this space is ripe for some kind of gear buying collective. start a local group, pay some dues to fund gear acquisition, vote monthly or on some interval to decide next piece of gear, compile a library of instruments to borrow with a library card style checkout system. everybody wins!
This is a pretty good idea. Surprised I’ve never heard of synth rentals…people rent extremely expensive video equipment, so why not synths?
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i wonder if there are makerspace type places doing this already. looks like this place exists, though their website didn’t load for me just now.
Actually they exists (google them), but they are mainly targeting touring professionals.
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I’ve been dealing with GAS by making music. I try to make the best case for not needing new gear by making music where I use techniques from gear I’m GASing for, but on gear I already own.
For a while I was GASing for an SP404, and made this track:
Later I GASed for a boog, so I made this:
I did make a “I wish I had a Digitakt” track, but needless to say I succumbed to GAS and bought one in the end 
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Thanks for your videos. They’re great!
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I’m thankful that happened 
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Hehe, me too. But no more new gear!
Unless I absolutely can’t do whatever it does with the gear I have.
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This is such smart take on GAS, especially when you own instruments like the Octatrack which can basically do anything… I will definetly start implementing this train of thought more…
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if it only was polyphonic. 
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I did make a “I wish I had a Digitakt” track, but needless to say I succumbed to GAS and bought one in the end
Sorry for that 
Glad you did! You are doing amazing stuff on the DigiDuo
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Thanks! Yeah, it’s worth it for staving off GAS and getting to know your gear better at the same time.
Another anti-GAS measure I have is “Is the hardware better than a plugin?” In terms of price, time to set up, fun to use, physical space. My current setup always gets put away in a closet when I don’t use it, so setup time is really important. I also have a small desk, so size is important. Whenever I record stuff, i record into a DAW, so I really could use plugins instead. The Digitakt is an amazing midi sequencer for this. And plugins are cheaper.
On the other hand, physical gear is a lot more fun to use, you won’t have to worry about midi mappings and saving projects in a DAW, and you can explore it in isolation.
If anything, I’m still GASing, but because I’m so indecisive I end up just exploring my gear more instead 
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After spending some time with the analog four I feel like polyphony is overrated 
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After spending more time with samplers lately, I found that polyphony on synths is overrated and polyphony on samplers underrated 
You all know the trick with (elektron) samplers where you make such a short loop in a sample that a steady synth tone is appearing. I think you can create the most beautiful pads out of samples with that method, better than most synth pads I heard. Slightly modulating the start point scanning through the sample. Wish the OT could do this 
I get my most interesting, weird sounds with samplers somehow.
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At least you can do it manually in the AED. But ‘yes’, the OT could really use better resolution for sample start and length to support more granular effects.
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Yeah I know. yes it could be better, and really for those sounds often magic appears if you can play them polyphonically.
Edit:
I could use multiple tracks of course
You can use this technique with MIDI scripts to make the DigiTakt polyphonic. Fantastic. If that device I had had a native polyphonic mode I might have been more inclined to keep it.
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I saw some videos about polyphonic DT. Very cool indeed.
A big source of GAS for me is that I’m changing style/genre a lot on my own and with different projects.
So for each style, I have a different imagination of a perfect setup. But I can’t have multiple setups regarding money and space. So I always change boxes or buy boxes where I think they can do it all well, but then I learn their strengths and weaknesses and try to replace them with something else. All in one boxes don’t really exist (besides the laptop, but that’s another story).
For example when I do my boom bappy, trip hop stuff I’m gasing for sampler and lot’s of acoustic kinda sounds. So I’m looking for something like MPC or maschine with komplete and all this nice libraries. If I’m doing IDM, glitchy stuff I’m after elektron boxes, or modular gear etc. If I try to do some oldschool acidy electro, boxes like the roland boutiques look tempting, to quickly deliver those classic sounds you know from records. If I play in a band I start to look up guitar pedals again… Otherwise I don’t need them and just use guitar rig.
So needs are ever changing for me
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i just encountered this on sale locally — and no no no no no no, anti-GAS is not possible!
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