At what point do you consider your setup to be "excessive"?

The Lounge Other Gear
#22

I feel the threshold is somewhere along when there are a number of things in your arsenal you don’t use often. I was one of the many here who was in search of the ever elusive “perfect setup” for quite sometime.

Once I embraced the futility of that notion I slowed my purchasing habit a great deal and also became much more productive. I don’t have guilt about the gear I have to pull out to use as long as it is happening semi frequently. It’s the stuff I don’t use anymore at all that is more bothersome. This is one of the reasons I have started off selling some gear.

The other is overlapping function. I now have enough synths, sampler, and drum machines anyone should ever need. So now my purchase habits are to fill other gaps or rolls.

Now I have two self imposed rules for my modest home studio. Rule one, there is a strict one in one out policy. If I want a new synth, sampler, or drum machine one has to go. Rule two, the new incoming piece has to do something new that my other gear doesn’t do as well or at all.

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#23

I know since the 90s that all I really need to do what I want is a good sampler and a good sequencer… so pretty much anything past this is excessive… and it doesn’t matter, because as musicians it’s ok to have beautiful instruments in excess, as long as they bring joy.

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#24

At the point that I can’t carry it from the curb to the booth in one trip.

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#25

Blaspheme…who dies with the most toys wins…

Ya all need Jesus…or maybe Jexus…?

If you have the money and the space buy as many tools as you can and leave the guilt for cathartic sunday confessionals. Its your passion for god sake.

Every precious piece of gear does something special and teaches you something new…even $50 guitar pedals…you only live once (or maybe you are in an endless cycle of reincarnation)…either way…

Whats all this Buddhist anti materialistic anti consumerism talk…

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#26

Currently i just have my guitar/amp, an a4 mkii, OT mkii and nord modular g1 after a huge sell-off which still seems to be too much.

I blame have too many interests and hobbies, fulltîme work plus an awesome gal. Life is good, just wish i had more time to make music.

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#27

I does nothing if its sitting in the closet collecting dust.

Im sorry, correction. It IS doing something.
Its collecting dust.

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#28

At what point do you consider your setup to be “excessive”?

A point I am well past.
Occasional purges, though a loosing battle.
I blame my father and his ridiculous tea spoon collection.

Have always had a core setup that mostly stays static for song creation, and that is sacred.
If the options created scatterbrain then yeah… would be a problem.

One advantage… just plugged in my nicely dusted TX81z yesterday for the first time in years to sample.
There is a certain joy in ‘under nose’ rediscoveries.

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#29

…and hopefully gaining value :grin:

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#30

I believe Elektronauts consider their setups to be “excessive” on Tuesday… :wink:

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#31

When I realized a $600 Digitone could do everything and more my nearly $3k modular couldn’t.

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#32

Yeah. I guess in my case it’s 50% climate anxiety and 50% of not having free time to spend with my synths to make them seem somehow useful.

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#33

Behringer will make sure that doesnt happen.

#34
  • When I have a perfectly treated room with mastering grade sonics (monitors and conversion)
  • When I have a beautifully running 2 track studer master tape machine and all the 911 tape I’ll ever need
  • When I have a decent mic locker with 10 - 20 mics
  • When I have 4 - 8 great sounding boutique mic preamps
  • When I have all the boutique outboard eq’s and comps I’m lusting after
  • When I have a beautiful sounding recording / tracking space

umm what was this thread again? Something about synths? :wink:
I think I’m about done with collecting synths already. Just need the RD808/909 and the minilogue XD and I’m set.

What is excessive? I dunno man. I guess anything more than a DAW is redundancy, if we talking about making music. But that is just one o my hobbies :loopy:

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#35

Great thread!

I’ve been a DJ for 20years and got into making tracks with ReBirth, then Reason, then Ableton and in the past 5years moved into the hardware world again (I used to play an old MC303 while DJing back in the late 90s).

Now I am trying to make tunes and am hoping to get to play live on them this year at a few events and festivals. My goal starting out was to not use a sampler and just make everything from scratch - but this has been very hard from me as I love using samples in Ableton to make most of my released tunes.

Like some have stated I try to use one device for each sound and am happy with the digitone (pads, leads), digitakt (bass, chords), and rytm (drums). I saved up and picked up an AH Qu16 mixer that allows me to multitrack record all of this onto a USB which I then upload into Ableton for finishing off.

In the past few weeks I picked up a DJS1000 and have been making a lot of tunes quickly and it’s been really fun to use only one piece of gear! And it can multitrack render so it makes transferring the ideas quickly to Ableton very easy.

I am now considering selling everything except the DJS1000! But I think I would miss the magic of knob twiddling and experimentation that comes from analog gear…

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#36

Tempting to cut down. WAY down. Two pieces.

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#37

I could very nearly survive with just the Digi-Pair. Two isn’t bad. I do like having something with 303-like properties though. So if the DN got a proper slide, I could actually just use DT+DN.

But…

I’m actually running six devices plus small modular and quite happy.

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#38

Money and ownership are such difficult concepts. I find some tragedy in the fact that so much guilt seems to stem from owning instruments. They’re, after all, fairly harmless in comparison.

Of course climate angst and avoiding excess are both good, but I’d like to encourage everyone to just enjoy this hobby - it’s a beautiful pursuit after all. You’ll know when it’s actually too much, and you can always skip a plane trip, go veggie or sell your car to offset that extra synth :slight_smile:

That being said, I get angsty too. I just notice that my process gets fragmented to bits and then I know it’s time to reconsider. As far as sound sources go - I have a modular, Digitone and looking at a sampler.

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#39

I miss this too.

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#40

This is the best comment I’ve read on this forum :joy:

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#41

If you don’t use your toys to make music and have fun, then it would be a shame indeed. But if you use it and enjoy to create what ever comes to your mind, then you should be a happy person.

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