Last night’s and today’s obsession: SOMA Cosmos.
Several videos later and GAS cured. Nice gear, but I don’t need it.
I also had a nice realization today that I enjoy not needing to find one more outlet for something. I spent a decent amount of time rearranging more times than I’d like to admit to accommodate something new.
I don’t regret my choices, but I’m happy not to go through that now.
Anyone ever sit there and look at your setup and think…WTF am I doing?
example: I’ve got OT, MPC, PT, ER-301, Morphagene…all do kinda the same thing. But I do pretty much the same thing with all of them. And I ask myself…why do I have so many things that do the same thing. I just move from one piece to the other doing the saaaame thing.
I’d like to get rid of more than I have, but find it tuff to reduce further. I’m almost CERTAIN if I was to cut some of those out, id be more productive. MPC is pretty solid as is does so much. But so does Logic. The gear causes me some grief. 
Even Morphagene?
I sold Blooper before buying Morphagene, not that they did the same thing but that Morphagene worked in the way that I used Blooper, plus more.
Have you tried putting some things away to see if you’ll miss it?
I got rid of BlackBox that way. I really didn’t want to let it go, but once I realized I didn’t miss it and only felt guilty for having it, it wasn’t hard to move on.
Right now the only thing that causes me some grief is I haven’t made up my mind on TR-6S. It’s becoming redundant for my uses. I’ll give it some time before moving it to the sell pile, but I’m sure that’s what will happen.
I ditched a LOT. And am a strong advocate of getting rid of stuff that’s not being used. It’s, at least for me, very liberating. So, am well versed in reduction and positive reactions.
Currently almost all my gear is boxed. I’m just using Logic for the most part. I wanted to halt fiddling with sound till I get a job. But that was almost impossible. So I allow myself access to Logic.
But I still think about all this shit I have…and can’t help but ask…why do I have it. Let go man! I mean honestly, Logic can do all I do with the gear I have. Granted, not as fun to do it with Logic.
To be clear, music is not my career, or something I perform. I’m a hobbiest.
I believe I’m past GAS, which got me here. I now need to go bare bones, so I can be productive. That’s my gut feeling.
this is just a rant.
This resonates with me a lot. At first, when I only had a few things, I was learning and making some music. GAS kicked in big style and it became more about the setup, and routing, and then worse about the imagined prestige of owning certain bits of kit, and how it looked on the desk. I eventually bought so much gear that I didn’t know where to begin with it all, and so just ignored it completely while the interest rose on the debt I’d piled up. Last year I saw this had tipped over into an irrational obsession that was contributing to mental health issues (which I’m still working through).
Now, I still have some gear, but I sold enough to mostly clear the debts. I sat with just a laptop, and finished a track. Now I’m sitting just with a MPC Live 2, and have almost finished a track. If I’m going to make any music in my life I have to stay as far from GAS as possible. It might be that the rest of the gear I imagined I needed gets sold this year, we’ll see.
Yeah I’m kind of like that too. At one point I had so 4 samplers DT, MPC One, MPC200xl and OT LOL. Also wanted the Polyend Tracker or M8 because I love trackers haha.
But yeah got rid of the OT mk1 as i would be investing too much time to learn it when I haven’t even learnt my other gear fully. Plus I’ve been using Renoise the most recently. GAS…thats what it all is at the end of the day.
Wow, you got in debt for GAS. Hopefully you’re in a better place now financially 
Yeah I’ve pretty much put away all my gear (mostly due to my deskspace is also my working from home/office space) and just concentrating of finishing tracks in Renoise/Reaper. Once in a while I will pull out the MPC One and sketch somethings out as I find it more suitable for hip hop or house music styles. Renoise for the DNB jungle breakage goodness!
Eventually i would like to do a 4 track EP using mostly the gear I have, or maybe create a short live set and post it up on youtube etc. Just work, life, and investment in the time to learn can be a bit too much. Have to take things 1 step at a time
Definitely, I have to do this in all the areas of my life otherwise I quickly get overwhelmed by anxiety, self-doubt, irresponsible behaviour and resentment. Getting in a bunch of debt when I’ve got a family to support is a perfect example of this!Luckily managed to solve 90% of the debt with selling and getting a more stressful but better paid job thanks.
I might still sell the rest of the kit I’m not using though, my brain works well with hard limitations. If I only have an MPC to work on then I’m more likely to learn it better instead of getting distracted by other kit. We’ll see, for the moment getting on OK.
I try to finish knowing what the next task is when I pick it up again which keeps me motivated. I’ve 2 kids as well so music time is pretty much snatched from the rest of my life, sometimes I can find an hour or two, sometimes only 15 minutes.
So far so good here! I started this on January 14th, so it’s been six weeks with no purchases for me.
I will say that putting some things up for sale has been a bit tough because, even though I said no trades, people still write with trade offers. Also, posting things on FB groups, buy/sell sections of forums, and Reverb means I end up looking at other FS ads, even if just in passing. Just a heads up to folks considering making some sales that there are some potential pitfalls there!
Yeah, selling some things is how I ended up breaking.
Another pitfall for me is the ‘empty space’ fallacy. Just because there is an empty space in the rack or on the desk doesn’t mean something has to go there.
For me it’s more about the empty space in my soul, but same idea 
Seriously, an empty space in a Eurorack setup is really tough for anyone with even mild OCD tendencies. Blank panels really help, especially if they have a nice design. Maybe this is why ambient producers fill their desktops with cactuses - to avoid the temptation to put synths there.
Avoid pastry covered food.
After two month, I´m out!
I bought a micromonsta 2 for a pretty good price. As I was looking for a small and good sounding synth, I could not resist…
I’m still holding strong on the purchase front and have just sold my iPad to boot, 600 back in the bank which very much works for me, all I have now is a desktop, laptop and a push 2, akai APC mini mk2 and a pioneer ddj rev1… totally happy with where I am right now…
I sold off a Roland SP404mk2 and a Roland J-6, both GAS purchases last year. I don’t recommend those devices. Don’t buy them. I’m confident you all have what you need to make music without them.
I’ve learned to not buy Roland gear because their workflow and build quality are just not what I am after. Even if they sound decent. I’ve also learned it is a pain selling unwanted gear and that is a real penalty for giving into GAS!
I’m still in, but I must admit I’ve been quite tempted by a guitar of all things. I used to play a lot and sold off that part of my music-making life about 15 years ago. I’m contenting myself with adding some live bass to my current track instead.
I took January off music-making, and made three tracks in February. Two were even decent!
So DT 1.50 increases the temptation? Ignore it!
That J-6 was a serious GAS for me at so many times. Having the TR-6S is a reminder about workflow so that helped me not buy it. I had the same opinion on the SP404 mk2 and sold it not long after trading for it.
Maybe it would have been okay, but the workflow required time that I didn’t want to invest and I was worried that once I succumbed to the SP404 way, I’d have difficult switching back to other gear.
Anyway, best of luck struggling with a guitar purchase, or bass purchase. Just know it quickly becomes another GASser with the need for pedals and amps.
It’s all never ending,.
Just finished my taxes and definitely won’t have funds for gear this year so I’m confident in passing the challenge this time around. I’m finding that just one piece of gear explored deeply is powerful antidote to G.A.S. Like the Rytm MK2 and Virus TI2 combo do what I need for most stuff or if I get to play out live can grab my Digitone and play a nice techno set just with that single box.
I’m not planning to buy anymore Roland gear either because compared to Elektron workflow, it’s challenging to deal with and Roland documentation has to be the worst ever written.
Saw that there was pre orders available for the M8 Tracker, but im staying strong!