You tell me.
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One unit of Legowelt might just about do the trick.
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this is a real panic room kinda situation you got going there.
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The irony is that my fave thing is to use one piece of gear at a time for an entire track (FX/EQ excepted)
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not 14.
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[laughs in monotribe]
… 
Phew, I’m OK then. Wait, that’s not counting samplers and drum machines, right?
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nope
Whatever makes you happy is cool.
I must admit that I need to feel that everything I own is used and well understood otherwise I start to feel like my gear is owning me rather than the other way around.
Currently I have 1 synth, 3 groove boxes and 2 midi controllers and that feels manageable.
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I work well in either 2-3 synths max at one time. More than that is workload overload for me. So usually my trio of Elektrons or trio of Virus + OB X8 + Moog Sub 37 is plenty to build tracks and jams.
Modular can be set in sequencer easily and pre-patched and occasional tweak of filter and envelopers to vary sound.
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Same here, couple of circuits, Ableton and push 2 and serato DJ, feels like the sweetspot right now, just enough enough gear to get the job done and not enough to swamp my mind… and make me feel guilty if I don’t get round to doing anything with it for a week or so…
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On the topic, i’ve been writing in my ideas notebook all the songs i want to do with the equipment that would be “best” for them…
But i haven’t been optimizing for those that i’m the fastest with intuitively at dialing in patterns and patches.
I’m thinking a bit differently about my time and how to get things done, better, without fantasizing about so many dang tracks with so many different textures.
Yes, it’s great in an expressive sense but mixing? Quick process?
Ughhhh.
“Enough” synths are those which i don’t have to ramp up in knowledge and that i can do what i need to without getting precious or deep diving in the middle of a track.
I can look up something in a manual if i forget, but i shouldn’t have to stop cadence and look up more than a page/function in the entire end to end process.
Since I’m a deep focus (not plodder) type of worker, I need to have my exploration time separate from my recording time.
Maybe some overlap when the spirit overcomes me with an idea, but but only exploiting one new idea at a time. If I get a riff going I can’t save state on, I need to use my existing working knowledge and not kill the inertia by bringing in something new to learn.
There’s always the worry of being boring by sticking to things I know and am comfortable with, but getting real with myself, the times I get boring are never when i’m relaxed and intuitive.
It’s when I’ve tried to shoehorn in hundreds of pages and am mentally exhausted by the time I get close to hitting record!
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For the single synth stuff I tend to use Renoise or my MPC and sample each part such as kick, snare, hats, bass notes, lead sequences etc. Then build up the track from there. It’s a bit of a convoluted way of working and a lot of samples don’t make the final mix or get redone once something coherent starts to emerge but I enjoy working like that.
I should say I used this workflow when building a track rather than just jamming ideas out. It’s not the quickest method but then I am confining myself to one piece of gear for the entire track. Obv it’s a bit quicker if I’m using something like the DN in that it’s multitimbral opposed to a single voice mono synth
I’m a one of each kind of guy. One synth, one sampler, one acoustic guitar, one electric, one bass, 45 pedals.
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Fx are life👍
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let’s count it as one pedalboard
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16 gears please!
87 gears is too many!
My age is the limit.
One synth/year is not bad.
FX pedals don’t count.
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Lovely idea. This past week I’ve been trying to reconfigure effects to consolidate down to three pedalboards.
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btw, my daily job is senior system administrator.
so when it comes to gear, i want spares and/or redundancy.
i must know that if any unit fails, i’ll just unshelve another and continue.
almost achieved that. the only exception is Roland HandSonic HPD-15 – still very unique machine with no spares (but i’m on the hunt).
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