Just hope you have pleasure making music, even when if you think it’s shitty. 
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If you hold shift and press src three times Dave Gahan actually appears in your home. He tends to be disappointed if you dont have any preamps for his microphone.
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Hell no. I may have gone overboard, acquiring a Digitone so soon… anyway, using / playing this gear (various desktop modules) is a dream come true. It’s like driving a corvette after taking the bus for twenty years.
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Preoccupation with “getting stuff done” I hear is a common theme. People want to nail down ends to justify the means.
Overall, I think the more experience over time you can look back over the peaks and valleys and oscillations, even with unanimate objects I suppose like any relationship, it’s push/pull.
I have had my time with a real minimal ghetto setup and up to present- a diverse enough setup of both old/cheap and new/boutique…still have the first drum machine I got in 95…i keep an SK1 around and even a half-dissassembled JX8P. I only sold ONE thing in 20 years, an AX73 because of finances- and it was kind of large, too.
From an artist point of view: I think I now understand why most of my influences end up with lots of gear or get into modular, maybe some of it is fetishism- but if they are established pros, it’s having a wide pallette to work with and various schemes to inspire paths of creation.
While it’s true, limitations also breed improvisation, I think it’s always down to mindset and attitude towards work itself. If the actual nuts-and-bolts of say, pulling out a sound from something, trimming, filter, eq, envelope, save…and on to the next one…OK, got a folder half done, that is my studio work for today.
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How is it possible ? I can’t.
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I did an experiment last nite at the local jam and limited myself to using JUST my simple Make Noise 0-coast to see what I could create on that alone. Was a fun experiment and helped me simplify the process. Sometimes just take a break and do something else? I spent time listening to lots of Tangerine Dream yesterday which was fun. They use TONS of gear including live instruments.
But it helped me realize that with just the 0-coast and Korg Volca Beats I can do most of a live set and not sound like crap. Heck just the Analog 4 allowed me to pull off a fun live set with drum samples and pads on that one box.
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Oh brother. Face your fear, try to disappoint yourself on purpose, then work yourself through it. And be patient with yourself, these things take time. Also consider that the real problem is often elsewhere, not right in front of you, what you are looking at.
I wish you all the best.
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I’m sure we’ve all been like you at some point. I know I have. It’s not nice to see such a negative view coming out.
Sounds like you may be overthinking things and putting pressure on yourself. For me that is no good state to be when being creative.
My 2 pence whatever it’s worth is don’t sell anything yet and take a long break. Days, weeks, months whatever and wait to be inspired to the point where your no longer can resist getting back to your set-up and doing something.
Once You get going again you should be in a more positive Frame of mind and then you can reevaluate your situation.
to the OP, if you have a rackmount sampler you are getting rid of, let me know. ASR10, S900 etc
to answer the question though - no ill never ditch my gear unless i just stop making music. any piece that isn’t in rotation gets sold, w/out any emotion. its just a piece of gear. unless i think the piece has potential to appreciate in value dramatically in a few years. try and surf billboard and rolling stone to see what the top dawgs say is “life-changing” gear. if you have a piece like that hold on tight and sell high.
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If I could make one recommendation , it would be to find a collaborator. Someone with either the same skill/experience level or more than you. Someone who can give you a different perspective in realtime, while track-making. You’ll each influence the other in ways you can’t imagine, and that will only make you grow and get closer to your goal.
You don’t have to meet that goal together, but they would probably help you get there on your own some day.
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Work smarter man, anyone and I mean anyone can significantly improve their output in as little as a month with the right mindset. It really depends if you prefer making noise to making music, nothing wrong with either option but you can only meet goals if you have goals
one of the most obvious functions musical experiences play is the massage of various chakras or energy centers, coming from different angles.
forgetting about the idea of compositions and returning to the bass drum as a source of primal energy massage … something toned … deep or perhaps midrange it doesn’t really matter. just something that feels good. maybe it requires repitching an existing bassdrum, or searching the sample folders for something that immediately says “yay”.
then go from there and find something to match that good feeling on a simple offbeat four times a bar or once every few bars. Perhaps sometwhere around 119bpm, 102bpm, or 94bpm … there, audio massage is now achieved. anything else is a bonus, or extra, or unnecessary.
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Heaps more to life than music mate.
No big deal in the scheme of things
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my ratio is ten percent. ten percent of the musical output i make sounds enjoyable to me.
the rest does not, and in fact some of it sound repellent to my sense of aesthetics.
the goal is to find the gold and present it in a moderately accessible fashion - i guess!
the thing is, that ten percent does not mean ten percent of the songs i make, i like.
no, it is ten percent in a general sense.
a section here, a section there.
it is quite challenging to be going through the work.
also the “first pass” of making the initial content is like a 3D artist’s first render.
that is the base level but then there are specular lighting and texture and volumetrics passes that are required in the rendering studio tasks.
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I know cats with 100k in music gear and half of it sits idle and no longer used. I even offered to buy some of it but they want to hold on to it.
For me, I am not buying any more gear until I push the limits of my current setup.
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I need this tattooed on my forehead backwards!
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truly an economically viable fashion statement!
Sorry for the mini essay but I’ve spent a bit of time thinking about this thread and think I may have come to a better understanding of my own psyche and how it relates to gear.
Like I said before, as much as I have the urge to get rid of everything it doesn’t really fix the underlying cause of my discontent. So what’s actually making me unhappy then? I don’t think it’s the gear itself, pretty sure that’s just a symptom. Had to go back to the beginning to figure this one out.
Just like a lot of people in the scene (I’m assuming) I started out doing the music thing because it was a helluva lot of fun. And as I got better I started thinking that just maybe I might be able to get somewhere with this - so I got a bit more serious and started spending more time, energy and eventually money on improving any way I could. Pawn shop purchases gave way to more expensive toys. Even went to college with the help of student loans - although I have no regrets since that piece of paper got me into a “real” university afterwards.
Fast forward ___ years and I’m in my mid 30s. I know that this is not a viable career path but I’ve been doing it for so long that I keep trying to find that “perfect setup” even though I know damn well that I don’t really need it to make something good. The gear is slowly becoming an obsession while the music itself is beginning to fall by the wayside.
Fast forward a few more years. Now approaching 40 and am perfectly primed for a midlife crisis. I’ve now devoted years and a small fortune to a mere hobby, and while there’s nothing wrong in itself with being an ardent hobbyist, I’ve done it at the expense of anything else that used to interest me. Teenaged me used to think about all the really cool stuff he’d be doing as a grownup. Now grownup me looks back at his life and realises that not only did he never end up doing any of it but somewhere along the line he forgot to live.
Like I said before, there’s nothing wrong with having cool toys to support your interests. But for me personally, having all this gear sitting around can be too much of a stark reminder of what I’ve wasted.
Sounds depressing right? It kinda is. But there’s a happy ending to my story too.
Over the past year I’ve been thinking about all these things I could’ve done but didn’t. And I also realised that it’s not too late to start - so that’s what I’ve been doing. Selling as much stuff as possible (not just music gear) doesn’t just scratch the minimalist itch, it also helps fund my new exciting resolutions.
Still thinking about that motorbike too…
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Writing trax with someone else is great, and you don’t even have to be in the same studio, thanks to the power of the net.
Send the track back and forth to each other tweaking as you go.
I find it is actually much more rewarding than actually both sitting down in a studio writing, as this can take days on end, pressured by time, and sleep deprivation is not a good thing.
I have been doing this lately and it’s good fun.
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we all love new shiny things it is hard. For me, I don’t have any more space so I am gonna squeeze all that is possible out of my two Elektron boxes, 0-coast, Korg Volca Beats and other gear I have sitting around. I realized how powerful JUST the OT is heck can do entire evenings of shows with that tiny box and samples. My fun evening
I did have to re-connect some stuff and work on track levels to make sure the 0-coast was playing well again with my A4 and OT.
Then I figured out how to load samples onto the A4 via USB and using the C6 utility and then loaded several hundred of the free sample packs from the Elektron website to spice up my tunes.
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