Edit: please don’t use this as a place to tease sales. If you plan on listing something here very soon, consider not mentioning that specific device. I don’t want to indirectly be the cause of a marketplace kerfluffle and value the discussions happening here.
Inspired by @Cosmic 's suggestion in the NGNY thread, my own personal experiences this year, and the vague idea of NGNY. I went through a lot of gear this year, most of which was bought and sold in a relatively short timeframe (6 months or less), and most of which did nothing to help me achieve my goal of actually finishing tracks. I’ve got a few things on the potential chopping block, and it seems like others are in a similar situation, whether that be from financial pressure, space, productivity goals, too much choice, etc.
I don’t personally care for strict rules like NGNY (no offense to those who find it deeply valuable, I admire the discipline it can take), but I have been contemplating for the last few weeks a ‘softer’ approach to a similar goal - reducing my consumption and focusing more on what I can do with what I’ve got… and keeping my synth stuff from sprawling all over the apartment. I’d like this thread to aim to encourage each other to reduce our gear or keeping things confined/ contained, and to discuss how we go about that, or how we’re feeling. I would like this not to become some kind of general anti-GAS thread, guilt thread, or anti-consumerism thread. While this certainly touches those subjects, there’s plenty of that kind of discussion all over the synth-internet and loads of excellent advice if you want it.
Maybe this means selling all but the bare essentials. Maybe that’s NGNY with one exception. Maybe it’s a one-in-one-out policy, or limiting it to a specific amount of space or number of interface inputs. Maybe it’s a complete hardware purge. Maybe we can post the tunes or jams we make when trying to squeeze the most out of what we have in ways we haven’t before.
My personal goal is to be down at least one or two pieces by 2024’s end, and will be instituting a ‘soft’ one-in-one-out policy. I’m also starting to dislike having instruments sitting around that I don’t use at least once every couple months. If I haven’t touched something in 6 months - or if I get frustrated every time I do - do I really need it? If I eliminate a few pieces, I can get rid of my patch bay, reduce cable clutter, and eliminate one more source of noise/ troubleshooting.
What are you going to do? Are you going to downsize at all? Are you happy where things are?
