#63

i sold almost everything when i exited professional music.

some of it was rare or unique,
much of it was not—the biggest piece was a 1965 hammond b3 with leslie 122 that had been completely tricked out by the ultimate guru of vintage keyboard.

i held onto my 64, my 256, and an old german-made warwick fretless bass which was my first real instrument. my only purchase since has been norns, and that has allowed me to get rid of my old laptop.

i don’t regret it one bit—now that i’m playing for fun again, it feels like a clean slate.

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#64

After several years of not paying attention to gear, getting into modular dragged me into a black hole of endless ModularGrid scrolling, and making less music as a result. I’ve put the modular in the cupboard to take a break from it, and considering selling it off.

Otherwise, I have a couple of standalone kits on the way, and a circuit-bending tape player idea brewing. Beyond that, if I spot something I’m interested in, I’m going to prototype it in Max first. Hopefully that’ll help me focus on the sounds I want to make, rather than pretty lights and buttons…

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#65

I can totally related this. I’ve boxes up what’s left of my modular and trying to sell off the case to get out of it finally. I waste way too much time and energy thinking about my modular and planning on the grid. Kria and ansible keep me hesitant to get out of it completely, I really love that sequencer.

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#66

I’m hoping that kria and meadowphysics will be ported over to Norns, I’m still holding on to a small system with one voice until tha happens.

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#67

Im hoping that too. With midi out control :smiley:

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#68

More agreeable words have never been spoken…

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#69

Here’s the podcast that got the ball rolling for me. There’s an interview w/ the guy who came up with it:
CBC Tapestry:: Out with the new… and in with the old

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#70

I walked into Guitar Center today and saw a MiniBrute2 on sale for $549 ($100 off) and I’ve been eying it for a while now and I walked out without buying it, upholding my Depth Year.

The struggle was real.

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#71

2 years ago I went guitar pedal crazy, bought a bunch of boutique ones and some less boutique (boss sy300?!) but ended up selling them all after the realisation that I didn’t make music with them, just noodled around endlessly which left me kind of unsatisfied. I sold the vast majority of them to get back into tabletop synth boxes and drum machines and found simply ‘hitting record’ whilst noodling to be kind of a revelation. The idea of having a bunch of boxes that could be sync’d was a dream of mine from my early twenties but Ive only recently been able to afford a collection capable of it. I made 2 albums im pretty proud of with those synths and have slowly been shedding them in favour of more Bugbrand modules… im about to take the final leap in selling off anything that uses 1/8" jacks for cv to focus on the bugs. Small and simple is key for me, I only have an hour or two a day to make music etc as well so a nice simple system without menus and such is vital to my productivity. That and being tactile in performance. Similarly though, im not selling anything that would be difficult and expensive to reacquire, I only did that once with my drone commander and it’s my only regret!

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#72

A few years ago I had to sell off my large Eurorack system (about 1000 HP) for financial reasons. Euro was easy to sell (more so then than now), so I used it to keep myself afloat through an extended period of unemployment. I must admit, selling off the empty cases at the end didn’t feel good.

In retrospect, starting over worked out, since I was able to rethink my requirements and do more DIY to fill things out. The money vs. time balance is more in favor of time these days, hence more DIY. I’m not a minimalist like so many here seem to be, so the overall system may not end up any smaller than the old one, when all is said and done. But it has a lot more of me in it, and it’s better focused on what works for me, as opposed to buying things just to try them out.

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#73

I regularly think about doing this. I’ve accumulated a lot of hardware the last few years, and while it’s been fun my musical output isn’t really any better for it. There are a few things in my setup that would be hard to replicate with a computer, yet the opposite is even more true, and working ITB is so much more flexible.

So for the moment I’ve mostly held off on getting anything new so that I can focus on what I have and get to know it in depth, and I plan on letting go of whatever isn’t really being used. That might end up being all of it in the end…

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#74

I tend to do this more often than not.

All my Bemi stuff is scattered somewhere around the globe… and I loved the modules. For some reason I just don’t care about have a big complex and dense feature packed boutique system.

I’ve been using Aleph for a couple years and that’s it… maybe pd-ext or supercollider.

I think I’ve grown more into the physics and maths of sounds or the way they move in rooms or outside.

I used to gear lust a lot… and I’m even letting Aleph go. It is a valuable learning experience to pass on. I’m looking forward to utilizing a norns sometime.

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#75

I love Elektron machines and their workflow clicks with me 100%, but yet I struggle to get sounds out of them that I can settle with. On the other hand, with my modular rig I can always find/patch a sound that I love.

I am debating selling most of my Elektron boxes (eek!!) and just focusing on Modular as that’s really where I feel I have the most success with creating music. BUT … like I mentioned I love Elektron machines and feel that maybe if I put more time into them I can find my sound within them?

Has anyone found something similar with themselves? Where a certain piece or brand of equipment they love just doesn’t sound as good as something else?

Thoughts about selling things? Should I just hold on to them for now and see what happens in the future?

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#76

If I’m not happy with something I tend to be impatient and sell it.

Sometimes I buy stuff back if I really miss it, but it’s not common. Usually I don’t regret it.

#77

if music is the goal, don’t sell! maybe try focusing on melodies and rhythms and such more than sound. you’re guaranteed to improve your “patching” / sound design chops if you work at it, but you can’t magically get that interface elsewhere

#78

I’m going to try to keep things simple (I do best that way) and I think the massive amount of complexity with Elektron boxes just kinda gets in my way a lot, where the simplicity of modular (1 knob = 1 function) allows me to find my sounds more easily / quickly. So if I force simplicity and restraint on myself I think that might help me out?

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#79

fair enough! you sounded pretty happy with the complexity above, which is what I was responding to

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#81

“a broken monosynth with Clouds” took me OUT :joy:

I’m trying desperately to love my Clouds and… I mean I like the sound but…

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#82

This is a very solid setup!

#83

90% of Eurorack in a sentence.

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