Look. New is exciting.
Plus, it’s that next peice of gear that will unlock my latent musical talent that so far gone undeveloped.
Practice and education I’d all well and good, but that next Eurorack module is 8% more generative than the one I already have!!
When I was into painting, I spent a lot of money on brushes and paints and canvases. I did more art when I was just using a single square chopstick, water color paper, and black technical pen ink. But if you are going to work with brushes and color you need to put the effort and money into exploring those colors and textures.
When it comes to sailing, I have no interest in owning more than one boat at a time. I’m currently happy with no boat because there are plenty of opportunities to crew on cool boats in Chicago. But I do have three light jackets and three pairs of waterproof pants and will probably buy more of both. As well as more boots and gloves. I also have two different timing watches and two handheld GPSes. The right gear matters, and what worked well for SF may not be ideal for Chicago.
I got into synths when I was a software developer at a very large software company. So I spent a lot of time reading VintageSynth and browsing Sweetwater while I waited for code to compile (usually at least an hour for a full build). I shop for music gear more than anything else, and that is likely why.
I think it is valid to try out different gear to determine what works for you ergonomically and sonically. It is also equally valid to pick one thing and focus on that. I’m not really into formal goal setting and tracking outside of work, but it’s not a bad idea to take a step back and assess your hobby/art and the processes you approach it with.
Exactly. I’ve had a license for FL Studio for over 20 years at this point. I don’t really “need” anything more than that. But I’ve been way more productive with hardware than I ever was trying to make due with software. The Digitakt in particular has had a huge impact on me. So it’s really easy for me to imagine some other piece of gear having a similar effect.
I’ve also done the thing with the notebooks since I have tried and failed to get back into rapping more than a few times.
This. Just about any time I get something new that isn’t a knob-per-function synth my productivity takes a dive. If I make the mistake of buying something else before getting back to normal, well, that’s what we call a dark place.
There’s another thing going on, closely related. Integrating the new thing into your workflow. I have a bunch of junk that never got into any setup. Trying to make it work has cost me a lot of time. The cure was to pick something to focus on and only add what immediately proves useful. Even if that means neglecting the newest thing. (Ofc, picking that to focus on might fix things.)
Because now that you’re sober the money you save from not buying coke has to be spent on something and creditbuddy told you there’s no way in hell you’ll ever be able to buy a house.
When one is young, one has a good amount of time on their hands and little money.
When one is older/established, one may have more money than time/energy/mental bandwidth on their hands.
It is a lot “easier” to engage in retail therapy, buying something with the idea that it will get you the sound and workflow that you want than to adjust what you have at any point to the sound and workflow you need.
Basically GAS is fantasy, wish fulfillment. Sometimes purchases work out fine.
But GAS purchases are not so much about practicality as achieving a dream and rarely correlated to the fit the device actually has when used in the real world.
When somethng works for me, it’s because I was able to take the time and put in the energy.
Does that mean that GAS failures are because I occasionally buy stuff that’s too complicated?
Yes, but the “too complicated” is itself a sign that i’m trying to introduce too many new factors at once.
Like, why would I buy ANYTHING if I haven’t mastered the last things enough to know them inside and out at a level of extreme proficiency?
It’s like rotating from instrument to instrument, even if they’re all synths I am not getting into any intuitive flow state.
Oof, I love good paints, I’d love to pick up a nice set of oils. But beyond a few acrylics here and there per project at least I’ve kept good.
it’s not about the synths. I like breaking down my studio every having a bunch of cables strewn about wonder where I put the right ac adapter wondering where my long ass USB b cable is in the fucking mess in the drawers knowing I just had it. figuring out that I can’t remember the midid channels, hell I can’t even remember how my midi thru merge and split was setup. it’s not a new synth, it’s a challenge to entire ecosystems
We are hoarders and addicts by nature, and for a lot of people without self-control, it gets out of control: gamblers, cat hoarders, car collectors, people with a billion tattoos, record collectors, overeaters, …
New gear can be a huge source of inspiration for me, at least initially and especially if it does something that my other gear does not. But I definitely don’t always get it right, for example I put off buying a certain piece of gear for too long, then finally get it and wish I’d just got it when it first pipped my interest. Other times I’ll buy something and in a very short while realise it does not work for me and return it.
I think for me usability is the single most important thing, it doesn’t have to be simple to use, but it has to be something that I want to use - be that soundwise or capability wise.
So in summary I’d say that for me using gear is more interesting that buying, but in order to use it I need to buy it, and that can sometimes involve watching too many videos, most of which (especially when the gear is new to market) don’t answer all my questions, so I have to buy it to find out, or not and then do more research before making a decision.
I’m more interested in making music and quit buying gear this year and hopefully moving forward since I have all that I need.
To fill the void that exists within our souls.
To take our minds off of the pain inside.
Because we’re all addicts.
Duh.
This.
I sold a few bits last year and am doing no new gear for a year again. Everytime I think about new stuff, I look at my beautiful drum kit, which I dont play anywhere near as often as I should, and poof, GAS gone.
Also yeah, heavily focussed on writing music at the moment. No time for GAS. Fuck youtube, fuck special offers, fuck online shops etc etc. Tweak knobs, make noises.
While true from one lens, it’s a bit more complicated than that, ADD, emotional state, too much weed, “addiction”… a simple sinner/saint model is too oblique to address anything but GAS symptoms.
I think there are trends and we need to understand the whys before we dictate any solution.
Not saying you are incorrect, of course. There’s that careful balance of self-honesty without beating oneself up about it all.
What happens when we sit at our desks and ready to begin?
What are one’s blockers?
Well said. Thank you for adding that.
I pretty much stopped. If I look back it was definitely a period that began, peaked, and then trailed off. I could keep doing it. But if I’m honest about it, I don’t make much music at all at the moment. So thousands of dollars on single boxes can’t really be justified, outside of just carelessly blowing cash on toys. The other thing you can do is you’re saying to yourself ‘I’m buying all this gear so when I finally have some time I’ll have the perfect setup’, but that time never arrives. Not to be bleak, it’s of course different for everyone. Luckily for me I’ve never been too attracted to monstrous multi-timbral / $5k+ synths, so I’ve never been that deep. Mostly I hang around the single box that does a couple things well with a simple UI. Depending what Ableton do tho a Push 3 could be tempting, because Live is always there and can personally cover pretty much everything I need.
It’s weird but sometimes there’s like this thing, like, you have subpar equipment, and you’re really creative on it, but once you get the good stuff for some reason the creativity goes away. Like you think higher quality gear will make what you’re doing better, yet somehow that purchase just makes the creativity go away. I remember when I never had a computer I used to do whatever I could to get on one and do projects - school, the library, borrow them, but a friend who owned a Mac tower just never did anything with it.
There’s often a lot of talk about limitations, but this is often spoken of in regards to open ended architectures, like DAW’s vs single pieces of kit. But, if you think about desire, it’s kindve bounded up in whatever your vision is of your higher self. You’re projecting you’re a performer on a stage somewhere, so you buy an Octatrack. But thinking about limitation in terms of restriction, like, holding that desire but using it for creative purpose. That frustration of not having a thing can get you poking around in VCV or doing some weird routing with your setup. There really is a lot to be said for buying nothing, but I’m not sure if that results in some outcome that cultivates creativity.
I always say it but I think creativity blooms best in relationship to other folks. It’s sort of about mates, being competitive, wanting to impress someone, contributing to a community, that kind of thing. Purchases are in some cases perhaps mis-directed energy. But there is obviously often a lot of cases where the right tool is needed for the job.
It’s all up to the individual. Making music may not matter, a collection of shiny things on the shelf might actually be the desire. If there are obstacles getting in the way of outcomes though then that’s up to each person to do the work and figure out what that is.
Self-control is just a form of self mutilation in a capitalistic society according to Consumer Reports.
Luckily it is a flexible and psychological form of self-mutilation, of which one can easily revert back to, or adjust as needed and able: “I’ll stop consuming music gear Youtube to control my GAS, knowing that at any time I can say “fuck it” and go back to my habits.”
right on same here and it gets me to use old gear with the newer synths so fun. I like recording stems from modular then remix with plugins and effects in DAW for infinite song ideas! Plus never have to buy new gears. I did upgrade my Ableton License from Ableton Live 9 intro to Live 11 Standard so worth it for $200 on sale and I still have my Push 2 controller from five years ago to use with it. Most new gear videos do not inspire me to buy new stuff compared to what I already have anyways.
When i was in my late teens and early 20s i had a set of turntables, mixer, sampler, 101 and a qy300 and never lusted over anything else but new records. Then i got a computer to make tracks and record mixes etc. Again never wanted anything else for many years
Now im constantly looking new things. i blame the internet
LOL.
“In my youth, I could use a spoon to eat soup and ice cream without even thinking about it. Now in my old age, I keep hitting my teeth with the damn things. Fuck spoons!”