…he said.
It wasn’t.
Well, at least I’m not featured in the list of shame. 
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Guess what?
It’s the last day of June. We’re halfway through!
Pat your selves on your backs if you’ve made it this far.
Pat anyways, if you haven’t made it but this thread has made you think about your habits as a consumer and maybe even change them a little.
For me personally this has been a revelation.
If I was doing this by myself I would’ve failed a million times already but you guys have kept me on the straight and narrow. The thought of coming here to confess a sin is just too intimidating. I don’t want to fail, I want to achieve this one small thing. My self discipline has had a pretty good work out.
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We should have a party (where we don’t buy anything)!
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thank you NGNY
because of this self policing, I EASILY stepped aside of the MPC new plugins hype.
I was getting sucked in by the posts…playing with the plug…only to shortly thereafter, have that moment of clarity where I just told myself…“you have great sounding synths already. no need for this”. and that was that. no stressin’ about it. its liberating.
NGNY 
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Yeah halfway indeed! Wow, for some reason this made me realise how fast time actually runs and I felt a brief moment of sadness and mild panic lol.
Well anyways, carry on!! 
I don’t mean to be a party pooper, just observing and reporting the effects of this challenge what ever they might be. Things are 100 times better than they were before this though.
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I’ve tried to sin and ordered syntakt. But Turkish customs asked me to pay 950 euro fees for 850 euros order from Germany. So, I sent it back.
Postponed until next year when I move to Europe.
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I haven’t really posted much in this thread, but occasionally had a good read. Halfway point seems like a good point to chime in.
NGNY has been a… mixed experience for me.
Not buying anything is absolutely no problem, but along that also came a creeping lack of interest in making music. Haven’t really touched my machines since April – quite literally touched – and haven’t had a good fun jam since maybe March or so.
Seems like the teachings of NGNY for me so far has been the unpleasant realization that… making music was very much tied to consumer habit.
But! I began making pictures again – and actually enjoying the craft and the artistic “flow” of it – which I haven’t been doing since some family related stuff about three years ago.
So I guess, I’ve somewhat traded one “flame” for a different one because of NGNY.
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Mixed experience sums it up very well.
About one and a half years ago I started painting with acrylics and making a short film (my first) and about a month ago I started making installations for the first time and due to these things I’ve found that having more than one creative outlet is incredibly rewarding and good for ones mental health because those creative cycles always have their ups and downs and when nothing happens it feels awful.
The pressure to get something worthwhile done for the sake of ones self-image and to justify all the gear and the neglecting of most of the stuff normal ppl do can become unbearable.
When you have many creative projects and passion for different things there is always something to do and it feels less forced, at least according to my experience.
Before I started doing different artistic/creative things I was brutal to myself when I wasn’t able to make progress with music.
By making pictures do you mean photography or films? This might be a stupid question but the word pictures always confuses me hehe.
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This!
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I have this too 
Was pretty keen in Jan/Feb but pretty much uninterested since then. I guess there was a honeymoon period going with the positive action. I mean I still like the idea of making music, but when I have time I’ll watch a movie or read a book instead.
I’m treating that as an OK outcome for now, and assuming some enthusiasm will appear at some point. Also finding family and work life tricky at the moment, so there is definitely a more general wanting to switch off and not really do anything when I have chance.
Anyway we’ll see what happens in the second half!
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Whoops sorry, yeah you‘re right, the wording is a little confusing.
I was actually talking about acrylic paintings – quite the coincidence with your case hah.
Aah I know this all too well! Occasionally the thought of turninh on the machines flickers up, but it never really gets strong enough.
But I mean it also kinda feels good to not force any music making, just because one has to justify a purchase – uhm, assuming music isn‘t a serious endeavour in the first place.
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I, too, want to congratulate everybody here. This has been a remarkable 6 months. I can’t remember a time, with this level of personal growth, in such a short amount of time, and this project has been a great part of it.
Thank you all 
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6 months was a pretty good run but I’m out. Just came home with a Toraiz SP16.
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Congrats - I’ll remove you. Unless you prefer to stay on?
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All good man, you can take me off. I’m looking at it as a simple challenge. There’s always other years to try again.
Feeling pretty good though, been looking for the “right” sampler for years ever since I ditched the old sp808 and getting the feeling that this might be it! Had it in the back of my mind ever since it came out but never tried one until now.
None of the other gear in store was even remotely interesting so I reckon I’m prolly good for a while now. I’d say NGNY has certainly been beneficial in helping to change how I think about consumption.
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good so far no gear bought for 2022 and year is half over so I think that I will make it! I have been busy focused on what I have now to create beats with. Got my DAW setup to make recording modular a piece of cake. Now I can capture happy accidents quickly for use later on.
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An anecdote: I’m literally not sure if I’ve had less GAS these past six months OR there just hasn’t been that much interesting stuff available second hand. Might be a bit of both, plus the prices have been going up in the second hand market as well. All those combined I really haven’t been close to succumbing to GAS. Just today I was ”saved” by the fact that something I saw was priced at 25% more than I’d be willing to pay (I used to be pretty flexible on that, ha).
Anyway, after eight months of having it, I’m really diving into my Prophet 6 for the first time and making a lot of my own patches with it. It’s also a lot of fun to be playing a synth after a long time of mostly sequencing Elektron boxes. The plan right now is to put together a free P6 sound pack and start a bunch of tracks with it as well.
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Maybe after having experienced intense GAS and then the disappearing of the illusion of this next piece of gear making a huge life altering difference enough times some real learning is happening.
It’s weird how one can feel such a strong connection to the way some instruments sound like but then when you get it something is still missing big time and it ends up collection dust and inducing guilt and anxiety.
At times I feel inspired by some new instruments like the Perkons ATM but I still want less gear, not more. I decided to sell my A4 mk2 and Korg Wavestate among other things.
The Prophet 6 is such a cool sounding synth! Reminds me of the band Air for some reason. Very emotional and kinda melancholic pads seem to be one of it’s strong sides.
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This side of the Prophet 6 (with matching keys, leads and drones to boot) is very much the focus of the sound pack I’m putting together. Not that there aren’t such packs out there already… but I’ll be giving it away for free as it’s a by-product for me anyway as the main thing will be the tracks I’m gonna write with those sounds. Might sound overtly self-assured but… just watch me. 
It’s funny, whenever I’ve had a good stint with one piece of and (like now) and it should be 100% clear that dedicating all my time on the gear I already have is THE way to go, my thoughts still sometimes go ”why not MORE gear that is as good as this one”? Hell, there are a couple of things I might buy right now if they were available (2nd hand) and the price was right. Sigh. Like I said earlier, I realize there’ll be a devil sitting on my shoulder for a long time to come.
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