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

Elektron Gear
#147

I’ve been feeling the urge to sell everything now and again for the last couple of months/2 years. Instead of following my intuition and put it all online I would cook up a new plan to boost creativity. New studio desk, new controllers, even new synths. I realised I was doing what I’d always done. Throw money at the problem when inspiration is low. Classic millennial phenomenon.

Around February things where different though. I’d learned to trust my intuition and figured the worst case would be buying things back and losing a couple of bucks. Which wasn’t an issue since I bought most of it second hand anyway.

So I went big! I drafted up an excel sheet and put all the equipment I wanted to sell in one column, the price I wanted for it in the next and price I actually got for it in the last one.

I opted to keep things that are really special to my heart (MDUW & OCoast) and things like cables and such. As I felt this wasn’t a “I’m quitting and never coming back” but more a “I’m taking a proper break to see what lies on the other side”. To my surprise most pieces sold effortlessly, I even sold my interface & monitors.

It felt good and for a few months I had no urge to make music what so ever. A few weeks back however, it began to itch. So I downloaded live and omnisphere on my laptop and almost finished 2 tracks in one evening. It reminded me of my early days, just using a laptop and headphones.

I had one regret, selling my Babyface pro so I rebought it for the same price I sold it. Other than that I don’t have 1000s euros worth of stuff laying around bothering me to be used. I felt I needed to use them because it was such a big investment I accumulated over the years.

If feels good to not have a sub 10k studio waiting around until inspiration hits. It was a chore! Now, a laptop, a few hardware pieces when I feel the need to turn knobs is all I need.

Sadly, I’ll probably need to get some monitors down the road. But for now it’s fine. And not big beefy ones like the forums recommend, like the A7Xs I had, but smaller genelecs

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#148

love that there’s place now for Buddha :smiley: , less is more, done something similar when I became a parent and needed the extra room, sold 80% of my gear and now I’m happy with an Octatrack + Model:Cycles, PC and Ableton Push. ::

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#149

What I really meant by “I’m not interested in mastering my gear” is that it isn’t a satisfying use of my limited free time to spend a month deep-diving into my Take 5 to learn a couple tiny functions or quirks that I might not use in a finished composition (though I naturally did that when I first got it, the new-gear-fascination was strong with that thing). I’d much rather learn naturally - through playing with the instrument how I feel in the moment. I did spend a lot of time digging into my MPC because it absolutely required doing so, though - I know when to put my preferences aside and do the work. This whole thing is actually probably why modular doesn’t click for me like I’d like it to - I just don’t have the “let’s patch this and see what it does” exploration mentality in the same way I did when I was younger. Even the two weeks I spent with just the Syntakt wasn’t focused time trying to master it - I was just having fun with it and naturally learning a lot in the process.

I’m new to this forum, but I’ve been making music for 13 years and know the types of sounds I generally want to use and know how the instruments I use work, with established processes that work for me and keep me happy and productive. I’m absolutely not saying this as some sort of “I have so much experience” internet brag (I know it isn’t that long compared to many here), but more to give context for where I’m coming from.

All of that said, I do give myself rabbit hole time though - on average I probably spend 1/3 of my time making patches and 2/3 trying to use them in a broader context. It just happens naturally - sometimes I don’t have the brainpower to do any actual composition or jamming and just need to sit down and turn knobs.

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#150

I think it depends on what people mean by “spend 6 months learning the gear really well”

I’m kind of doing that with the Polyend Tracker, but I’m not going page by page through the manual as it would be boring as hell and I wouldn’t remember anything I looked at. I’m just making tracks each one more complex than the last.

I’m assuming that’s what people mean.

The opposite is what I was doing when I first started trying to get back into electronic music where I would spend one day on Ableton, one on FL Studio, one on Studio 1, one on Bitwig, one on CIrcuit Tracks, one on Korg Gadget and make zero progress on anything.

4 Likes
#151

I’m recovering from two-year case of beginner GAS myself. Although I didn’t have it as hard as the OP. One of the things that fueled my gear acquisition was thinking I needed an X in order to do Y. For example, I had an OP-Z but I was convinced I needed an analog bass synth to get the growl-y bass sounds I wanted. It was only after I bought a Korg Monologue that I realized I just hadn’t explored the OP-Z’s synth engines deeply enough. There are perfectly good growl-y analog bass sounds in there.

I came up against this over and over again. Thinking I was limited by my gear only to realize I was only limited by my understanding.

What I’m using now is (1) a drum machine (Model:Samples), (2) a Keystep 37 with an Erica DIY modular (because soldering is fun!), and (3) an electric guitar with a modest pedal board (including a MIDI-synced looper).

The only other piece of gear I should probably have is a mixer, but for now I just use the volume or filter on each machine for that, and it works fine for what I like to do, which is usually starting with a basic beat, laying down some chords or a bass line, and building and tweaking and noodling until I’ve got something I like. If I feel a track coming together, I usually move over to the DAW to put it together.

You’ve got SO MUCH overlap in that pile of synths. I think someone upthread suggested selecting a few synths to fill in your “band,” which is basically what I’ve done. With a rhythm section (drum machine, bass synth, and looper pedal) plus my guitar, I’m a one-man band and I have a great time grooving, rocking out, or whatever. If you want to make minimal techno, pick your core machines for that, and bring in others only if you feel like you’re missing something and you can’t find that sound in your core machines.

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#152

If you like techno, then the shortest route to fun is the Digitakt. Play with that for a few weeks with samples only, until you get it, then you can add the JU-06A and sequence it with DT MIDI. Or plug in the Microfreak and make more samples for your DT.

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#153

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Here is what I would do if you want some use from most of your gear, while also keeping things simple

A lot of people have said to ditch the mpc, instead you could use it in a different way for now and then dive deeper when you are ready,

Have seperate sessions for sound design, take out the mpc and only one synth at a time, don’t sequence just come up with some good sounds and then use the autosampler to save them as patches for later use

The synths you have are mostly straight forward, (can’t speak for microfreak, I have never used one)
So ideas should come easy

Layer some built in fx into the keygroup when you save the patch to make the sounds you came up with more production ready, (can be tweaked later)

After some sessions with various synths you can compile them in a template with some of your favorite homemade presets ready to go all loaded into one file

Now put all synths away for a while

Composition/ jamming phase:
Take out only digitakt and mpc and use mpc as a sound module sequenced by dt

This way you only have two devices to use for a simple setup but it will be kind of like only one because the mpc will be mostly hands off, aside from an occasional tweak and to load different patches you have made… but it will in a way be kind of like having some of your synths with you, in more of a static form

Plus if you do decide to sell some synths you will get to keep a few of there sounds

Tips for auto sampling,
Use more sustained notes, you can always play shorter but not longer unless you crossfade loop,
Less modulated sounds sometimes work better.
If you want to be able to go brighter in the patch, later, turn the filter up a little higher than you want and bring down the internal mpc filter

For more hands on real-time control of these sounds, sample some notes from mpc to digitakt to use modulation, filters etc,

If all of this sounds to complicated at all, then yeah, as others have said just use the digitakt alone for a while, it is simple enough to work fast and get things moving, but flexible enough to give you options and keep things interesting

6 Likes
#154

I keep it at the $10,000 rule, If I go over that, I put it on reverb and offload it.
I have sold over 26K over the past 3 years, but I keep the amount I have at that threshold, like a Limit in Calculus, current setup

Eurorack 1,500.00
1010 Music BlueBox 500.00
Synthstrom Deluge 950.00
Teenage Engineering OP-Z 525.00
Teenage Engineering OP-1 Field 2,000.00
Monome Norns 850.00
Monome Grid 550.00
Elektron Digitakt 735.00
Elektron Digitone Keys 850.00
Arturia MicroFreak 250.00
Roland JX-08 500.00
Yamaha Reface CP 375.00
Roland Aira Compacts 600.00
10,185.00
4 Likes
#155

Ah shit! Now we’re pulling out spreadsheets. Things are getting serious up in here.

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#156

Bruce lee has more kick samples than me?

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#157

Are you playing with these 2/3 devices together (eg resampling the Tracks/CS into the Polyend)? Be interested to hear how that setup is working for you.

I’ve considered the sampler/synth combo and I like your quote elsewhere that says “I have a Circuit Tracks and a Polyend Tracker and when I sit down with them at 8pm I suddenly realise it’s midnight and I’ve written two songs.” Small house, kids and not much workstation space has me considering this kind of setup strongly.

#158

Yeah, they all work really well together. Usually 2 at a time or it gets a little bit complex for the sofa (Probably fine if you have a fixed setup)

The Tracker is quite capable on its own, but it doesn’t have polyphonic synthesis unless you are prepared to give up multiple tracks so the Nova engine in the CT, or the Reface is a great addition.

The CT doesn’t have chromactic samples and only two synth channels so it really benefits from a synth of some kind, or it can be a bit limited in what you can create.

Often I just use the Tracker it’s probably my favorite piece of music gear ATM.

#159

Is the 10 grand rule your rule or is it an industry standard?:laughing:

2 Likes
#160

Me too and made it to empty nester stage. The time we get as parents for music is more valuable than time in a world class recording studio, we use that time wisely!

I can’t believe how much music I recorded over those years, and it stands up Ok, because I was so focused! Now I have all the time I need and mostly I just noodle….

#161

Sounds good! How do you find the process of getting soft synth samples in? I noted you’d started with a Novation keyboard controller. With those tiny pads I wonder if that’s a good shout. What’s the workflow like on your end for taking samples in given your focus on couch jams? Is there some form of live record/input via computer or do you send them to the machine via the SD?

#162

The Tracker really easy to sample into and you can sample with the radio as well which is super fun.
I’ve only brought things in via the SD if they are sample packs etc as you can’t transfer anything over USB (It’s just MIDI)

I do all the sample chopping etc on the Tracker. That’s one of the things I like less about the Circuit Tracks as you have to do all the synth sound design and sample work on a PC which limits you to the contents of the pack.

Though the pads are tiny and non velocity sensitive you can usually just about bash out a melody, but the Circuit is waaay better for finger drumming.

#163

It’s an arbitrary number. It forces me to constrain myself. I see a new synth, groovebox, module on youtube, I impulsively get it. I check my google sheet, and whatever has been the least used during the past 6 months, time to reverb that sh*t :wink:

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#164

Yeah, I had a look at the Novation guys running through the editor. Looks approachable(ish) which is good for getting into sound design. But I can see how if you want the computerless approach that having a machine with all the controls on the front might be preferable.

Unrelated: I also like the idea that the Polyend can start a sequence on another machine which might give you a good balance. For example the Polyend can run the skeleton of the track and then the second machine could run pads or basses or leads perhaps.

#165

I feel seen

12 Likes
#166

I should apply this to the stuff I’ve kept but has been boxed up since New Year really.
Yes it’s nice to have, some of it quite hard to find, but at the end of the day I’ve not used any of it for 6 months. At worst, if I missed it desperately at some stage, it’s not like even rare things are completely unobtainable.
On the other side, I’ve sold stuff on this basis before only to have it rocket in value :weary:

1 Like