#239

I can’t answer @andrewhuang because I am an Ableton fanboy who has never really used any other DAW (and the thought of learning a new one gives me nightmares).

What I can say is that Ableton is amazing at curing GAS because every time I buy something or see a demo for something that looks cool, I realise I can do it in the box.

Case in point… I wanted Morphagene and @andrew suggested how to mimic it in Granulator a few posts up. I was eyeing up a Plonk and an Akaemies Taiko to make a cool little percussion synth but I spent an hour using Wavetable with short envelopes and I got what I wanted. .

12 Likes
#240

interesting, there are definitely some things that i haven’t needed or come across in live, however a few things you may have just overlooked!

  • the + and - keys for horizontal zoom
  • putting instruments/effects in a rack gives you 8 assignable macros, and you can have unlimited racks including nested racks
  • just about anything can be quickly midi mapped, or a custom key assignment made, using cmd+m and cmd+k respectively

the cubase logical editor presets are amazing though, i think the live equivalent only gives you double/half/reverse/invert.

and to kind of keep this on topic for the thread… i used to hop back and forth between multiple daws or use rewire sometimes, and one of the ways i opted to simplify things was to just make it all work in ableton. for me it works much better, but i understand my friends who go to pro tools for comping takes or logic for arrangement etc.

4 Likes
#241

Ah thank you man! Yeah, I hope I adequately implied that a good bit of this is likely rooted in ignorance, which you just showed :stuck_out_tongue: Much appreciated regarding the key commands, dunno how I ever missed those.

I LOVE the racks in Live, but the notable difference between the 8 assignable macros and quick controls in Cubase is that the latter always responds to the same CCs. I use a FaderMaster Pro for MIDI CCs, so it’s nice to just flip over to the next preset of 8 CCs and know that they always correspond to the quick controls. It’s a tiny thing, but it’s one less thing to think about.

That said, there are few things as cool as splitting the signal path and processing it differently as you can in a rack…I wish Cubase would implement that feature, it’s so great, especially for sound design.

4 Likes
#242

I just plopped down $$ to upgrade my ancient Ableton 8 liscence to Ableton 10 suite.

As I’ve been exploring more and more limited set ups I’ve been getting in to live-coding. I feel like between all the software available to me already much of my hardware is feeling redundant.
I ran in to this recently with trying to do a bunch of work with the Volca FM. I love that thing but it’s digital synthesis and there are lots of iterations that have more intuitive interfaces and more direct control of parameters within software. It would be different if I were using a bunch of modular gear but that’s probably going to be something I’m never going to be willing to invest in.
So right now I’m feeling like the future music playground, for me, is in the box. Music is not a career investment for me and I don’t have much of a studio. Even when I was playing live music I was mostly working with a laptop.
If I were to sell my gear I would probably keep things like the Digitakt since it feels like it extends and integrates sampling with Overloop. I would also like to invest eventually in the monome and/or push for that feeling of direct control.
This is just a brain dump of where my head is right now on this topic. I also feel like there are certain pieces of gear that I’ve got that are just too cool to part with. I can’t see myself parting with all my tape gear unless I was forced to financially.
I’m a scatterbrain when it comes to creative stuff. I kind of throw ideas around until something sticks. It’s great and I find interesting territory but I feel like I waste a lot of time.

2 Likes
#243

Curious: those who sold off record collections - how did you go about doing so? I have a smallish collection (~2k) I’ve considered parting with, perhaps keeping 100 or so of the most meaningful.

The thought of posting them individually to discogs and shipping them fills me indescribable dread.

Selling them as a lot would be clean and lossy (there are few ~$300ish pieces in there), and since it represents phases of collecting, would be challenging - the buyer would need to be into a few rather disjointed genres.

I had considered a table at a flea prior to that being impossible. This seems the most fun way to do it, but instead of keeping the better pieces, I’d be keeping the least interesting to buyers.

3 Likes
#244

Yeah, selling things isn’t easy. The effort and the inertia to keep hold of things… I can relate.

You’d lose so much of the potential value selling as a lot though… Would be a real shame. Selling one by one would also fill me with dread. How about selling bundles of related records together? Might be a good compromise.

2 Likes
#245

I sold a large part of my record collection ~4 years ago. I’m friends with a few dealers/collectors so I let them pick through it first, selling at a reasonable price for both parties, and then used discogs for the rest. I mostly loved selling online, because once I bought the mailers (100 whiplash mailers at a time), it was really easy. Tougher now due to pandemic, but dedicating 1 mail day a week is reasonable if you can swing it. It was great having a steady flow of side money coming in for like two years.

3 Likes
#246

i felt exactly like this for years and years, but i’m starting to sense ableton’s power. the controls are opaque but the scheme for tracks vs stacks of loops, and the way it handles and processes midi is very fun.

1 Like
#247

Maybe sell the expensive records that deserve it separately and the rest as a lot.

2 Likes
#248

Interesting thread. I can relate to the feeling of wanting to simplify things for myself. I completely agree with those who say that it’s all in your mind though. Over a period of decades I have overcome (well, mostly) my desires to downscale, upscale or otherwise change things when they are working perfectly well for me as they are.

Finding contentment is the trick. Then you can have the most complex setup in the world and still feel like it’s simple; because there’s no feeling of having to take it all in at once, or utilise it all to prevent you from feeling guilty, or having an undue attachment to things, etc etc

I believe that this is an important thing to reinforce because it’s the psychology of it that matters. We have all these hangups and quirks which are part of our human nature, but they can be counter productive if we let them govern us too much. Letting go of it all in our mind is more important than selling, or even giving it away - because that’s how you strengthen your mind and gain experience. What you actually end up doing doesn’t matter if your mind is in the right place.

So it doesn’t mean that any other options aren’t viable, it’s just one point that many have put forward before me in this thread, and I think it’s a good point.

10 Likes
#249

I had my large collections at my parents’ house in Ohio, and they pretty much sat there for a decade while I was at grad school and then here in Houston.

We did two things:

  1. For the CDs, I basically just dropped them off at a local place called The Exchange. They didn’t pay nearly anything, but CDs are practically worthless on the used market anyway.
  2. For the vinyl, my mom found a local eBay shop that happily sold them one-by-one for a commission. There were a few pieces that earned $60+ dollars.

I don’t miss them. I had personal attachments to some, but really I still have strong memories of the discovery process more than the ownership.

9 Likes
#250

Very true! And I’d rather not have that memory weigh so much next time I decide to move.

8 Likes
#251

It’s adjacent to this thread but this also seems the best space to ask…how do folks assess when to let gear go vs. when to hang on for different/unforseen situations?

1 Like
#252

For me the best indicator is time and feeling. If I feel like I don’t take advantage of an instrument I just let it sit and spend time creating without using it, ideally trying to find something I already have access to that fulfills the same role. Generally, not using a piece of equipment then lessens my need to rely on it and reassures me in the fact that I don’t really need it.

Some instruments, though, I barely use them but know I won’t get rid of them, because I just enjoy using them from time to time or because I need them for very specific purposes (that’s mainly the case for certain acoustic instruments, to me)

1 Like
#253

This is tricky for me and I haven’t found the right formula yet. I have an anecdote that may or may not be helpful.

I was about to sell my Pressure Points and René (1). I had them in boxes, photos taken. I even put the René up on Reverb for a day but I just wasn’t ready to sell it, so I took it down. Still, I hadn’t used either in months and months.

A little while later, I started experimenting with a DLD/Morphagene looper system. I had the Pittsburgh Touch Controller as part of the VRL and used that to control the DLD/Morphagene. This was so inspiring that I started building a system around them. Eventually, I realized 2 Pressure Points and the René were exactly the right controllers for this system. And I was really glad I didn’t sell them. This digital/looper system became the most inspiring instrument for me, modular or otherwise.

Once this looper system was the focus, it became easy to sell certain things that I didn’t need in order to get other things I needed for the looper. And then, if I missed something, I could save up and get it again.

I recently sold the Metropolis and that was a hard decision. It was the reason I got into modular but I never connected with it the way I hoped I would (watching that Mylar video). I don’t regret buying it though because it led me here. And I was happy to let it go to someone that would be more inspired by it.

Alright, this went longer than expected…

8 Likes
#254

If I haven’t used something in a while, I first judge whether or not I could buy it again if I sell it. As time goes on, I’m finding more things are hard to get or not made anymore. It also helps to think about whether or not you had to wait to get it in the first place. Usually I’ve been fine with my decisions, but there have been a few times I’ve regretted it.

1 Like
#256

I‘ve had such thoughts quite frequently. As with anything, see whether it‘s a one-time thing or whether it persists. I always used to get that feeling whenever I could not get to where I wanted to go, sound or composition-wise, so it was really just my lack of practice and experience. If you start to feel that way often, then yeah, maybe it‘s a good idea to sell stuff. Do you feel like selling because you just don‘t want to use it or because you‘re frustrated with it?

1 Like
#257

I am in the process of selling everything and moving specifically to a setup that consists of a stage piano and Ableton for sequencing/effects. I’ve played guitar for almost 10 years but never put in the time to really learn any music theory. I just would do the loop pedal, stack a lot of reverb and noodle around sort of thing, a la “ambient soundscapes”. In my grad school program I did a lot of stuff with MaxMSP and building my own instrument building as well. This summer with extra time due to Covid and having a MFA in Covid economy I started taking Jazz Piano Lessons.

It’s absolutely blown my mind to start this journey after playing music for almost 16 years. I started music with the Cello and played classically for 8 years and you can get pretty far as a classical musician(at least at my level as a competitive teenage scene) by just memorizing the songs and practice without understanding why things are written the way they are or how composition actually works. Now i’ve been playing Piano and taking lessons for almost 4 months and it’s completely changed the way I look at music. I feel like I have the ability to have so much more Intention than I ever had before in my music.

I will always love noodling around with soundscapes but getting into music theory and jazz performance has really allowed my creativity to blossom. I’ve sold almost all my expensive boutique pedals which allowed me to buy a Roland RD88 Stage Piano. This thing itself is a workhorse that has a ton of capability with layering,effects and roland cloud capability. There has been something really rewarding in giving away or selling all my pedals and starting fresh, starting new.

It’s hard to battle the feelings and shame around “why didn’t I do this earlier?” . Or the shame of how much money my Gear Acquisition Syndrome made me spend when I could’ve used that time and money to actually get better at my instrument. But at 27 I’m really excited to be on this new journey with Piano. I am trying to get to a place where I can have a stage setup/Sound similar to Taylor Mcferrin and by getting rid of a lot of my extra gear and doing the simplest thing of focusing on my craft of being a musician I feel like I’m finally moving towards that goal.

15 Likes
#258

I’m finding your story very compelling. Especially as someone who has done a whole lot of Music things - but has no formal keyboard training.

Just curious about your jazz piano lessons: were these in person or remote?

2 Likes
#259

Hey @MtL I’m glad to hear you could relate to my story. So I found my teacher because one of the indie musicians I’m a fan of posted on his Instagram saying he was giving lessons and just messaged him about it. We do one hour over Skype each week and honestly Skype Piano lessons are way better then I would have expected. He has a piano in front of him to show me stuff and I have my webcam pointed at my keys. He also lives in a different city and I would’ve never gotten to have him as a teacher if it wasn’t for him doing the remote lessons.

3 Likes