Hehe, thanks for watching me all this time, @blaize! I was watching through my old tutorials in preparation for a new DT2 tutorial, and I realized I was thinking a lot more creatively back then than I’m doing now. Maybe out of necessity, since I only had the OG DT. Discovering new techniques was a lot of fun, and it was gratifying getting comments like “wtf how did you do that??” and actually explaining how I did that.
I made my own bass sound with the stock saw single cycle waveform and stock noise sample on the OG DT and it became my signature bass for a long time. Now I have four different Machines on the DN2 and 4 stacked voices on the A4 to make bass sounds with, and tons of different effects to beef them up through the 404. Which is all amazing, but I feel like I sounded more like “me” back when I had fewer options to work with.
Thanks for the thought provoking input, @LORNIVERSE. The answer is mostly yes to all three, actually.
We’re not tight on money, but it could be better served elsewhere. Started eating healthier (costs more), been working out more (could get a new set of dumbbells or other gym equipment), spending more time on activities that cost money (indoor climbing, ice skating with our kid, etc). Got enough to pay the bills, luckily :).
I do have a lot of fun exploring gear. I usually post the results here Current sounds coming from your gear (Part 3) and share it with a few friend on discord. Lots of fun discussions! I’m not sure if it’s just a me-problem, but I do get this itch to upload on youtube when enough time has gone by without posting anything. It was a lot more intense when I first started in 2019, I posted maybe 3 videos every week, but I’ve managed to get away from that to prevent burning out. I’m spending time on other hobbies and hanging out with friends and family without the urge to upload, but the itch to do so isn’t completely gone.
I have this ritual of setting up my gear to make music, and putting it away when I’m done. I have a bigger desk now than when I first started making music with hardware, but not big enough to have a permanent setup. It’s pretty quick to set up though, got an audio interface with an L/R jack cable on my desk and a couple of Elektron PSUs plugged in at all times, so I just have to take a groovebox or two from the shelf and plug them in and I’m good to go.
Thanks for the advice @moving_particles! I have a patreon where I share my project files, and a cynical view of my channel could be that it’s advertisement for my patreon. “Wanna figure out how I did all this with just 4 voices? Join my patreon and have a look at the project files yourself!” I’ve been careful not to turn music into a jobby though, only uploading when I feel like it, using gear that I want to use. But youtube clickability has absolutely influenced what gear I do want to use. I think this is something I have to figure out, but “Sell the gear that is right for you, not YouTube” is definitely where I want to be.
I also think I might get a lot of relief to just sell and move on. When I switched from Windows to Linux and no longer have (easy) access to my go-to plugins, I think it kinda unleashed this urge to downsize. I’ve thought about downsizing for a long time, but now that I’ve started with switching my OS it’s a lot more in my face than it’s ever been.
Last week I bought a flight case to a guy (on the French equivalent of Craigslist) he had some crazy legendary synths for sale, like a matrix 12, an obxa, a mini moog ect… I was like, wow you have a lot of gear here. He said, no, back in the day I had like 40 synths, I was collecting them, but what’s the point, I’m selling it all now. The mood was actually a bit sad and it made me think of my comparably very modest list of gear, that is already too much for me. The overall sadness prevented me to fell like, “yeah I’m not a that point, I can have more” . I can’t, to witness this was a warning.
You should not feel like you need to sell your nose just because there is nothing to smell today. Same with your ears, or your eyes. No need to sell your eyes just because the night is dark.
If you have 5 or 6 different noses and you are still incapable of smelling anything, then perhaps downsizing is appropriate for you.
that will be me when I retire and plan to move overseas if it goes that route as I will not be able to take a lot overseas to a warm sunny place like Portugal or Thailand for example. But if I only do partial expat then I can keep half.
My God, just going to a practice room with more than a backpack now seems unbearable to me ^^
When I started electronics, we would play gigs with desktop computers - and that was before flat screens (that’s how old I am). Plus a couple of MIDI controllers, a couple of synths, a bass, the amp to go with it. Band practice twice a week before gigs was physically gruelling.
I’d never go back to that era. No more of that in 2026. My DAWless setup is a M8, a Launchpad and a FaderFox. And this gives me way more options and fun than my humongous setup back in the days.
I downsized without selling stuff. Many of my old jams used to be elaborate setups, which were fun, but it often ends up feeling too messy and unfocused. I keep everything on the shelf now, and just pull out 1 or 2 things at a time. I feel like I’m a lot more focused and can dive into the specifics of my gear better. It’s also enabled me to start creating tutorial vids which I’ve been wanting to do for a while.
I used to think that not having everything hooked up at once was just a waste, but having stuff on the shelf allows me to actually better utilize the gear that I pull out.
oh man the LXR02 really impressed me with how good and fun it is to jam on. I can get some massive industrial, techno and house stuff out of it with little effort. Plus sliders are so fun to use and the LFOs, filter and morph take it to next level. It is less expensive than fancy stuff like TR1000 but fantastic.
Started going through my gear and the first three devices that I sat down with are also the first three that will get sold. Can’t wait to get to the damn fuzz pedals and try to figure out which is the one that can stay.
I have actually watched a fair number of tutorial videos on the LXR, this machine is everything I want: small form factor, FM, separate outs, nice sequencer, level faders… but… must… resist…
(Plus I would argue it has more character than the Tr-1000, as it doesn’t try to recreate anything, it’s just itself)
Yeah, I put them up for sale today. I was considering putting up more stuff, but I’d probably be a bit too hasty if I did that. Feels like the right move, having them packed up and ready to ship already.
