Got 15 days to buy a Nord Lead 3
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I toyed around for an hour with the Arturia V-Collection and the updated Pigments synths and came to the painful conclusion that if (IF ONLY) I was a talented and capable musician I could do complete albums with just those synths and my DAW. I wouldn’t need any gear at all. Beautiful pieces of software.
Earlier today I had a little time to get to know my last acquisition of this year, the Minilogue XD module. Really enjoyed the (almost) knob per function user interface and quickly made a bunch of my own sounds. It’s refreshing to come to such a synth after spending mostly time with my V-Synth (which is absolutely fabulous but certainly not knob per function, not even close).
My anxiety with my gear comes from always having to reroute the cables before starting and that takes basically the whole time I had allocated for my music hobby. Every time there’s a new piece of gear that needs to be connected to my patchbay and to my midihub and to the electric socket etc. So my hobby is mainly connecting synths and moving them around. My girlfriend always makes fun of this aspect of my hobby.
Hopefully this no gear 2022 will allow me to settle down with a permanent setup with no need to run cables and move furniture every time I feel like playing some synths.
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You guys wont be on Bobeats Xmas card list for sure. 
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Fortunately I ordered the Syntrx this year but it’s possible it won’t arrive in my studio til the new year. Just so you know I haven’t caved so quickly! Haha
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Have people signed up for the thread about committing to producing/releasing something in 2022? Perhaps one of the best ways to learn our gear, distract ourselves from buying things, and feel good (instead of guilty) about what we already own.
I committed to at least an EP or beat tape, but am hoping to do two if all goes well. My tape four track should be arriving any day now, and I was just realizing the other day that a 60-minute cassette equals about 15 minutes of recording time. Great length for an EP or one side of an album.
My idea now is to have two cassettes earmarked for these projects. If the project goes well, I can turn them each into Side A of a full-length album.
One of the projects is an album I’ve been brainstorming (and buying gear for) forever now, but will be quite a challenge to execute (in terms of my music skills). It will be the real stretch to achieve, but with fewer distractions it will hopefully come about this year. This is one of those life’s work kind of ambitions I’ve set about for myself.
The second project is more of light/loose project and is sort of my fallback, but in some ways, because it is simpler and there is less pressure it could end up being the better of the two projects. Haha.
Anyway, for me at least, there is something less intimidating about approaching a project with two physical tapes with finite recording time, and a goal of one year to fill that 15-minute space.
The modern world is too limitless, especially because our time and resources are finite. I think that’s where a lot of our stress comes from.
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Yes, this is not not about money and gear, but primarily about time and complexity in a fast moving world where life is constantly throwing things in our path that distract and exhaust us.
GAS and the research, dream, buy, learn, rewire the studio, overload, despair, and sell cycle are unnecessary complexity.
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Well said and therefore I really like this NGNY ‘22 challenge to bring back some limitations. I think/hope this will result in much more productivity. Doing this with 60+ people from this thread also gives me a good feeling 
My goal will be a one hour liveset, with material that should be good enough for an album too. Let’s see in one year where we are
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And soo time consuming! Rewiring? At least a couple of hours each time. Selling gear? At least three or four hours for each piece. Debugging hardware or MIDI problems? At least 30 or 40 hours. Research and learning? Hundreds and hundreds of hours…
I feel very privileged that I had the opportunity to learn and discover all the pieces of gear I owned. And all I learned will be useful in whatever form in the future, but now it’s time to spend the available time on music making!
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perhaps learning to tame the GAS, will produce more sounds.
its kinda like the phone addiction or social media addiction. stopping may result in less buying to fill a hole. and will produce more sounds and future buying to fill a need.
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This may be who will be the last man standing. As the months roll by people drop out one by one.
It seems that you want all of us to fail. Why?
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Absolutely not. But my bets would be on a large failure rate.
But that’s the thing. We’re trying to encourage each other instead of entertaining ways in which things might go wrong. And we haven’t even started yet. Have some faith. We got this! 
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Just need a bit of grounding. Ive worked in drug addiction clinics as a nurse and its important not to fool yourself that it will be easy. I guarantee a lot of folk will get real bad withdrawal symptoms.
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Positivity beats negativity every time. It might well be hard. It might be harder without positivity.
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Not always but i wish you well.
Edit. Reverse psychology for instance. Ive seen this used a lot in psychiatry with repeating addicts caught in a cycle. By giving them positive pats on the back they kept repeating. But a lot of men responded better to negative outlook saying go ahead drink yourself to death or ill see you again in the hospital in a month. There reaction was no you wont im going to prove you wrong you wanker((or words to that effect).
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came across this yesterday:
What is the one piece of advice you would give someone starting out building a studio?
It’s not about what kind of gear you have, but more about what you put into your art and what it gives back to you.
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No gear…. are you seriou…. 
that’s… 
ridicul….
Ok, just kidding.
Not a terrible idea really. For me though I typically stick to one or two in, one or two out. I commend anyone doing this to further learn the gear they own already.
By the very nature of my situation though, even if I tried to participate, I couldn’t due to the constant building of new gear.
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Don’t forget the time and energy to getting “everything” set up and in sync simultaneously, and wondering what’s wrong when surely everyone has their setups all ready! All those “battlestations” glamour shots surely indicate productivity… oh wait.
For me, table-space to connect and have accessible (but not criss-crossed with wiring at all times) not only looks better and more partner-friendly, but is less imposing and with less complexity to get things going.
Buying gear does not produce happiness. Unfortunately, not buying gear doesn’t produce happiness, either. Not buying gear isn’t going to suddenly make us start producing better music on our existing setups. This thread is taking on a self-congratulatory tone, imo, and the new year has not even begun. The real gratification we seek is artistic, it will take time, and it won’t be magically granted to us by simply making a pledge. In the meantime, there will be that empty feeling only consumerism can fill. And we are experts at rationalizing our next purchase. Fight the urge!
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