How much do you let a piece of gear dictate the music that you make? Especially in regards to “iconic” gear, how much do you lean towards making the types of music that these things are known for? Why?
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You know, I came into this fully ready to say “no way, my gear doesn’t influence me, I’m a creative and unique individual!” But actually, it does - probably more than I realize.
The most obvious case for me is any 303-inspired synth - hardware or software, I jump straight to acid chirps. Quite frankly that’s probably all I’ve ever used them for, because that’s the sound I associate with the instrument. It can do smooth bass or funky leads, but I rarely do that myself with a 303 clone because frankly it’s just easier for me to do that stuff with other instruments.
I primarily use my S-1 for the grungy bass and warbly pad/lead sounds found on the old BoC albums, though I also break out of this and use it for other things.
With classic drum breaks, I gravitate to jungle/ breakcore/ dnb almost exclusively. It’s the electronic music I loved as an adolescent (thanks largely to 90s/ early 2000s video game soundtracks). Even though I could do more with them, again, I just don’t. I will say that here I don’t lean on the Amen/ Apache/ Think as much, and I’m a fan of cleaner breaks with a more modern crisp sound (especially with a nice clean ride cymbal). Occasionally I break out of the high-bpm thing and do a slower oldschool hiphop/ boombap thing but that’s a rarity and not exactly something I’m well-versed in.
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I tried to phrase my questions to indicate that the gear is not what influences people to do x or y. We simply, adhere (too hard, maybe) to their historical ideals and stereotypes, and make things based off of them.
For example, mozzarella cheese doesn’t influence me to only make pizza, I choose to only make pizza with mozzarella cheese, and I know (or am aware) that I can use it for many other dishes, and even make up new ones.
cool topic!
i think a part of my gear journey was realizing that the gear i was buying was not the most conducive for the kind of music i wanted to make. digitakt was cool and fun for a while but it led me to making fairly dull and derivative hiphop/trap beats. M8 was great for the portability and power, but i generally found myself making what i felt to be fairly derivative stuff again.
the sp404mk2 showed me what it can be like when the tool really clicks and helps me do what i didnt really know I wanted to do. the live aspect of the resampling skipback method just opened up a whole new world of bounce that i had a hard time finding in traditional sequencers. and these days i aspire to make bouncy beats and i feel like i am accomplishing that with the 404. i dont necessarily think ive aligned with the iconic sound of 404 beats, but maybe the ethos clicked with me
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If anybody has found a way to play the DFAM for more than five minutes without turning everything around it into noisy, abrasive techno, I’d love to see it.
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it depends.
on one hand – that’s why i have it!
quite a few of my machines are exactly for THAT recognizable TB-303 / SH-101 / Bass Station sound of the golden era of goa trance. and yeah, they dictate the music just because of their character.
on the other hand – i have a couple of machines that deliver recognizable Hammond organ sound, but i got them to process that sound in certain way, and the result is very unlike well-known Hammond.
and mixed feeling: everything super saw 
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When I buy iconic gear, I’m usually buying it not to get the same sound as a famous producer but to understand how the gear informed what they produced.
You can read all you want about the ARP 2600, but everything changes when you lay hands on one. You can make all the beats you want in Ableton, but an x0x interface such as an Elektron, TR-8s or even the RD-6 strongly influences how you make music.
All of that is interesting to me.
From there I either color within the lines, or do everything I can to color outside the lines, depending on what I’m trying to achieve.
In short, that.
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I think the most “iconic” gear that I own, used primarily in one role is a 303 clone.
But I can push that into noise with enough time and programming!
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If white noise was plotted 10 times, each graph would be different under the microscope, and they will all “look the same” (and sound the same) when zoomed out…
I’ve found that whatever hardware instrument or software I use, when it comes to kick drum sounds I always but always ending up dialling in (or selecting a preset) that’s a Roland 909.
It is not really deliberate and certainly isn’t consciously an act of homage to any one artist or iconic sound (though have to fess up to an Underworld addiction LOL). There’s just something about the way the 909 kick, er, kicks that works for me.
Having a TR8S now helps (although to be clear I didn’t just buy it for one kick drum sound… ). And I have about a dozen subtle variations on a 909(ish) kick saved as my own presets on my Syntakt.
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Gear absolutely does push me into specific style, iconic or not. I always get into goa trancey lines with SH-01a, acid with TD-3 and classic 90’s beats with TR-8s. It just comes naturally to them. With MC-707 I instantly made some 90’s “rave” and synthwave without even trying. But DT steers me towards more original sounding stuff and I love it for that. I would never be without some Roland though 
For me it is difficult to say because I was using what is now considered classic gear just when it was the only affordable gear, and I still use it.
Stuff like the D-50, Korg M1, Akai Samplers which were cutting edge at the time etc were way out of reach, but stuff like 303’s, 101’s, 202’s, 606’s etc were easily affordable. So I bought those and some cheap pedals like Electro Harmonix and Boss and just loved the sounds. A lot of young people at that time did, and this was what caused these instruments to become cult classics.
You could call it nostalgia or being stuck in my ways, but even 35 years later I still love these sounds, and I think I will never get tired of them, sometimes to the detriment of finding new sounds that I like, they serve as a kind of benchmark to me.
I do enjoy recreating these sounds on modern gear too, sometimes with a twist, sometimes as close as possible.
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I’ve never cared anything about ‘iconic’ or ‘classic’ or whatever gear. i like classic songs that feature a 303, but I don’t want one. Jupiter 8: orbital does awesome stuff with theirs but I don’t have the space for it, or interest really.
I guess Bass Station II is semi-iconic at this point somehow, to some. I did get one of those, for… bass. I don’t care about the AFX mode at all. They’ve made them for so long and made so many that I doubt they’ll ever reach ‘icon’ levels that require scarcity.
I don’t know, this sounds awfully risky…
I’m the “iconic” influence. The gear just falls in line!!
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praise you, you holy gangster
I would say offensive
Since they were published and to this day, I haven’t loaded the Autechre Sysex files for the MD and the MM; I have no idea what they are like other than what I’ve heard on CDs and their live PAs.
You touch on a different (I think) yet relevant subject. When I sample or deal with “sampled” instruments in a DAW, I have to crunch them up the way that I used to in my Akai S6000, not because of nostalgia, but because that’s what I do.
“303 beers on the wall”
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I’ll just be sitting around, minding my own business, eating a carrot, and then suddenly a 303 or Prophet 5 will be like “Hey dude, doesn’t a beer sound real good right now?” Well, one beer leads to more and the next thing you know it’s 4am and I’m being chased by security outside of the club, and I’m holding some records but they aren’t my records, but they are my records now.
Anyways, that’s the influence of iconic gear on me.
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And that was how you got your forum name.
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…i’m all in for use and abuse…to work it out with the tools i got at my disposal…
never occured to me, to use any piece of gear in some predefined and supposed to be “iconic” way…that’d be like sonic drawing by numbers to me…
all inspiration roots in places, someone else has walked before…
gear can enable u to go there, but to bring it all home, asks for the right mind and mood set and is a question of personal will, not of “iconic” gear…
most iconic music happened to be made, when someone used gear with some new approach and envisioned a new way, that lead beyond the same old patterns…
it’s never the gear…it’s always U…