That’s all you need to know: you don’t need those whatsoever. You have everything you need and this won’t make you make better music. It probably wouldn’t even be more fun because it would be new things to learn and new limitations to realize you didn’t want in your life.
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Sometimes just hearing someone else say it makes so much more sense than the mental gymnastics of GAS. Wise words from you that I will take to heart.
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I am totally on board and so far no gear in 2024! I would like to do two years in a row without any new gear purchases and sell off a bunch of stuff that I am not using.
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One months is not much to celebrate but so far it’s been going well. It helps that there are no really exciting product launches yet. 
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We’re living in different dimensions, dude .
In my opinion this year has been one of the best/worst years in that sense, because there’s been so many interesting new gear launched. At first I was really tempted by a bunch of them, but I’m all good. Not budging.
The summer months are the worst for me. That’s when I have failed every year.
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For me it’s normally been during this time of the year when new products are announced. I feared some truly useful (not toy-like) portable groovebox but so far they’ve all disappointing:
- Seqtrak = super poor build quality, limited. I really don’t need more of that in my life.
- Polyend Tracker Mini = poor build quality, tracker workflow, no polyphony, poor sounding filter. Why even bother?
- KOII = another toy-like (but cool-looking) gadget with too many limitations. I know I’d stop using it after a short while and regret buying it.
- MPC Keys 37 = even bigger than the MPC Live 2, no built-in battery, no speaker. I don’t see the benefits unless you really want to play keys, but then I’d much rather just plug in a midi usb keyboard when doing that and unplug it when working on other things in the production.
I’m still thinking that the Syntakt is the most fun Elektron-based groovebox out there. I still hate plugging gear together which leaves out basically any non-groovebox hardware like a dedicated synth (why would I use it when I still would need to plug it in to other stuff to actually make music?).
I’m still exploring my Push 3 and just made a new song on it. It’s not as fun as the Syntakt, but the benefits of being able to pick up the project on the computer is hard to beat. The transition between groovebox and working ITB is entirely seamless.
The MPC Live 2 is currently collecting dust but I’m not done with it. I just rotate between the three devices I currently own and right now the MPC is on pause.
(I do still have a notification set for used Digitakts because I still think that’s the most fun sampler-based groovebox I’ve used. However, it has gone up quite significantly in price in the second hand market since I bought and quickly sold mine in January last year for just 350 EUR. In retrospect, that was clearly a mistake.)
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Didn’t want to mention any names as it’s previously been frowned upon in this thread as a GAS inducer, but yeah had some small GAS for the Yamaha for a moment but it passed quickly. I already have the PO-133 and love it to death. No need for any new MPC either. I have the Live 2 retro and I’ll never part with it.
The main culprit for my GAS has been the Redshift 6 as I have a bunch of samplers, a bunch of digi synths and such but at the moment I have zero analog gear in my setup and the Redshift is something that would very much fit my desktop and setup. Also it’s made by a Finnish company that a friend of mine works for, so it’s extra tempting.
In Finland the government tries to encourage people to buy locally produced products and their slogan is ”Suosi suomalaista” which translates roughly as ”buy the finnish product instead” is engraved into our brains and souls. I’m happy that the Redshift 6 is something that I like and it’s also a finnish product. So if I slip again in june/july, it’ll probably be this.
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I found out that there is no device, that is fun and full featured at the same time. It’s either something like MPC/Push, that does it all but feels more like a DAW+controller combo or something like Elektrons/specialised synths, which are fun to use but you need quite a few of them to cover all the bases. This can be a problem, because too much gear causes me option paralysis, just like having too much plugins in a DAW.
But I also found out, that I don’t need all the types of synthesis and sequencing to make music. So I’m currently quite happy with my desktop setup consisting of 3-4 devices, covering sampling, a few synthesis types (mono and poly), sequencing and fx. I’d gladly reduce it to 2-3 devices, but we’ll see what future brings. I’m also looking for something to use on the sofa/bed and take with me on vacation.
In in. I bought the Syntakt at the end of 2023 and it’s taking me on a wild ride. It’s become the first on the Elektron midi chain.
- Syntakt– amazing, immediate. It begs me to make different sounds.
- A4 mk2–Syntakt made me see this in a new way.
- AR mk2–The update made this new again.
- OG-1–It’s perfect just the way it is.
- Kawaii ES8–Play more, scroll less.
- TX-6–Game changer.
- Laptop+Software–I’m digging deeper into U-He synths.
I have a secondary setup of old gear in the attic I’m using as an experiment. I might degas (anti-gas?) some of it.
Does substituting a M8 for a M8 MKII count lol?
I am dreaming of a new update on MachineDrum and Monomachine.
I’m thinking that this is a space to get some encouragement to fight GAS so I’m trying to emphasize on how I’m not feeling any of it at the moment and actually believing this time that I have everything I need to make music.
I don’t have any need for analog gear personally, even though technically the Syntakt has some of that, but it’s not why I bought it. It really helps that I hate plugging gear together because that pretty much eliminates GAS for anything but proper grooveboxes. 
OK, that one is tough because 1) it’s really pretty and sounds amazing, and 2) it’s Finnish and you feel a certain connection to it and your friend is working for the company. If he’s a real friend, he’ll make sure you get a really hefty discount. 
By the way, if your friend happens to know who composed the soundtrack for the promotional video, I’d love to check the artist out. And I do think there are exceptions to be made if you’re feeling like you’re doing your country a service.
But back to NGNY: who cares about analog vs digital these days? It all sounds the same. And how fun is it to work with a synth that you can’t even really program directly, let alone play with expression, since it lacks a proper keyboard? I had a Minilogue XD module and this meant I could only play it with a midi keyboard or with the MPC. It just didn’t feel very fun and it was a lot of mess to get midi working properly. Not for me.
Do you really need this or couldn’t you replicate all that sound with just about any soft synth? I find that especially poly synths just seem easier to program in the daw, but maybe you are more into the dawless thing.
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Getting the Linnstrument a few years back changed everything for me.
Now I only want modules. Preferably ones that can be mounted in my rack. I have no interest in traditional keyboards or keyboard synths. I also have all the synths I could ever need on my MPC or on my computer as plugins, but using plugins is no fun.
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Is there more than 1:50 of video on this thing? I don’t understand how anyone can draw many conclusions from that little snippet.
As a wind synth player, it’s desktop only modules for me and I got rid of anything with an attached keyboard.
At most stuff with pads on it.
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The only logical NGNY conclusions should be:
- That’s one hell of a composer.
- The sound could be replicated with just about any modern or old poly (soft)synth, be it TubeSynth, Drift, Analog, Thor or [insert your favorite soft synth here].
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Except desktop synths are too expensive for me, so substitute some iOS synth. (Okay, I bought one desktop synth, just because I am often somewhere with just my laptop, but in fact I never use it. Noodling while travelling just does not seem to happen.)
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Made it through NAMM and pretty much January at this point. This was probably the least GAS inducing NAMM in a long time. SEQTRAK appealed to me for a sec, but I wasn’t gonna go out like that. And, as ever and so easy to forget, it only takes a couple of weeks after something is out in the wild for the weaknesses and limitations from real users start to become very apparent. 1 down, 11 to go. And my other worries, i.e. M8, Stylophone…I don’t need them. Safe for now.
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Was pointless me trying this. I like trying new stuff too much 
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Same here.
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