#127

I dunno if I COULD sell some of my stuff to people I know. Like, “hey @Olivier, I [have] a Beatstep Pro but I realized I actually want something like Kria instead, wanna buy it off me?” just isn’t really gonna work…

#129

there’s a thing I want
and a thing I don’t want. where
should I trade it? llllllll.co

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#130

Actually met one of my best friends buying gear on craigslist!

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#131

there’s a thing i think i want
and a thing i don’t use. i should
just sell the thing i don’t use

^ my thought process nowadays

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#132

my feeling is less about the gnarlyness of reverb (though that’s certainly a thing) but more how i feel personally with all the selling and trading. i would have to say that very little of those changes made much of a difference. i sound like me no matter what gear i have. my taste is the same and my skill set did not radically change because of these purchases. i would have been fine keeping what i already had. save 2 things. 1) getting into modular in the first place around 2004 (sold a bunch of pedals to do that) and 2) getting into the monome world (ansible, then grid then tt etc.). these purchases changed the way i think about composing and performing music. the rest of the stuff far less so, if at all.

looking at the evolution of my various set-ups over the years makes me feel rather silly.

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#134

I agree, a lot of things are all kinda the same, except sequencing, which I seem to be swapping out the most, but now that I’ve entered the Monome world, I might be done with that too. The only other thing that makes me want to trade things out is how efficiently it uses it’s space, I went from a Rene, to a TSNM & Prizma, to an Ansible and a Prizma. Now days I’m thinking if I really need a 14hp Serge Filter…

1 Like
#135

It’s a really good point that no matter what the gear, I create out of the same basic disposition, so what I ultimately end up expressing is the same. Some paths are quicker than others but I eventually converge on the same thing, and I’m not talking about genre or surface style. It brings to mind Tangerine Dream from 1970-1987, their surface style changed radically as did their gear every two years. But all their albums from Electronic Revolution to Tyger have this same fundamental disposition and in this much deeper sense express the same thing. The paradox though is in order for me to create, the process often starts with wanting to discover a new thing and that does involve changing up surface styles and gear. I wish I could free myself of it, I have a much too large hoard of broken gear… also unused working gear. I do sell off now and then but the process is so depressing. what I hate the most is that Reverb and eBay thrive on sowing distrust, which destroys community. I remember the old days when you could just post ads in the recycler, which was kind of an LA thing, I don’t know if they were in other areas, and everyone I dealt with through there was trustworthy.

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#136

I put together my first 126HP a few years ago, and I’m now staring down the barrel of wanting (needing?) to make some substantial changes. The FB group that @shreeswifty administers is my logical choice to post the items I’d like to sell, but frankly, I’m more likely to start them here for a week or so just because I hate FB.

#137

uhhhh I just came across this post and thought it vital to bump it.

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#138

My latest tactic. For every youtube video of shiny new stuff you watch. Watch one about a piece of gear you already own…and get some of that ‘I’m only doing a fraction of what this thing is capable of’ guilt.’

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#139

Another trick I like to do: when I hear a sound I just love, I try to recreate it on the synths I own. I often end up learning something new AND liking my sound better, or just as good. Plus I get a new patch/preset out of the deal!

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#140

In the grand scheme of Lines’ inhabitants, my setup is probably quite small and under control, but I do tend to pick up new things regularly and magpie syndrome frequently leads me down YouTube (and, often, eBay) rabbitholes. New avenues of sound possibilities are opened up, but productivity rarely prospers.

Commenting on this, a close friend suggested that I should consider freezing my setup for a period of time - or until a particular goal is realised - which sounds like an excellent (albeit oddly daunting) prospect.

For me, I think I’m likely to use a productivity-based measure rather than a time-based criteria. Say:

My setup must remain as it is (no new additions, at least) until I have finished a new album/tape

Has anyone else utilised this method of GAS freezing? How did you find it?

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#141

i have two types of GAS

•that thing looks super cool and I’d probably have a blast with it (rn this is Just Friends, as it has been for some time)

•that thing is a definitely upgrade to what it would replace and i really ought to unload my money (rn this is WMD Pro Output, as it has been for some time)

i have a full 6u/104hp case that has been working really well, inclusive of recent purchases (the first new acquisitions in at lease one year), and some overflow in a 3u case. i’m good, really. those recordings from yesterday maybe aren’t great, but i practice and record a lot and the cream rises, eventually.

i also have no income outside of selling my things rn so it’s a little more complicated, but over 4 years of eurorack i’ve found that continuing to work with and explore what i have keeps the money in the account. i bristle at what i perceive in “eurorack communities” to be more of a “retail practice” than “creative practice” -
that a new purchase is more crucial than commitment, insight, error, editing, discovery - but also appreciate that shiny new things are pretty cool. do yr best.

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#142

I tried this! I went from 10u 84hp to just a single row of 84hp with the intention of freezing that setup. But I kept all my other modules and the 7u 84hp case with the intention of selling them. So I froze it there for a month or so. But then I felt I couldn’t quite get enough out of it - so I started swapping some of the modules (which I’d not sold). I then decided that a single row of 84hp wasn’t enough. So I switched back to the 7u 84hp case and filled it with modules. And I got a Norns. And a Grid. But it wasn’t enough, so I purchased a few more modules to get everything to play nicely. And then I realised that I’d not (properly) played my piano, the instrument I love, for 10 months - and that a considerable chunk of my waking day was spent not being satisfied with the modules I had. It wasn’t healthy and it certainly wasn’t creative - so I am now actually going through the process of selling my Eurorack modules, they’re nearly all gone. But I’ll keep the Norns and the Grid. MLR helps me be more creative with the piano. I’m going to try and freeze it at that! I love modular but I don’t think it quite works with my present state of mind. I’d like to come to it again someday when I can be more disciplined/responsible.

That said, I think I got the most out of the system when it was just one row of 84hp. I got to know those modules well, and I was never paralysed by choice.

So tl;dr, I tried to freeze a GAS. “This is my setup for the next 12 months!”. But I wasn’t disciplined enough to maintain this. If I was - I think it would have worked well.

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#143

if i spent as much time working on music as i do researching gear, i’d be prolific as hell

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#144

At one point I had about a dozen keyboard synths. To keep from accumulating more and to weed out the ones that weren’t inspiring I came up with an exercise: to randomly pick two per week to only use that week when writing/recording music (this was during an unusually high period of musical productivity). At the end of this time I could more easily say what was a pleasure to work with and what didn’t gel with my process. I was successful in not buying more synths and I got rid of almost all of them.

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#145

I wrote this album:

with a zero-dollar budget in mind. Like a gear freeze, in a way. It was a while ago, so I can’t remember if I downloaded any free samples or plugins during the time.

I was also super-disciplined, here’s my old description of the method I used:

I set out to write 20 songs over my summer uni break, from November 2007 to February 2008. I didn’t. I wrote 14. So the game went into overtime. And you know what, that was ok. I think I ended up writing better music because I didn’t just write deadline to deadline. But the deadlines sure helped in getting something written.

The next step was to throw 12 of the 20 songs away, and add some of the best songs I’ve written before to make a final collection of songs to make an album. I acknowledge that while it’s good to finish songs in the writing process, that drive to finish may leave details unperfected. Some imperfection is good, but other imperfections are not happy things.

I’ve often felt that I suffered from “writer’s block”, but now I wonder if that was just “writer’s playing Counterstrike too much” or “writer’s not focusing on goals and discipline enough.” Perhaps I’ve just had a particularly productive time in my creative life so far, or maybe I’ve learned a secret of creative productivity. Or maybe I’m just getting more mature and more able to do stuff.

I have not yet achieved the same degree of focus again. How much did the zero-budget constraint help with my productivity at the time? It’s hard to say exactly, because focus can be stolen by many other things besides GAS. Like playing Counterstrike, which was a temptation for me in previous decades, but not longer.

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#147

Maybe - being kinder to you than you’re perhaps being to yourself - it would have been possible to stay disciplined if you’d have got the right setup at the time (and maybe this is an out I’m giving myself in advance, but attributing it to you to make myself feel better!)

Ha - this, 100%. If I was as effective at (and dedicated to) researching gear as I am my doing my dayjob I’d have enough money to buy all the gear I research (which might not be a good thing, so…)

My other half dismays when I cycle gear. With the exception of a very small number of pieces (my custom dual tank spring reverb in particular) I view myself as the temporary caretaker of the gear I own, possessing them on an almost loan basis. I tend to get pretty much what I paid for the units when I sell them on and I’ve usually spent at least 6 months working out whether I can get along with them or not. In the past few years I’ve cycled through a variety of keyboard synths, only keeping the MS-20 Mini (which I have a huge amount of affection for and will probably keep indefinitely) but I’ve never had the space to keep them all so it was out of necessity as much as anything else. Recently I’ve been able to move everything into a dedicated room which, although affords me more space than I’ve ever had for my production equipment, has actually had the opposite effect - moving everything into the new, empty space has made me get all Kondo about whether they all “bring me joy” or not!

There’s a lot to be said for this. When my music only existed in the physical world, deadlines were omnipresent - and I was also more productive than I ever have been… although I had less kids and different responsibilities, so maybe the deadlines didn’t actually have anything to do with it! That said, I am going to try to instill some kind of deadline system with my work again to see how that goes.

(I don’t have any comment for this, but I liked it a lot and wanted to quote it).

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#148

I’ve always told myself that someday I will skip an extended period (a month? six months?) worth of new gear news. I figure I could block or not visit a few key sites, or watch any synth enthusiast videos. What could I miss? There’s got to be a key habit I could change that would save me big time bucks and hours upon hours of ‘(Brand new synth name) Review and Feature Run-down’ videos.

Though I would not get to wear the crown of ‘pioneer buyer’, time would help us narrow down what truly is a Friend of Norns or conclusively what pairs well with a Digitone and after the dust settles I’d maybe find those things for 70% of what I would have otherwise spent in a frenzy of impulsive spending to have an OP-Z before the first run sells out.

On the minus side I could miss an amazing kickstarter for a new synth company run by a visionary instrument creator who has no idea of calculating demand or how much they should charge for something to create a sustainable product.

If I close my mind and meditate on it, wouldn’t I much rather be huddled over my synths in a low-lit room full of crystals and incense instead of over my computer watching others? Did Paganini spend all day in the library reading about new violins?

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#149

I have a weird combination of GAS and gear-hatred. I hate stuff and the dragging weight it brings. But I also create best with knob-per-function, modular and flexible gear, which is tough when I am mostly drawn to dense compositions using real time FM synthesis, instrument “interfaces” that allow for the kind of expression possible on violins and wind instruments (I think at this point I have almost every MPE and pre-MPE instrument that exists, though only one - the continuum - has really clicked for me. To be fair, my Soundplane was bought used and was clearly in dire need of service, so I can’t judge it and I look forward to someday trying it out when I can get it fixed).
I’ve kinda come out the other side now. Choosing what to let go of mostly. Though a long-desired FS1r arrives friday (opposite of knob per function, I know… but I’m an FM obsessive and just. must. know.)

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