No New Gear Year 2023 AKA NGNY 2023

Dang it. There’s a Roland SH-01a on sell for roughly $300 at the music store…
It’s the gray one but, I’ve been on the lookout for one for 2 years now!

Luckily I’m broke so no new gear for me! T _ T

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I have seen cheap gear previously and just lie to myself and say “well if there’s one for this price now, no doubt there will be another one for this price in the future” :confused:

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Our furnace went out at our house and we ended up needing a new one. Luckily I had some money in savings to pay for it, but it’s definitely put into perspective my relationship to buying gear and perceived “value.” $4k for a new high efficiency furnace that heats my whole house seems like a great deal when in the past I’ve lusted over (and occasionally bought) single synthesizers that are in the same ballpark. Bonkers.

Anyway, I might need to sell some things to offset the cost of the furnace, which I was not planning on doing since it often triggers gas for me. I think I’m in the safe zone with this one since it’s due to an actual life expense rather than obsessive gear shuffling/optimization.

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Brought OT on business trip to keep me out of trouble. Im going to create a scenes template finally I can apply to all projects. That’s been on my list for ages.

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I think I’ll buy my first piece of gear for the year…hear me out. I just need something. I wasn’t planning on buying anything except a few things. Well, I was at this place last week where the youth fight to find valuable t-shirts and after the frenzy died down this kid I know said “I can’t believe everyone missed this” holding some crappy t-shirt of yesteryear just as I grabbed this Pierre Cardin dress from the 60s that none of the youth could be bothered with. Anyways, I put the thing up on the net yesterday and in a few hours I sold it for… synthesizer money. Not like Pro 2 money but close Moog Grandmother money…so…

Just wait for 2024 ^^
And treat yourself with an exciting wait.

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I know… but, to further rationalize my purchases won’t be anything exciting, some cans, a compressor… more like shopping for socks but I happen to like nice socks.

I agree, if you don’t NEED it, wait a bit, say a week, couple of week or even a month or so and then see if you still want it

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You just defined GAS

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agree that is what I try to do like with my Rytm MK2 took long time for it to go on sale but did. So far 2 months into the no gear challenge and nothing purchased and will make it this year!

It’s a spectrum really, we all know what is healthy and necessary and what is spur of the moment and engages with bad habits.

Headphones are a utility purchase, a compressor can be functional and fit in without blowing away a year’s worth of budgeting, it’s probably not ideal to post about what you’re purchasing in a thread about what people are not purchasing, but engaging with wants and needs in healthy and achievable ways to connect with our gear beyond reductive saint and sinner 12 step lite-ing and speeches about “failure” and “dropping out”.

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Then just do it and say you’re out. Don’t try to come up with some justification looking for support.

I’m selling this so I can buy that, what do you think…:-1:t6:

That seems worse than just making the purchase. Admitting you couldn’t make it. Then trying again.

Again, I don’t suggest not buying stuff to just not buy stuff. But if you feel like it’s a problem, then do something about it.

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I am guilty. I agree,

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Yup, I see the point of participating in trying to focus on mindfulness over acquisition.

Avoiding compulsive, thoughtless buying, and agreed on justifications. Even looking for justifications to not buy a thing! Stepping away from peer influence.

Exception might be more productive questions about how to use your kit in different ways or get used to a particular workflow and unblock.

No need for shame, no need for apologies, do or do not, but we all know how things don’t work from within. I’d rather hear strategies that work better, even individual to each of us those are the tougher to power through!

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Tough love.

Sounds like you had a windfall, cool.

I suppose it comes down to why you were in NGNY to begin with. If you were already spending and/or buying too much and you wanted to put the brakes on, might be a bad idea.

But on the other hand if the wallet is fine and the headspace is fine, then go for it, but would suggest something memorable rather than utilitarian.

I mean, it’s a cool story, I found a vintage designer dress and made a sweet profit and bought my dream X. Stories sustain us, you’ll get some mileage out of that one. There’s always NGNextY.

Edit: I mean, getting the windfall, kicking NGNY’s butt, and then getting a synth is a cool story too.

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I think there is literally every other thread on the internet other than the “you likely don’t need the thing” thread for “I bought a thing”, of course :slight_smile:

Of course, but everyone’s reasons for NGNY are different I guess. I read it as a talk me out of it post (although I don’t think it actually was).

I was just suggesting there’s possibly an individual value proposition to weigh up between completing NGNY (different personal value for everyone) and potentially forming a lifelong memory/association with the purchase of a piece of gear.

That second part might be just my particular view of the world, but to me there’s an intergenerational arc of human story connecting a fancy old dress that probably got thrifted when someone’s grandmother passed, and some lucky chancer with an eye for threads using the proceeds to buy a Moog Grandmother.

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O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Synthi”

People need to be accountable to themselves, not a thread, though.

I guess my rationale is this-

This thread is “No New Gear”, less “why shouldn’t I get this new gear?”

There is that kneejerk consumerism in every other thread on the internets, why shouldn’t this be about how to unblock yourself and get the most use out of all the other stuff you have instead of people trying to post-hoc justify the decisions they’ve already set their minds to.

I say this not out of a lack of empathy so much as understanding.

For me it is pretty simple here. You take a pledge, and you post here for support when you are tempted to break the pledge. So for me, I try to point out the drawbacks of purchases in this thread.

As @phaelam said, if someone buys that piece of gear, then they broke their pledge. That’s really it. No need to hate or shame. But for accountability to mean anything at all, we shouldn’t pretend that they didn’t.

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