I sold a prewar gibson banjo, that I happened upon when helping a friend pick out a tenor guitar… felt nice to let it go considering I rarely played it. It did sound great (if you’re into the sound of a banjo). I knew it was going to a happy excited musician. It was the only time on reverb I was accosted by a bunch of accounts claiming it was a fake and then quickly making me an offer on it 
skeazy creeps.
EML-400/401 had one and sold it. Couldn’t live without it, got another one for $400. Back in the late '80s. Sold that one as well. Still a big regret. Out of all the stuff I owned probably one of the most interesting and creative machines I have ever had.
Well since it is not replaceable, try not to sell it if you can. Otherwise, autosample it into wav files so you can still retain some of its goodness. Buy again eventually, I guess. However, what’s irreplaceable in the first place?
precisely why we are kindred spirits, Scot.
here’s some gear I have stupidly sold and now can no longer afford/find/stomach paying what they are going for: TR-909, Macbeth M5N, OSCar, 70’s Minimoog,
Moogerfooger delay, Rozzbox, Maxikorg, Jupiter 4, Polivoks, Monopoly, Monomachine, Machinedrum, Sidstation, and an ENTIRE CASE of Cwejman modules. ugh.
now if I don’t HAVE to sell it, I try not to. especially if it’s just a “well, I haven’t used it in a while… might as well…” sort of feeling. BUT I also have way too much gear, so it’s easier to “make do” with that, and just do without the THING I MUST HAVE until I can afford it outright.
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This can also lead to a false impression that a given piece of gear isn’t as valuable to you as it really is. When you have a lot of equipment, you are less likely to use a given piece as often as you would if you had fewer options. Maybe you have a rare and wonderful polysynth, but you’ve been in a monophonic modular mood for six months. The fact that you are less likely to use that polysynth during that six months does not diminish its value to you when you need it. It’s all too easy to assume today’s mood/muse will continue indefinitely. But it probably won’t.
It’s important to remember why you wanted a rare or irreplaceable piece of gear in the first place, and what role it serves over the long haul. As the leafy feller says “Don’t be hasty”.
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if you’re feeling regret already keep it
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I have an FM2n, I shoot it with the 105mm 2.5 AI-S. Wonderful camera, why not just pick up another one? Better yet, get an FM3A!!!
I don’t think we really come to terms with it I think it’s always a balance between do we need it/use it often enough to justify keeping it vs what are we going to get for it.
I’ve been into synths since around 2004 or so and I went through years and years of buying and selling just so I could experience as many synths as I could. In some respects it was fantastic because I learned various types of synthesis across many synths and it seriously helped me acquire an ear and my taste for what exactly makes a synth good. And that is experience is what led to me to have the ability to get involved in doing sound design professionally. That being said there are numerous pieces if gear that I parted with that I miss dearly and will likely never be able to own again. Getting into synths the time I did it was a very small community and vintage synths actually went for what they should go for based off of overal sound and features instead of collectibility and nostalgia.
If I were to list everything I sold over the years I’m thinking it would be higher than 50 but lower than 100. A short list of stuff I wish I never parted with off the top of my head would be: Roland space echo, Juno 60, Moog prodigy, Moog source, Nord lead 3, MS20, SH101. (in red), TB303, Jupiter 6, CS60, AN1X, OB8, Moog theremin and Korg polysix.
Most of those I bought for 1/3 of what they ended up selling for and the vast majority of them with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions I’ll never be able to afford again…even ir I could afford it I would never pay the prices people are asking for now.
But that doesn’t make me miss them any less.
But then I think about my set up now. Would having a space echo and a CS60 and a Jupiter 6 be amazing? Hell yes! But if I’m being real with myself I technically have more gear than I “need” and everything I have I love and what I have and the way I have it set up is really conducive to making the kind of music I want to make and in the end that’s what it’s all about right?
I regret a lot of it only because I miss that gear and I could imagine what I could do with them now that I couldn’t then and I have this vision of myself playing all those synths years and years from now when I’m an old man just enjoying them, that would have been nice but it’s a luxury, I couldn’t afford to keep those things and I’m very happy with what I have now.
So I guess what I’m saying is in my experience selling gear can definitely sting and you can feel regret that you don’t necessarily come to terms with but if you like what you have now and you enjoy it and use it then ultimately it’s all good. Not to sound corny but sometime the journey does hold meaning, I feel fortunate that I even got to spend time with all the gear that I’ve spent time with over the years and how it’s shaped me as a synthesist.
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My bad. It was the Fm3a. Silver top one. I also had the 105mm lens you mention. One of the best lenses i owned. I could go back but after so many years im not sure.
Atm im lusting the new Leica M11 but £6k and a summilux 50mm make it almost 10k. Always wanted a Leica
…let go…
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I regret selling a few things, but mostly only sell when I know I won’t regret it, and those that I did are items I’m never likely to own again.
That said, it is only gear so if you need to sell then sell, gear does not make the music we do, most likely any of us could quite easily work with less and still have fun.
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not selling anything.
will wait some 20 years until prices get ridiculously high.
(i know they eventually will)
If you don’t need the money then don’t sell it. I have an enormous amount of regret about the things I’ve sold. In the late '00s I sold my Sidstation, Microwave XT, Nord Lead 2, and Xbase 09 because I figured that VSTs were the future and I’d never use hardware again (lol). Fastforward to today and I want all of them back – especially the Microwave XT, jesus christ what was I thinking!!! – but I can’t afford them.
As others have said, if you are regretting it already maybe you shouldn’t go through with it.
I sold my Sub37 last year to fund a Matriarch. It was the first proper hardware synth that I had owned and even though I am really happy with the Matriarch I miss it sorely. I guess i had more emotional attachment than I had known! I had instant regret and even told the buyer if he ever decides to sell to give me first dibs.
I dont want another one but I would like my one back haha. I don’t like hearing or seeing them anymore caus I get pangs of regret.
very true! part of why I think it’s great to just put things away that you’re not using much lately. but make sure to play the hell out of them before giving final approval to sell.
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personally, I tend to see material possessions like instruments (replaceable or not) as both assets and tools. The ego associates closely through the sensory organs, and the attachment to physical items, and pattern based usage cases of material items - only re-enforces a sense of attachment to things that are in essence, temporary. The idea of letting go of items that I have come to enjoy like my Monomachine and Machinedrum, has given me a sense of power of how I perceive my material collection of items, and has helped shaped my creative processs, as well as how I continue to live my life day through night, and so on until the end.
By no means is my method or ideas on this universally accepted as the all encompassing only way to go about it, nor is it at all a mellow approach to viewing materialism. Though I spend a lot of time meditating on the associations we each hold within physical reality, and within a civilization that is heavily influenced by repetitive consumption of consumer electronics, as well as food and other items. Thus I have shaped my entire life around these fundamental concepts of shedding attachment. I enjoy listening to sounds I recorded from those instruments when I did have them, though I have no fear of missing out on still having them in my studio.
Perhaps one day I will feel the urge to go on a side quest to rediscover, and locate a lost Machinedrum or Monomachine! That sounds like a cool side quest in the future. For now though, I positively reflect upon the memory of things of that kind, and of the ideas of material worth that had once bound me to ideas that kept me grasping for tangible substance within an ever changing aetheric realm.
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I’m pretty well committed to moving halfway around the world in a couple of years. There are a million ducks to get in a row before I start to offload the music gear and I’m already losing my mind over it. I know that I’ll be fine with my laptop, daw, and the two 1010 boxes (keeping because they’re physically minuscule) but I’m just attached to some of this stuff. Particularly Digitone Keys, TR8S, and Circuit Monostation. I’ve made a bunch of songs I really like with all three and while there’s always plenty to learn I feel like I know these three very well and can just dive right into any idea I have. It doesn’t seem like finding a TR8S or Monostation down the road would be difficult or break the bank but Digitone Keys don’t exactly grow on trees. I have some other fun pieces that don’t get used as much but are straight up rare or just crazy pricey now. I’d hate to decide I need to get a Tempest five or ten years after I sold the one I had instead of finding some way to leave it at my mom’s house or something. But then if I’m leaving stuff at mom’s, where does that end? I have these things because I like them. All. So if I justify storing one…
Anyway, MENTAL BRAIN AGONY
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I bought a 1926 Gibson PB3 years ago with the intent of having a 5 string neck made for it. As the years went by and hadn’t got around to it I put it up on the banjo hangout. A nice younger local fellow reached out wanting to trade a Sullivan Vintage 35 as he had always wanted a pre-war Gibson. We met about an hour away and did a straight trade. He sent me pictures once the conversion was done. It was nice to see a project I’d had in mind come to completion through someone else. Now I have a nice Sullivan that I don’t need, but that is a different story.
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