Single vs multiple bits of gear

[Clarke_111]

Just out of interest. Do people here prefer to use a single standalone piece of gear - either you only have 1 item; or own multiple items and only use one at a time, maybe for a period and then rotate. Or use multiple pieces simultaneously linked and synced together?

I have always tended towards the latter using all the bits I own all the time and spend as much time rearranging cables, routings etc as I do jamming. Also end up buying and selling a lot to keep things interesting.

I struggle with the concept of owning electronic instruments and not using them all! (Ironically I don’t have this issue with guitars, presumably as I can ONLY use one at a time!)

My set up currently consists of MPC one +, SP404mk2, OP1 field and boss RC505mk2.

I hook everything up to the looper and just jam away, but as I said I end up chopping and changing this all the time, and I think in my head I feel like I might be better served using things individually and swapping them around after a period to give myself the ‘fresh’ new toy feeling, but without need to spend cash (or learn something new).

I know all my stuff is perfectly capable on its own, but everytime I sit down with one box I just add more and more until it’s all on the table again. I’m then not getting maximum out of any box.

Just curious what others do and how you manage this, esp if you own a number of things but only use them individually.

[Omar]

I’m also struggling with the fact that I own too many pieces. I constantly try to reduce my setup. My rule of thumb is to use as few pieces as possible!

Another rule I set for myself is to always focus on one piece at a time during a performance, and shift from one to the other progressively. It doesn’t mean the ‘unfocused’ pieces need to be silent, just that I only fiddle with one at a time.

[MuttBeats]

My view: less is more. Over the years the amount of hardware I use has shrunk consistently.

It’s the same reason why I eventually turned off doing everything in the box in a DAW There were always too many options and I spent too much time tweaking and not enough time getting ideas down.

EZBot has a good video on this topic on YT.

Short version is having a smaller amount of highly capable and versatile gear that you know inside out can (often - not always - YMMV) turn out to be more productive than trying to work with lots of gear.

The secret then is finding the right gear that gels with you and becomes the centrepiece of a smaller but still massively capable setup.

For me it turns out it’s the Syntakt + Digitakt combo with a bit of Digitone and Hydrasynth on top.

Four boxes only… but that’s 25 tracks of instruments playing simultaneously with infinite ways of morphing and changing every sound (including 3 different reverb and delay sends across the 3 Elektron boxes plus the effects in the Hydrasynth).

And in reality most of the time it’s just two boxes (Syntakt + Digitakt) doing >90% of the work.

OK so not a single instrument but I think of Syntakt + Digitakt as a combined unit (kinda like an Analog Rytm Mk3 split between two boxes) so they may as well be a single box for me.

[B_LD]

I’m the opposite. Just using a single instrument makes me happy. Two is okay, but only if they have dedicated functions. Oftentimes more than one gives me headaches and distracts from making music. Finding ways to keep each and everything in sync disrupts my creativity.

[Clarke_111]

@B_LD

Oftentimes more than one gives me headaches and distracts from making music. Finding ways to keep each and everything in sync disrupts my creativity.

I think this is the issue I am finding. Potentially focusing on one piece at a time will help me over come that.

@MuttBeats

EZBot has a good video on this topic on YT.

Short version is having a smaller amount of highly capable and versatile gear that you know inside out can (often - not always - YMMV) turn out to be more productive than trying to work with lots of gear.

Yep, that makes a lot of sense to me, I’ll try to find that video. Thanks for the heads up. [quote=“Omar, post:2, topic:209828”]
Another rule I set for myself is to always focus on one piece at a time during a performance, and shift from one to the other progressively.
[/quote]

Yeah-I think that is a good shout, though I have always slightly struggled to do that myself-need to be stricter!!

@MuttBeats

The secret then is finding the right gear that gels with you and becomes the centrepiece of a smaller but still massively capable setup.

This may well be the secret, and possibly I haven’t quite found that thing yet, hence I keep looking. I feel I am close with a few times but not quite there

[Landings]

@Clarke_111

I struggle with the concept of owning electronic instruments and not using them all! (Ironically I don’t have this issue with guitars, presumably as I can ONLY use one at a time!)

This is me as well. I think it was the way i was bought up. I was made to look after things as money was tight. And that i shouldn’t buy things on a whim but to give deep thought to it first. So if I purchase something and it doesn’t get used a lot i am being selfish or something. I’ve struggled with this all my life. Its a form of perfectionism.

[bibenu]

@B_LD

Oftentimes more than one gives me headaches and distracts from making music

[bibenu]

@MuttBeats

EZBot has a good video on this topic on YT.

@Clarke_111

I’ll try to find that video.

Please share here if you do.

[Karateisland]

Wow, sorry, this reply got long!

I try to focus on one piece of gear at a time (at least for live performance). Right now, it’s the Digitone, but sometimes it’s the Nord Drum 3p. Sometimes I cheat and use both.

Deciding that these are my two tools for live performance has removed a lot of cognitive overhead. I don’t need to think about MIDI setup, audio routing, or gain staging anymore. Those are solved problems. Knowing how my gear works helps save my energy for the task at hand. (A photographer I admire once said he lost a year of creativity every time he bought a new camera because it took him that long to get the feel of the thing and for operation to become instinctual.)

Outside the live context, I am working to see the limitations as a jumping-off point rather than a problem. As modern consumers, I believe we’re conditioned to find a “problem” and then solve it by researching and then buying more stuff. For hobbyists like us, that often means reading and watching a ton of reviews and then buying more gear. This eats a lot of time.

I’m happier when I focus my energy on making music.

That’s not to say I no longer run into problems I can’t solve without gear. But if I feel like I’ve run into a problem, I ask myself, “Can I get creative and do this with something I already have?” Often, the answer is yes. If the answer feels like no, I add that gear to a spreadsheet and make myself wait 30 days before buying it. Usually the desire to buy the thing is gone by the time the 30 days elapse.

As a last note, I read a wonderful interview with Autechre not too long ago, where Sean explains that he generates musical ideas by exploring the parameter space of his gear, rather than dreaming up ideas and trying to make them a reality with the gear at hand. Put another way, he explores the full range of possibilities offered by the gear he has. I think he once referred to it as investing in himself and his expertise rather than investing in gear.

That really stuck with me.

FWIW, I also think that this is the best way to learn, truly, what gear works best for you. Spend time with it, get to grips with the gear and yourself, and move on only if it’s necessary.

[Octagonist]

I’m in the “less is more” camp, but I keep hold of a nice collection of gear that’s too much to use all together. I make small set-ups with groups of them.

Each set up has:

• one or two sound generators
• one or two sequencers (sometimes part of an Elektron)
• maybe a keyboard
• 1 up to a few effects processors
• some way of mixing (if I can do that in an Elektron box, that’s ideal)

[Tchu]

Studio work : everything is hooked up and synced.

Live Performance : 3 or 4 Machines.

[Sternenlicht]

I saw a video of a guy operating a wall of modular synth, he said to make it work he just needs a sequencer to make it workable for him, exchanging modules is no problem, exchanging sequencers is difficult.
It pushed me over the Edge to buy a hapax. With that its really easy now to operate multiple synth at the same time. (I still limit it to 4/5)

[Roger]

I was most productive when I had a core setup and “featured” 1 or 2 other devices on each track. It was M:C + MD and I’d add DN, Nord Lead 3, Nord Drum 3P, 0-Coast etc. Have since sold off most of it…

Right now it’s just AR and seeing what I can do with that and a computer. So far I’m not optimistic so plans of turning my “excess” gear into cash are on hold.

A power duo like DT+DN is probably all you need but it depends how you like to work. Definitely recommend having a stable core. Get yourself a nice means of storage and don’t keep all your gear out, unless you want to spend all your time messing with routing and troubleshooting.

[lowph]

For me it depends on the gear in question. For example, with Elektrons I don’t like to juggle more than 2 at a time because there’s so much going on in each one. I definitely max out at 3 Elektrons, and it’s rare to do that. Sometimes a session with a single Elektron instrument is the most rewarding.

I do really like using the Octatrack with other gear though. It’s perfect for grabbing loops and little bits of audio from whatever is feeding into it. It’s great on its own too, but whenever I start playing with a synth/sampler/drum machine, I immediately want to print some audio into the OT for further manipulation.

With simpler, monotimbral instruments, I don’t mind having several synced up and controlled by a main sequencer (usually an Elektron). I don’t have the hard maximum of 3, as I do with Elektrons.

But sometimes it’s really satisfying to just sit with a guitar and nothing else. Just writing music, planting seeds to develop later.

[thejewk]

My aim has been to make a fully integrated and permanently set up system for music making, and I’ve tried to add in bits over time that adds to the possibilities of the whole setup. I couldn’t say if I’ve been successful yet, ask me in a year when I’ve got more comfortable with it. I certainly don’t plan on adding anything extra at the moment, because I feel like I’ve got all the bases covered, and the gear is deep enough that I can pretty much do anything I want with it.

The setup is:
Digitakt as main sequencer and drum machine, Quadrantid Swarm as a tweakable mono synth, PreenFM2 for polyphony, multitimbral layering and FM madness, and an Analog Keys as a controller and four monos with deep sound design. This is all hooked in to Ableton over Overbridge, with the other instruments hooked into the inputs of the Elektron gear.

With this size of setup, I don’t expect to use everything to its full potential in every jam or track, and that’s no problem for me at all. I’m perfectly content to just work with a Digitakt sometimes, but I like how I can think in the moment, ‘I’d quite like to do this’ and have something ready to go that can do what I want.

The only real weak link is the Tracks, but I’ll live with it for a while.

[chiasticon]

I had a massive setup and got to a point where the option paralysis and chasing setup demons was killing me. I’m working on scaling it down, but I’m not sure if that will be 3 machines or 30. it definitely won’t be just one.

that said, lately I’ve been enjoying starting with the OT and seeing where that takes me. once I feel like I’ve hit the wall with what I’m working on, and I’ve got a good foundation going, I incorporate other items. sometimes that changes what I’ve already written and inspires new stuff, something it means I go in circles for an hour and wind up back with OT only.

anyway… there’s no wrong answer. whatever’s working for you is best. and that could change in a month or a year, or never. but really, there’s also nothing wrong with letting gear you’re not using sit there, only to be used some other time. it’s when something’s gone unused for long periods of time and you’re not sure you’ll ever use it again that you need to reconsider whether or not you should keep it. and forcing yourself to incorporate everything you own in every track is not without its own issues. first of which is it may not serve the track best. how many times has a guitarist written a track that doesn’t utilize all their pedals (or pickups, or strings, etc…) or a drummer written a track that doesn’t use every drum and cymbal on their kit…? just because you have it and use it sometimes/regularly doesn’t mean you always have to use it.

[darenager]

Short answer - I have a lot of stuff, but never use it all at once, often I will use one or 2 pieces.

Long answer later.

[whim]

@Clarke_111

Do people here prefer to use a single standalone piece of gear - either you only have 1 item; or own multiple items and only use one at a time, maybe for a period and then rotate. Or use multiple pieces simultaneously linked and synced together?

If I understand the question correctly, not quite either… I usually concentrate on one thing at once, and over time gradually add various of those elements together in a master project in a DAW or sampler.

So it’s using multiple instruments, but not all simultaneously/synced.

[Kegeratorz]

Started with SP-404SX and DN years ago. Tried different kit here and there but ultimately that’s my preference. Only now I have the 404MKII. When not if I had some more it’ll probably be separate from the pack!

[4517]

I am very much in the more is more camp myself.

I tend to use several (4+) instruments at once, often layering sounds in real-time instead of recording individual takes as it’s much faster to do and keeps me engaged in the process. Easy multi-tracking is a godsend for me.
This workflow is also accompanied with the fact that I use instruments for one or two things that they do well instead of trying to get everything out of one box.