Am i the only one that just turn knobs until something sounds nice?
I rarely tried to get specific sounds I’ve heard, if not for very basic stuff like “wobbly bass” applying an lfo to filter frequency.
I know the basics of how osc make sounds, but that’s really just it for me. Most of the things are like magic and i feel like I’m not supposed to try to understand it until the “ohhh” moment happens
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I like to turn things until something sounds nice, sure. But I also like to imagine things in my head and those are the sounds I try to recreate. That said, I do not spend too much time tweaking sounds, but I hardly use presets.
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I shudder to think how many tracks I’ve made with just the default Rytm kit. Or just swapping out the kick and snare for a different preset and then rocking that. These days, I don’t fiddle with sound design much, unless there’s something very particular I have in mind or the song needs it. For me sound design is a rabbit hole, just a barrier to getting to the song idea.
Do painters source elements, crush them to render pigments, and reduce them to create a bespoke shade of paint? Or do they go to the store, buy a tube of red, and get to painting? Does it matter?
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What’s that book? I need to make sure I don’t read it
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Hello @henryo, as a fellow ADHDer I’ve struggled with a lot of the same things! You are not alone.
Think about why you are hyperfocusing on synths you don’t have/cant afford. My guess is its because 1) you fucking love synths and 2) the novelty of something new is a massive dopamine source.
So put some time aside for researching your special interest in synths, but understand that theres researching and making music are two different things.
Heres some GAS avoidance strategies that have worked for me.
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Deleting facebook. Marketplace was a massive source of GAS for me, I’d see something for a good price and to start with I’d buy it believing it would be life changing(it never is), I later combatted the impulse buying with a rule that I should at least have read and understood the manual before buying something… if it was a really good price the synth was sold before I could buy it but I got the research habit super ingrained(for better of worse).
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Using what I already have. I have bitwig and vcv rack, between those I can make pretty much any sound I would make with any synth I could buy even if I had the money.
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Consider the time cost of learning new gear. It takes ages to read manuals, deal with bugs(especially for newly released gear), figure out the limitations and best use cases for new synths… this is time you could be making music with what you’ve already got.
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If you have anywhere like MESS https://mess.foundation/studio/ where you live, go there and use all their synths. I did this for a 6 month membership and it really exhausted my GAS, I’d take my DT in and sample heaps of rare and expensive synths, figure out how they worked, and in most cases after spending 4 hours on a machine I’d be done with it!
Other ways to stay on task while working on music:
- disconnect from wifi when youre working on music.
- Do any boring stuff like organising or editing samples on headphones(plug in not bluetooth). Its harder to walk away from the task and I find I end up much more immersed in the task.
- Do all your planning with pen and paper. Leaving the DAW to do write notes in a google doc is a massive risk.
- Have a pen/paper ready at all times to write a single sentence of something you want to research. Its like an idea parking lot. After you write it down you can get back to music and you can keep those ideas for your research hyperfocus times.
Hope that helps!!!
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Also what MIDI fader controller is that?
I’ve been hyper focusing on these 2 for past few months too… it’s taking a while to get through 
Think about what this mindset is costing you.
Surely you can find a way to create something very similar to what you are going for with something you already have. My advice is to make a challenge out of that.
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Thanks, I’m going to give this a go…. But I’ll have to try hard to silence the little voice in the back of my head will be shouting ‘this is sh*t!’ Even if it sounds amazing! 
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Thanks I have tried this and some do respond really kindly 
Thanks, I hadn’t heard of this, I’ll give it a try.
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LOVE this reply! You’ve clearly been inside my head! These should be my rules for general living!
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This looks awesome! Wish I lived in Melbourne! Any one know if there is anything similar in the UK?
100% both of the above!
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https://www.gloss.scot/about-1 looks pretty new, might still be a work in progress
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There is one section where based on the delusion behind GAS the addict is classified in categories.
Adapted by yours truly to this world, we’ll have:
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The anti-collector: while brain is wired similar to a collector’s brain, instead instead of focusing on rare/historical pieces, this poor soul goes after the latest product or any item of the moment (EP-133, Medieval, T4). As Greek would say, Neophilia. This is the path of the unending unease. Aka “gear heads”.
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The crafter. This one chases is own idea of a “better” instrument that suits their needs of preferred concepts of sound. This add a complication since “the latest module” might degrade or render obsolete other pieces and overall increasing costs in their never ending Modular journey. This is the passion of crafters, where sounds, or even music, is just a by product, not the final objective: build your self portrait, but using Euro Rack.
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The Purists. Opposite of gear heads, they strive for lesser pieces of gear, but of course, of the greatest quality possible. More knobs, less menu. Technology which automatizes playing (generative sequencers, A.I. anything) disconnect them from the instruments/audience.
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The collector. They go after what they consider rare, valuable or prestigious. In some advanced stages they told themselves that those soon to be, if not already, outdated music making appliances might be an investment. They use the term ‘holy grail’. InMusic Acquisition of MOOG is their CBS Acquisition of Fender moment.
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The player. The just in case, the multiple setups for any case, and duplicate setups for the worst case. From cables to synths, you are never to ready for what could happen. So yeah, “I’ll take two of them”.
Finally, gas is also presented as a romantic but egoist expression:
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It’s the 16n
I use it for controlling synth parameters when playing live. Works awesome 
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I’m sure that if an artist makes great art using out-of-the-tube red, green, etc. very few are going to call them out on it. It’s the art that matters, after all.
But it’s also true that most artists have more success creating an expressive piece by taking the raw pigments their synth store provides and combining them into something new that fits their need in the moment.
In fact, this is considered such a crucial aspect of the process that the universal icon for “artist” is the pallet where this blending of paints occurs 
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I think it is not about the project, but about the habit. If you have an idea to work out, you have to do ‘homework’ to succeed and finish the project. It needs executive power. Many people with and (!) without adhd are disappointed about executive performance.
I never finish anything I have in mind. I learned to enjoy the process, just make beats and after I made 16 beats, I can find a way to combine them to a song or to components I can use in a live set.
Many options to choose from usually activates human anxiousness. It works like that in a supermarket when someone has to choose 1 bag of rice out of 60 possible bags of rice. It is like that when you ‘have to choose a synth’. Monkey see, monkey do. And maybe you will miss something if you don’t.
So….
Turn of your computer. Learn digitakt on such a way, it becomes your habit. It will be easier to start when being confident. Also filter your world from ugliness. Learn to focus, don’t let you brain be diverged by the internet
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I’m this metaphor, I think the store bought paint is the preset and mixing them on your easel is dialing in a sound for a track. I see nothing wrong with either way of working. As you said, the real question is the quality of the final product. I definitely take a hybrid approach. Rytm: use present sounds but dial in modulations. A4: tweak presets to the track. ST: Roll my own sounds from scratch. OT: I’ve been recording my own playing as samples to mangle, but I typically spend $10/year on Splice samples as a fun treat (mostly drum loops out vocals).
I think sound design is just over more things to potentially hyper-focus on, in addition to gear, samples, etc. It certainly can be for me. I gave myself permission not to worry about it anymore, and I’m much happier
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while you wait just make 1gb library of risers. then once you’re ready to be DJ Sasha 2.0 you can just fill in the spaces bw the risers with the dry aged samples
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I mean, sure. The paint can represent whatever you like, and the only correct answer is “what works for you”. Seriously, no trace of irony; your happiness is what matters.
But to apply the metaphor a little more directly to the topic of the thread, it’s like the OP is obsessed with a certain shade of mauve that’s only available in rare boutique batches from SOMA. It’s so beautiful that they’re having trouble painting because all they can think of is how much they’d like to use that mauve that they don’t have.
Now, I’d argue that mauve is not a unique invention and that people have been getting it for ages by mixing the red and blue they already have. And that knowing that, the desire for “that mauve” can be subsumed by the desire to create mauve (or, more likely, dissipate entirely when you realize mauve isn’t so special after all).
Is that “one more thing to potentially hyper-focus on”? Yup. But that’s the creative process. We could avoid all distraction by just having A.I. do it for us. But many of us enjoy creating things, and that often requires hyper-focus. The key is to hack our attention such that we focus on the creative distractions rather than the unproductive ones.
And if the alternative looks like buying that expensive tube of SOMA mauve only to then be distracted by Erica’s new packaged vanta black and then Waldorf’s collection of chartreuses after that…? That seems like an unproductive distraction. So replacing the marketing-driven obsession of collecting new colors with the creation-focused obsession of mixing them seems like a good trade to me.
But I can definitely imagine the inverse — a person who endlessly tweaks patches never making anything, but is completely immune to gear video temptation. For that person, buying the whole tube of sound to avoid the distraction of mixing paints is the more productive approach. The key is to know yourself and your compulsions well enough to know which path is best for you.
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