Done with GAS, but now overwhelmed with all the gear I acquired

Some proeple havent seen the spaceship of deadmou5 yet ;—)
Now, he did become a superstar with a cracked version of Sylenth1 and a dead mouse in his PC though

Yes, and it’s not a good situation, hence the thread. :upside_down_face:

That’s the point. Not to refer/defer to professionals because ‘they are them, you are you’… it’s to help stop feeding the notion that you can buy your way to sounding great… everyone knows you can’t, and pros tend to be a good barometer and reference point to highlight this.

At some point you have to look elsewhere for the answer to achieving your ambitions/objectives.
This post is a good step in the right direction for the OP.

If you’re just into gear, and buying gear, and messing about with it…that’s fine and legit to do, nowt wrong with that as a recreational hobby.

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It’s not necessarily too much gear, but as I think others may have mentioned, as a collection, there’s a lot of overlap in your choices. For example, MPC / Digitakt / Octa / OP1… would probably do you good to learn one of those real well and switch in / out other pieces sequenced by it.

How about figuring out what idea(s) you’d like to pursue, and then pick the things that supports it?

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Yeah if you can afford to hold on to the gear you aren’t using this is what I would do (and indeed is what I have done after buying far too much gear lol - I hooked it all up but found it was overwhelming so tend to just use one thing at a time for now). Then maybe you’ll work out a nice setup of a few boxes which you can switch up now and then, treat the other gear as kind of a library. And if you ever need the money you can always sell stuff!

Or Octatrack and Digitone…

OP have already reached the point where they know they have more than enough.

All I’m saying is, no need to now stress about the fact you have ‘too much gear’ and waste more energy trying to figure out what to get rid of.

Put some of it away, relax and start using some of it.

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My most efficient approach for the described problem would be to give 4/5 of your equipment (if not all) for rent for kids who learn much faster than you and may have more time. Then bit by bit you get it back and they will explain all devices to you and jam together with you. In the end you are a large crew that can jam together and have much fun.

But this approach seems not applicable in times we just want to gather everything just for ourselves without knowing what to do with it.

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To be frank I think this is a flawed approach. It’s almost the same mind set that got you this many pieces: “if I do/buy this then I’ll be able to…”

Trust me on this that a better approach is to start right now, today, with 1 instrument and stick with it for 6 months.

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Agreed. I think it is important to keep in mind that it is not actually the gear that writes the music, or creates your sound.

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I usually don’t participate in threads like this, for so many reasons, but while you are getting a lot of responses, none of them are focusing on two of the biggest needs that you have:

Use the Digitone and/or Digitakt via Overbridge into Ableton, or use anything else that has class compliance audio and MIDI. Period. IF you can afford it, DO NOT sell the other stuff, rather, box it and put it away.

What? Why?

  1. You are a parent, and a parent of a toddler; you work; you have already mentioned being mentally, emotionally, etc. exhausted at the end of the day. While that will change a bit as your child gets older (change, I didn’t say go away), YOU are no longer the center of your life. If you want to keep making music, it will need to be fun AND convenient. Needing to use an audio interface every time you want to work on music is neither of those things. It is a physical and temporal tax (you have to bother with plugging stuff in/setting up – space and time). If you stick to something with class compliance or overbridge, you plug one or two USB cables into Ableton and you are ready to go. On the couch, on your bed, kitchen table, outside, wherever. You are ready. With multi-channel audio. AND MIDI. INTO ABLETON. OMG, YASSS!

  2. You don’t have dedicated space, or at least not a lot, so you can’t have a lot set up at once. Even if you could, you know what’s a killer? Troubleshooting. And I guarantee you that you will have to do that with more than one piece of gear. Heck, I sometimes have to do it with ONE piece of gear. Why? Because #1. You are exhausted. You are a parent and dumber in ways that you never thought you would be. <3 (I am being facetious – but you will do very stupid things like wonder why your computer is not sending MIDI out only to realize you didn’t plug the USB cable in. True story.)

  3. I have been down a similar road to you. I tried countless devices to mitigate #1 and #2. I adored some of them, was lukewarm on others. I wanted to keep the ones that I adored but in the end realized that I love the Elektron workflow (I “started” with a Monomachine and Machinedrum) and I know Ableton too well to not use it (user since v. 4 even if I have also used Cubase, Logic, and Cakewalk (lol) over the years). Now that I have hit that point I have two boxes and a pedal on my desk, and I can play for 20 mins or 2 hours (God bless grandparents).

Please remember that you are supposed to be having fun. Making music can be HARD. It can be even harder with all of the baggage that we bring to it, including people’s internet opinions (this one included).

So, start with two devices and store the rest. Use Ableton because that’s what you know and the easiest platform for YOU to finish and public songs. But most of all, figure out what YOU like to use and focus on that. Ideally it will be something that you can turn on and use even if you only have 20 minutes, something that would be as relaxing as watching YT for those 20 minutes (for me, it’s a Model:Cycles – class compliance FTW!).

Just don’t buy anymore stuff, ok? It’s not going to help. Be thankful that you DON’T have to sell the rest. and just store it. Actually using what you have will tell you what works and what doesn’t. You just don’t have to use it all at once.

Good luck!

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Yeah just to clarify, my point is exactly that: nobody should aspire to own/use gear like anyone else, and nobody should feel like they need certain gear to accomplish things. People should use what they feel comfortable and happy with.

Op is feeling lost because of the amount of gear he has, so I’m trying to say he doesnt need any of it.

If you like collecting enormous amounts of gear, you should, but a lot of people seem to think you actually cant compete if you dont, which is absolutely false.

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Been there, done that. All I can add is the the first few pieces of hardware that started the landslide are still here. The rest are long gone.

@papertiger Great reply!

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This pretty much hits the nail on the head. I’m going to follow the general consensus in this thread and put everything into storage and, as @DaveMech suggested, spend the next six months focusing on one piece of gear, which will be the DT since I’ve already made the most progress with it. And maybe keep the Minilogue around for getting better with subtractive synthesis.

I will say that this thread helped me realize what a mental burden owning so much stuff can be, especially when there is feature overlap. I think adding the MPC Live to my gear inventory was the point where I really started to feel overwhelmed since now I have a DAW in a box which I have to learn IN ADDITION TO Ableton. Too much. And if I’m being honest I’m more likely to make the music I most want to make with the Elektron boxes.

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The things you own end up owning you. :slight_smile:

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Honestly, the Digitone and MPC Live 2 would cover all your hardware needs. The question with gear always comes down to what you want to do with it. That’s why it doesn’t really matter how much or which gear you have but how you plan to use it. In my experience, that’s the question one needs to ask before making purchases.

Another thing I’ve learned along the way is that it’s ok to sell gear you don’t use. It’s actually a good feeling to sell gear to someone you know will put it to good use.

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I think that DT and Minilogue combination will give you a great but manageable setup to work with. You can sample the Minilogue into the DT and really explore that side of the DT workflow too.

FWIW I felt exactly the same way about the MPC Live. It turned out a DAW in a box was the last thing I needed.

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I long for a workflowslutz where GAS is “banned” and we just help each other use what we have :stuck_out_tongue:

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If you’re feeling greedy you can even have 2 of the same instrument :wink:

For anyone not familiar with @DaveMech stuff go check out his videos he always has super lean setups and banging tunes.

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