#NGNY22 - Happy NoGear New Year!

Sorry to hear about your struggles - thats a lot to handle. Are you staying on the list, with the sins noted, or do you want to be taken off?

Sins noted :wink:

sins noted. I’m stayin.’ no more gear for me.

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:muscle::heart:

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Wrote this about three months ago, and have now spent about three weeks just with the Digitone and having lots of fun with it! Same with the Perfourmer which I’ve only played with a couple of times but anyway. Really think boxing up gear is working for me. When I had most of the stuff wired up on the studio table not only did it give me a sort of option paralysis but also gave me an excuse to look elsewhere if that setup didn’t lend me ”the results” I was expecting. Now I’m focusing on one or two pieces at a time and when I start thinking about getting something new, those thoughts are first directed towards stuff I already have (boxed up).

Having said that, I’ve found myself thinking what I’ll get on 1/1/2023 a couple of times so it’s not like I’m GAS-free now. :rofl:

One more thing: Can anyone share their thought process / workflow regarding Elektron soundlocks? Coming from the 16-track Machinedrum I’ve always found it a bit hard to get full songs going on DN. The way I often work with the MD is that I get something melodic going maybe on 2-4 tracks and then start building rhythms off of that. Having 16 tracks is such a luxury cos I don’t have to worry about running out of tracks or if I should have a BD or a HH on a specific step (cos I can have both if I want to). I can also start the metronome and just try out some rhythmic ideas on several pieces of the drum kit. Essentially I’d have to build all my drums on one track on the DN and feel like I’d have to start with the drums which isn’t my MO.

The easiest solution would probably be have the DN for melodic stuff and MD for drums. But I want to make it work just on the DN too cos I prefer having just one box in front of me. So looking for soundlock tips, please!

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There are some ideas regarding this in the thread about tips and tricks (Digitone Tips and Tricks).

Some days ago, I followed this tutorial by @Eaves (Digitone tutorial: how to make a full drum pattern in 1 track - YouTube), and found it really useful. I’m also in the process of trying to make full tracks on the DN.

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I was trying to go the whole year without buying any new things, other than food, or other necessities. Yesterday I whoopsed and bought a laptop which I will soon (need) for school. 7 months to go

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A laptop that you’ll need for school sounds like a necessity. And you also need time to get used to it before you have to depend on it.

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Just going to leave this here (esp for you scholarly types) :slight_smile:

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What’s worked for me is to combine kick and subbass on the same track, usually I’ll make my kick the bass sound by lowpassing it and adding sustain using plocks, or I’ll play my bass part and then paste a trig with the kick soundlocked where I want it. I have another percussion/cymbals oriented track taking advantage of the fill to change it up, and then I have two tracks left for whatever comes to mind.

Use delay and reverb with taste to fill up the silence :slight_smile:

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Yeah, having kick and bass on one track would help. In all honesty there’s a bigger ”problem” for me here. It often happens with tracks that I go ”wouldn’t it be fun having this thing here as well”. Kinda the same as is/was (nope, is) my problem with gear when I come to think of it, that I’m always adding just one more thing.

But as much as I’d like to make it work on just the DN, there’s no real problem here. If writing full tracks on the DN is starting to feel like a chore I’ll just add the MD for drums.

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Five months done dudes & dudettes. Seven more to go. Congratulations us!

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Yea my home and car repairs hit hard making no gear a no brained this year for me. I’m hoping for an Erica Synths techno system or Rytm mk2 next year tho.

Yes! Congratulations everybody :heart: I’m cutting my online activity drastically at the moment, but will of course check in here.

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Alright guys, sin here, couldn’t resist the inpending discontinuation of the Mutable Instruments line so I bought the last module that interested me from those still available (and a mixer with it).
I’m not proud, but it’s my only purchase in more than 5 months and I intend to keep things that way until the end of the year.

@Joebas you know what you have to do :slight_smile:

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Done! :wink: And congratulations on your 5 months :muscle: Which mutable module was it?

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Haha, thanks, I think I wouldn’t have jumped if I hadn’t seen Blades and Rings get discontinued and unavailable everywhere, it put the urge in me to jump on a Tides 2 before it was too late.

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Whatsup guys, haven’t checked in after committing a terrible sin in april (bought an octatrack).

Props to everyone still going strong! I truly respect you guys. I’m still committed to this challenge going forward and besides getting the OT I’ve sold a bunch of gear since jan 1 and don’t plan on buying anything for the remainder of the year.

Just to motivate all of you a little more, getting the OT has been a mixed experience for me so far: Even though the OT clicks with me very much, using it together with the AR (my fav gear of all time) is confusing to me, and it feels like I have 2 machines trying to play the same role. So I decided to put away the AR for a while but then I started really missing it. So the acquisition of the OT actually put me in a state of confusion and uncertainty about my entire setup instead of just being an addition. Maybe I should’ve just stuck to my guns instead of messing up what worked very well.

If any of you are considering getting something new, just think about the resulting issues regarding desk space, cable routing, and workflow in relation to your other gear. Something new might just mess things up…

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I can relate to that a lot. I am not that big of a Sample-Mangeling-Guy, so my OT is mostly a drum machine and midi sequencer, if I use it for more than mixing. I added a ARmk2 to it over a year ago. While I was able to do solo songs on the OT and the AR, I was not really happy with using them together, because they did kind of the same thing.
At the end, after selling the AR months ago and trying the Syntakt, I have to realize, that while I love the Analog Kicks, I am totally fine with Samples, so I stick to the OT (if I want to go Elektron).

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This post is maybe a bit off-topic, but I feel this is the place where I can express this doubt, as this thread is full of supportive people, and my problem is maybe related to GAS.

First, even though I’m not in the #ngny22 list, I committed in spirit, as in “buy less and explore what I’ve already got deeper”, and it’s been quite a success so far, in part thanks to this thread. So, thank you all, and specially @Joebas for this. In 2022, I’ve only bought a ~200€ second hand drum machine and some sound packs, which is fairly less than, for example, the last 5 months of 2021. And I’ve been exploring the DN in deep. I also managed to cancel a kickstarter pledge, because, even though the device was very interesting, I would’n use it so much.

Now, I’ve decided I’ll buy a syntakt. I don’t want to wake up any GAS here, so I’ll only say that I liked what I’ve seen so far about it, a lot. This will probably be my only big acquisition in 2022.

Thing is, even though I’ve got the money and the space, and I feel I’ll love it, I have some gear I’m not using very often, and my doubt is if I should sell it right away, and partially fund the ST, or I should keep them and try to get along with them. I’m talking here about an A4mk1 and/or a AH, which are the two elektron devices I don’t quite get (on the other hand, I love the DT+DN pair).

The two of them are so appreciated in this forum, that I feel like it’s my fault to don’t quite like them. But, why keep them, if I’m happier using the DT+DN? It’s just a hobby in the end.

So here I am. I know this is my decision to make, but I’d really like to hear what you have to say.

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