No New Gear Year 2023 AKA NGNY 2023

I loved FL til 2005 or so and made the transition to Live. They were super different (at time) but nowadays all the daws are super close each other. I have dabbled bit with Logic but have not find anything for me anymore that would be better than Live. As for FL, it was so long unavailable to Mac I have never got back to it. I remember loving its piano roll and the arrangment window for reasons that I can not even remember any more. Horser for courses def.

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Oh and for the NGNY, can join! no hard promises but last year I bought like one shitty pedal from 90s so count me in, odds are on me!

Count me in! I have more than enough gear for multiple music careers, need to stop lusting after new shiny shit and start working. Ready to make 2023 my most creative yet.

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True and lots of folks love Ableton and it’s ok with the Push controller but after switching to Logic, I’m much happier. The mixing feature are easier for me to use on Logic and with iPad remote app it frees space to have arranger on my main screen.

I use Logic too but mainly for recording and mixing.
What do you love about Logic so much? What makes it special to you?

I’d like to broaden my use of daw but every time I open it I kinda shy away from all of the new and advanced features.

Maybe something ADHD related dunno. I just find it incredibly difficult to dive in properly.

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I’ve been using Logic for a few years, and tbh the sheer amount of features and options has always been a bit overwhelming.

I regularly have to search for “how do I do this again?”… It has accrued features over decades, and has a lot to learn (or what you want to do might get buried amongst so many other stuff). I ended up using it mostly as a tape recorder and mixer.

Been playing with Ableton the last week or so, and it has been a breath of fresh air. Feels like less features, but overall they fit together better, or at least it feels possible to learn most things, and the configuration feels less overwhelming.

I think the Pro in Logic Pro is there for a reason. If you are a Pro that uses it everyday, and especially in a recording studio or soundtrack etc. setup, it is an incredible tool (especially at that price!). If it blends with you, it has an incredible library of synths and fx, so could be a creator’s dream setup. But for a weekend warrior like me, Ableton seems more approachable, especially for creating music (trying out stuff in clips, etc.) Logic has added a lot of the things that make (made) Ableton unique, but it adds even more on top of an already huge set of features.

Part of it is ‘horses for courses’, and I’ll see I how I progress with Ableton. I always thought the UI is ugly, but after using it, I think it was actually thought out very well.

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For years I tried to click with Reaper. It was cheap, it got frequent updates and our band used it to record our album. Never managed to get to really love it. It felt uninspiring and boring, like filling spread sheets.

Then I kind of shamefully tried Garageband for a while and loved it. Then I read somewhere that Logic is like Garageband for grown ups. It even opens Garageband projects.

Ended up getting it as the last purchase of 2022 to last me for the following year. So, I’ve only had it for a week or so, but it was love at first sight. Everything seems - well - logical for me in this DAW. It just instantly clicks with me. Maybe it is partly because it’s Apple native and I feel at home with Apple computers. It feels like I’ve finally come home, hard to explain.

It really doesn’t detract from my enthusiasm that Apple has given free updates for years now and the ability to use my iPhone or my iPad as a remote frees up screen space. It’s just amazingly well thought out and I enjoy the included plugins too.

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That makes sense. I might make this a Logic deep dive month. It’s about time for me to start really learning this thing. Every time I see ppl saying how great it is I feel a sting in my heart hehehe. I’ll actually start right now gosh darn it!! :rofl:

Thanks for the inspiration buddy!! :slight_smile:

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@Strutter as well
In 2020 I decided I was finally going to learn Logic well and got the Apple Pro Training series certification book. It’s basically just a series of project exercises where it teaches you all the basic functions. It doesn’t go as deep as you might expect, but I found it great as a way to get familiar with a lot of stuff I probably never would have touched. It’s not a cheap book, but recommended if you are looking to learn it pretty well. Once you get through all those exercises, I found that YouTube tutorials were good for filling in missing gaps.

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We have veered way off topic now, but MusicTechHelpGuy is probably the definitive YouTube channel for Logic if you want to learn it that way.

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Sign me up! I want to release some music this year and I have more than enough gear to make that happen.

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Although I try not to buy anything, I will look into this, thanks for the recommendation!

That’s a great channel! I’ve been watching his videos in the past and I think it’s time to return to that channel for another round. :slight_smile:

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Welcome to the forum! Get signed up here too: Your Commitment to Releasing Something in 2023

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Stop it Please :smiley:

You are making me try to get back to Logic. It wouldn’t even cost me anything, but time :wink:

I will stay strong and keep using Ableton for the same reasons mentioned above, logic for me seems to be so extremely packed that it’s really overwhelming and I feel that Ableton is better suited for working completely ITB. I also really like the streamlined look of everything and the “one-window-approach” as it makes it much more easy to navigate for me. I found it especially irritating when opening different instances of the same plug-in or synth in Logic. With the internal stuff in Ableton this problem is simply not existant.

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Interestingly, I just signed up for the Ableton trial after being a Reaper user since 2006 (and a paid user since 2020). I’ll probably still use Reaper if I just want to make a quick recording since I have a pretty lean template set up and ready to go, but I figured I might as well at least learn how to use Ableton (especially if I end up teaching something like music production or sound design at uni), and at most shell out for Suite because I want to get into max4live stuff.

So that’ll probably be me failing NGNY23 :sweat_smile: but I think I’ll be getting rid of some gear this year.. every time I go into the studio to jam I get option paralysis.

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My Achilles would be if an sp2400 came up at a good price. What’s yours? Maybe we can cast a spell….

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Only thing that would break my pledge would be if someone sold the whole Electrix rack fx set of four for a reasonable price. I used to have them all. One of the only things I regret ever selling.

But even then, I’m sure my unbendable backbone would win.

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traded all my modular bits (bar my PNW and rainmaker) for some cash, a monomachine and a MD last year, best decision I ever made. Between these 2 and ableton I don’t think I’ll ever have GAS again tbh. Theres something about having solid knowledge of an elektron box plus ur daw of choice will surpass the usage of any hardware setup out there.
Honestly tho if ur struggling with spending addictions I genuinely I feel for u this shit can rip ur mental health to shreds if u spend irresponsibly or on things u dont really need even if u can afford them. it will hinder ur musical process aswell as ur well…
h a v i n g
t o
l e a r n
a
w h o l e
n e w
i n s t r u m e n t.
Even if its just a regular synth its still gonna take a few months before u smooth out ur fav bits and really fall in love with the instrument
Let financial stability and hard work and focus be ur GAS for the new year.

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I watched a Ken “Hiwatt” Marshal video some time ago and if I remember correctly he had that set in his setup. Very playable FX.

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Welcome!

This is so true. I got my A4 and OT at the end of 2018 and I am still learning new things with just those two all the time. And after two years of using (mostly) the same setup, I’ve no where near mastered these things. It’s embarrassing thinking back about some of the other gear I’ve acquired in the meantime and how little I know them yet. I suppose my goal as some others here is also a year of depth. :crossed_fingers:

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