, really helpful. Using IT is really daunting, i own both loops and the covert reel, but the learning curve is steep! Do you have any sugestions of places to learn or basic routines to learn to get the hang of it?
Hey Dani, you are spot on when it comes to IT work being daunting. I honestly don't have any recommendations for good tutorials. Ironically I think Yigal Mesika has some good tutorials but they are on some of his other releases. I would probably do an internet search on TH-cam and see what is out there. I wish I could be more helpful than that. Have a good one.
I have tarantula 1, 2, spider pen pro, and venom.
If you are afraid of thread breaking, venom is good to consider. Really good ITR, you also have really thick thread that is almost impossible to break, might be a little more visible in certian situations so perform in darker areas.
@@otoshi1010 Thanks so much for this recommendation. I have been considering purchasing Venom and now may actually pull the trigger on it. Thanks so much.
@@fiddlinjonny sadly its everywhere out of stock and on the ellusionist page it says its discontinued..
@@DN-dz3cr Well that sucks. I hope they bring it back.
Thank you for the heads up Sir!
You betcha, I am glad it was helpful. Have a good one.
I’m sorry to say this but it is IT and u need to work on its limits. After couple breaks u can understand what is its limits. I used tarantula , tarantula 2 , spider pen pro and the spider pen x. All works well. If you are working with it on stage there is tiny fishing carbon reel that u can’t break it at all. But downside is length reduces 6m . Don’t just throw it away. And when u use the fishing line I recommend to make at least 5 tie on same spot it won’t be tangle and there will be no way to break it till u want to break.motor is strong enough to work it .
I really enjoyed your comment. I must say I love thread work and use it frequently in live performance and am an advocate for performers to overcome their dislike of IT because they don't like that it breaks. With all of that said I didn't like this release at all. I really wanted to. I found too many challenges with this release. I still look forward to Yigal's future releases and will always give them a try. Thanks for leaving the comment and perspective.
@@fiddlinjonny actually yigal needs to work on thread. No one says bad things about the products but the thread. I’m sure that one day yigal will perfect the system just need to wait :)
@@rodinafreeman244 I agree, well said.
Thanks Jonny honest review as always, I'll keep my money on this one and stick to my perfect pen.....Just on a side note Jonny what trick coins do you recommend for a beginner that will do most of the work for you....have looked at getting those Carpenter coins but the reviews about the tutorial for it is not great and doesn't show you with confidence how to do the moves....cheers Jonny♣️♥️♠️♦️☘
Alan this is such a great question regarding coins. I would think a little about which routines you want to do, but in my opinion a good starting point routine is The Hopping Half. It is one of my favorites and anyone can do it. There are a lot of companies that make these, but my personal favorite is Johnson Precision Magic Products, inc. I like their quality of coins. They can be a little expensive but worth it.
One of the coin sets and routines that I like came out by Paul Vigil called CBS (Copper, Brass, Silver). It is a classic Copper Brass Silver routine. Both the routines and sets I mentioned so far use shell coins. If you are looking for ones that are using magnets then I would look at Gregory Wilson's Split Focus. It requires a little more practice/sleights and is expensive, but the quality of the coins is really good and I like the routine.
At the end of the day I think when it comes to coins it is best to go to your local brick and mortar shop and see what they have and chat with them even touch the coins so you see what the quality is.
Oh wait before I forget, going back a bit Michaele Amar released DVD’s quite a while back on doing coin work and matrix routines with shells. I don’t know if they sell that with the coins but great training.
One last thought is that Sucker Punch by Mark Southworth is a really good starting point for learning coin magic. While it uses the poker chips it provides a full array of gaffs instead of coins but is basically learning the fundamentals. Once you have learned what you like with Sucker Punch then you can graduate to real coin gaffs.
Here are some of the company’s that make coins and my thoughts.
Tango Magic. Lots of choices and relatively affordable compared to others. Coins will do the job.
Johnson Precision Magic. My personal favorite coins. Always good quality but may cost you some coin.
Roy Kueppers. Lots of choices and good enough quality.
Schoolcraft Precision Coins. Maybe the highest quality on the market but you are going to pay a lot for them.
Ok that may be more than what you needed but are some of my thoughts. I hope it is helpful. Keep me posted.
Wow Jonny thankyou so much for your fantastic insight and help with this....you are very good for giving me your time on this and experience....really appreciate it Jonny ....Will take a look at what you have mentioned and let you know what I go for.....don't want to pay top dollar on the coins but I do want ones that if I hand them out to people they won't really notice too much....have a super weekend👏🏼👏🏼
@@alanlawler6106 It is my pleasure. Have a great one.
Hi Alan,One of the first coin tricks I bought was "Coin Unique " so many things you can do with it and so easy to do ,the original one I purchased I did hundreds of performances so fooling for spectators
Thanks John will have a look at that aswell, sometimes when I try to misdyrect I end up fooling myself and get lost🤣🤣🙃
Hi, good review!
But I must say I have the tarantula 2 and it works great for me, in the last three weeks the thread only broke three times and this was completely my fault. And I am not working long with invisible thread. I although use the spider thread from Mesika. I think it is very good in terms of stability and visibility. So it surprises me that the thread broke so often in your case. So I think that maybe the edges of the spider pen pro are too sharp for the thread. Because the edges of the tarantula are made out of plastic instead of metal. Or you have gotten a bad version of the pen, I would try to Get a replacement or your money back, because as you said, it is then pretty bad to work with!
Hey Everything about Everything. I am so glad you left this comment as I think others may have a more positive experience than I have had. It is a little weird because my other Mesika experience has been nothing but Really Positive. I have been practicing with the Pen X more and have had fewer problems than when I first started. The level of frustration I had in the beginning with breakage was insane. I am super patient with this sort of thing but I must admit it pushed me to my ultimate limit with this product. I agree with you on perhaps getting a replacement. I am giving it more work and hopefully we will see. Anyway thanks for the comment because I think it is helpful for the community. Thanks for being here.
Nice playing ! Good review as always. Can you return it ?
Thanks Crawdini, That is a good question and to be honest I am considering returning it. I purchased mine through Penguin Magic and usually their customer service is really good.
Largely because I'm clumsy oaf, with the kind of vision that makes IT do what it says on the tin ! ..., that I've never really got on with "it" (no lowercased pun intended).
It's a shame because when I see a good routine I'm fascinated.
Thanks Jonny. Take it easy my friend.
Hey Gary yeah this is a pass if the eye sight is not as good as you would like and it takes a certain amount of patience just to work with it. (Pun intended). 😉Take care my friend.
I bought this a couple months ago and haven't even opened the package yet. I am a complete novice with ITR's. I have a ton of Loops and enjoy having a Loop on me when out and about and performing. For this, I took a gamble and understood I could be out $100. But one main thing was I wanted the Tutorial to get some ideas with IT since I know nothing outside of floating bill and Haunted Deck with Loops. I bought a bunch of Uday's $11 TR's from Penguin last year. I hope this tutorial gives me some ideas on ITR uses in general. I sort of feel like I wasted $100 on this but no final verdict for me until I really try it out. Thanks so much Jonny !!!!!
Hi David, I hope you have better luck with it than I. I think if you look around the internet you will probably see a number of routines with ITR and may be able to reverse engineer how it is done. Take Care.
I definitely would not have purchased this Spider Pen X if I had read more reviews. The thread broke the first time I pulled it out as soon as I removed the pen from the box.
I haven’t even used it in a performance, just playing around with it, the thread has broken numerous times. Also as I removed the cap to find the thread, the metal cap separated from the plastic sleeve, which also catches on the thread and causes the thread to break very easily.
For the price, I was very disappointed.
Hi James, I am so glad you left this comment because your experience is similar to mine and I imagine many others. I had a gig last night and had a moment where I thought I would bring it with me and maybe give it another try but decided not to as I could not rely on it. For me if I am going to drop the amount of money for this product I need to have better confidence in it. I do thread work and really like IT but this one doesn't measure up for the cost.
Thanks so much James for being here and leaving the comment, this is good for the community to know.
🎉
Thanks so much.
hello sir, i'm a big fan of flying magic and I have owned almost all of yigal mesika's flying magic products. I know for sure how to fix your spider pen x and if you still have it and want to use this product, please interact with me, I will guide you in the most detail.
Thanks Artis, I really appreciate that. Don't be surprised if I do reach out to you.
@@fiddlinjonny here we can divide it into 2 parts that lead to the broken IT thread:
The first is the problem of motor division, if the strong rotation of the motor causes the thread to break, you can use Multipurpose Lubricant used for motors or machine parts, you just need to spray a little on the tip of the motor in the pen then reattach the coil to the shaft and you will notice a smooth pull when pulling the thread.
The second thing is that if the thread is broken because the cap of the pen is too sharp, you can replace the cap with a plastic cap by purchasing a black replacement kit for the spider pen.
That's why i don't like Tarantula II - Same thing - 2 hours of finding...
Thanks Romanov, It is nice to be validated that I am not alone in having a challenge finding the damn end of the string. I think since I originally purchased this it has become a little easier but I still have days where it breaks and it takes quite a while to find the end of the string. Thanks so much for being here.