It may just be 3 pieces of Gear. But crushes any feelings of GAS instantly when you sit down(or stand up) to use them. Everyones needs are different i know, but when i see people perfectly happy for many years with just an Octatrack One say, then they might be onto something thats worth perusing.
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Theyāre probably more interested in making music than scrolling the web for new products.
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Fair point. But i think thereās more to it than that, as we are all on the internet and are drip fed whether we are looking or not.
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Not quite.
Ive muted the new gear threads, the new elektron product threads since syntakt. I dont bother following any synth youtube channels or websites.
I have to actively go looking for it.
Im pretty happy with my set up. Cant say I want to add any more to it for a long time. Actually having a bit of a cull of unused stuff at the moment.
So yeah I think there is such a thing, but that thing is your mind, and how you use it.
Not the gear itself.
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Interesting. So a ākiller mindsetā rather than setup?
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For me itās
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my deepmind12, which allow me to do electric Piano and lots of general purpose synth sound and which has a good UI.
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The analog four/keys which allow quickly to setup complex bass, rhythmic. And which can do a bit of polyphonic sound too. Complex and highly tweakable.
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Coupled with Ableton live + push1 which allow to quickly operate Ableton interface without relying only into the mouse, most of the stuff can be done with the pc keyboard + push. And which allow to put effect where I need them to fit on the sample I generate/import.
Sure gear provide you a haptic feedback and playground. But I donāt believe you need much of them, just the right interface which is not frustrating, which allow complexity without being overwhelming.
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Of course.
Itās not the gear. Itās the mindset/focus.
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Yes, something like this:
The key is having just enough capability for what you want to make and no room to expand. I might want some other function that I donāt have, but the effort required to integrate a new machine kills any interest in buying one. Thereās room on my MC-707 to mix in one more thing, but Iād have to deal with syncing it, coordinating saved patches/projectsā¦ Canāt be bothered. If I had a mixer and all that Iād be shopping permanently like everyone else (and like I used to before I sold it all).
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in my opinion the answer is no, all of this is psychological rather than the equipment itself.
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There are people placing orders right now who have never even turned on the gear that they own.
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Itās a mindset - constantly looking for solutions that new gear canāt fix instead of embracing the things you have and digging way down into them to see how far they can go.
Tubby didnāt switch up his MCI console or get a Mu-Tron to replace his Altec filter. Likewise Scratch used his 201 and Bi-Phase pretty much his whole career.
When you go digging for solutions to problems that arenāt there all you do is make new problems
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I never understood how people got themselves into that situation until recently when I realised I had the same theorycrafting-the-perfect-setup phase, but it came at a time when I had no money. Canāt GAS yourself into a spiral without it.
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GAS is not real. Its an industry plant psyop, people who have a normal psychological state of mind do not experience GAS. Meditate, heal thyself, and the GAS will disappear
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you posted this 2 days ago tho, unless it was set up a while ago Iām not sure saying hereās my new set up and itās a gas killer is apt, perhaps Iām wrong.
I donāt believe itās industry planted. Consumerism is for sure.
I was gassing for things, and then would get reverse gas trying to simplify, never owning more than 3 pieces of gear but in a state of flux.
Every now and again Google does that thing where it shows me pictures I took x amount of years ago and whatever.
Sometimes itās pictures of all the gear I used to own, and I laugh at myself for how often things changed without any real discernable difference in the music I was making. I was deeply unhappy during that period and dicking around buying gear was a shit way of dealing with things.
A laptop with Ableton and Max/MSP is all I need to make the sounds I want to make.
I partake in the occasional side quest involving old Soviet Synths, but thatās less about making music and more about collecting and fixing old stuff.
If I get a job Iāve applied for itāll be a nice pay rise, so Iāll probably treat myself to another Lyra 8 and Iām saving up for that Cric thing that Finley from FSS has made, but I donāt think either of them are going to solve a problem or make my music better, theyāre just nice things I want to play with.
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I only posted the photo after Iād come to the conclusion mentioned in the post.
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Interesting. You seem to have an eye for āObscure Hardwareā and a staple DAW. That makes sense as you can find bread and butter sounds in Ableton. A good mix that.
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This is a cool post and I can totally relate to going thru a shit time and focussing on gear as an outlet, Iāve posted about it in the NGNY thread in more depth.
Glad youāve found some peace with it.
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Push 3 + Live Suite 12.2 (soon to be 12.3) + a bunch of MIDI controllers doesnāt quite kill my GAS (nothing ever will) but certainly holds it back a bit. Push 3 + controllers can cover a ton of different ground. I will be adding a Neuzeit Drop to my setup next year and that plus FaderFox stuff (MX12, EC4) will give me an insane level of tweakability.
I do like hardware synths as well, and another GAS-restrainer (for me) is my Waldorf Iridium Desktop. It can do so much, it is insanely deep and flexible (as well as being surprisingly fast and intuitive to use IME). One thing I can can say for certain: it has absolutely killed any GAS I ever had for Eurorack. Iridium into Live Suite controlled from Push 3 + controllers can do all that any Eurorack setup I would ever want could do. Eurorack, begoneā¦ aināt going to happen.
Another GAS killer for me is a really high quality MIDI controller keyboard with a great keybed action. Iāve been round the houses on this forever and in the end I just went for it and bought a Nord Electro 6D. All the pianos/EPs/organ sounds Iāll ever need plus the nicest semi-weighted keyboard ever made IMO. I wonāt ever buy a synth with a keyboard now, it is desktop modules only for me.
Iāll admit that spending Ā£Ā£Ā£Ā£Ā£Ā£s on this setup is not exactly bargain basement, but it does mean that whenever I look at new gear (which I do, constantly), I have to ask myself if the new stuff can really do something I canāt get from what I already own.
The answer is usually ānoā although some new gear is harder to resist than other gear. Iād love to own an Analog Rytm Mk2 for example, because Iād love to have the depth and power of analog drums in my setup and I love the Elektron workflow. But then I ask myself if I really canāt get close with the Push 3 drum rack step sequencer (which is dope IMO) and the right mix of Live native devices and plugins. Jury out on that one.
Where GAS is harder to resist is if thereās a device that is genuinely unusual and different and much harder to replicate in software + controllers than having everything laid out in the one box with physical controls. For example, the Erica Synths Steampipe. I know I could do the whole Karplus-Strong thing in plugins, but to have one box thatās dedicated to making weird wind/string/bell/whatever soundsā¦ thatās really tempting.
The Tonverk is interesting for me in that context as well, at the moment I canāt see anything the TV can do that I canāt just as easily do with Push and controllersā¦ but the TV is brand new, Elektron have a good track record in innovation, and itās possible the TV will evolve into something that pushes it well past what I can do easily with my current setup. At that point, the TV goes on the GAS list. But itās not there yet.
Also my background as a sax player makes a new wind controller like the ASM Diosynth a seriously tempting thingā¦ canāt do any of that with my saxes, and I dislike any of the other wind controllers Iāve used over the years. So the Diosynth is on the list for next year. And Diosynth + Steampipe would be cool as hell.
TL;DR is I have a kinda GAS killer setup but I still want to buy at least three new pieces of gear next yearā¦ so, er, probably not that much of a GAS killer, then 
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