#172

Having given this more thought it’s definitely something I want to do for 2020, but I’m going to allow myself at least one exception.

If all goes according to plan I’ll be an MA student for the year and, if that proves to be the case, I’ll finally upgrade to Ableton Suite as the student discount would be foolish to ignore (and it will expire at the end of the depth year. I don’t think there’s any other caveats I feel it necessary to add, but I don’t feel like that is against the spirit of it as I already have a version of Live, it just isn’t the full Suite.

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#173

Full Suite is very sweet!!!

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#174

It think it should allow me to cover all bases, too. Anything that I feel I can’t do with the things I already have should (in theory) be achievable via M4L, which will obviously mean I gain new skills with that too.

I love this depth year idea. We should perhaps have a thread aimed towards it (a support group, perhaps, not that we’ll need it!)

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#175

At one point my wife and I left Canada for over a year. My income at the time was half from being an artist (touring/merch - and music downloads were still a thing!) and the other half freelance music production. Went all around the world working with nothing but a laptop, Shure SM7B and Apollo Twin, and there was only one job I turned down because I didn’t think I could do it justice with my setup.

We got rid of a LOT before we left. Downsized my studio tremendously and had friends hold onto the few remaining pieces. Record collection went from hundreds to about 30. Furniture and almost all our clothes and books gone.

Several years on and we’re back in Toronto, my studio is the largest it’s ever been, and being a guy who now does gear demo videos I don’t see a path back to a “minimal” setup again any time soon except for occasional creative retreats. I reflect a lot on that time abroad though because I do believe creativity comes much more from the mind than from the tools, and while I’m enjoying the expanded possibilities and fun that come with having a big pile of toys, I also recognize that I am no more artistically fulfilled than when I had nothing but Ableton. Or if I am, it’s due to my skills growing, not my gear collection.

The whole experience ultimately made us (besides my studio) quite minimal with our other possessions. We don’t have art on our walls or anything decorative besides a few plants. We now pass every book we finish on to a friend who we think will enjoy it, which has cleared up SO much space from volumes that realistically we were never going to open again - the large shelving units we used to have before we left the country we’ve never had to replace. Many visitors have commented that our home looks like we haven’t moved in yet, haha - but we’re enjoying the simplicity.

Takes some dedication to maintain though, as things have a way of always creeping back in, especially around the holiday time of year. There’s also the complete dichotomy between our living space and my working space, which I’ve just accepted is going to be a churning pool of gear for this period in my life!

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#176

@andrewhuang Do you find the amount of choice you have as more of a pleasure, from inspiration you might get from a piece of gear, or a hinderence, paralysed by choice?

I sometimes feel overwhelmed with Ableton on its own! :joy:

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#177

More of a pleasure for sure! With the caveat that going into a session with purpose is the key to it remaining that way. (Even if sometimes the purpose is “let’s just free-form play with as many things as possible”.)

I think it reflects a similar notion I saw floating around the forum recently along the lines of not always needing to use your gear to its maximum potential, or was it more like being ok with using a complex tool for a simple job… Anyway, clearly at any given moment I’m ignoring the vast majority of the sound-making tools available to me - but approached with focus, the studio as a whole becomes an instrument I consistently get a lot out of.

The quick way out of choice paralysis is making a choice! Even if it’s arbitrary sometimes.

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#178

My thoughts are that eurorack can be done with only a few modules. Norns + er-301 + Teletype + some fun crap. You can do so so so so much with this. I feel like we spend more money and time researching features we already have in our setups but have yet to unlock through simple craft. But hey… art becomes auxiliary to sales in our current economy.

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#179

During Christmas 2018 I had a bit of time off recovering from ICL eye surgery (just vision correction) and decided to build a DIY modular case, and since then I’ve built a bunch of DIY modules (and bought a couple of retail modules too). I feel like I’ve learnt a lot through the process, and my musical toolbox has grown a lot since then this way. However I can relate to the feeling of not using all these new tools to their full potential, or having built a few modules faster than I can learn to use all the ones I already have.

Having built a Fates as well, and also buying a crow, I want to put time into learning to write scripts for these. It’s like I keep acquiring/building gear as long as I can justify it by thinking that this gear will teach me something even outside the music realm (coding/raspberry Pi/electronics, etc), but realistically I don’t end up having the time to devote to everything.

Seems like a depth year is indeed what I need, but in reality this feeling of ‘Oh but buying/building this new thing will be so educational’ doesn’t go away easily.

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#180

I’m going slightly against the grain of this thread & starting to feel like I need to buy more stuff.

I got rid of all of my hardware in the mid-2000s & have been fairly happily all software since then. For some reason in the last ~6 months though I’ve started to feel very dissatisfied with this - the usual complaints, don’t want to look at a screen again after using one at work, doesn’t really feel like an instrument, too many possibilities etc etc.

I like the idea of modular, but don’t really have the resources to get into it so I’m wondering if trading in a few bits of software/controllers etc & getting a nicely featured semi-modular would scratch my itch?

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#181

I just reluctantly put my DSI Rev 2 on eBay, in preparation for emigrating to NZ in the new year. This stuff can be surprisingly hard when you don’t want to do it.

I’ve been into making music since forever on the cheapest gear going, but over the last 3 years I put real effort into building up a small studio with some choice pieces I’d wanted for a long time: Prophet Rev 2 (had gas’d after the 08 for quite a while), Vermona DRM, RME interface, Neumann KH120’s, couple guitars / mics, etc… It’s a relatively small setup, but a dream one for me.

However, that dream setup has been packed up and moved to six different houses over the past three years (student / shared accomodation / awful landlords, etc…), and I’ve never really had the space or the privacy to enjoy this stuff fully.

Until life becomes more settled, it seems software / laptop / headphones is the way to go for me, though I’m hesitant to invest too much money in software. Maybe a depth year into Supercollider might be a good antidote? We’ll see.

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#182

At the moment, my setup is one of the biggest I ever had, but I sold almost everything twice before and it always felt very freeing. I am still dreaming of a super minimal hardware setup, but for several reasons that is not really an option right now. Yet, I compensate with buildig various small-ish setups out of my gear and work with these for a while.

Besides hardware, I absolutely hated having too many software instruments and fx. So over the last 1-2 years, I sold most of the software that allowed license transfer and simply deinstalled everything else I disliked but couldn’t sell. So now I have just Ableton, Aalto, Kaivo, Kontakt and Ozone. And it feels really great.

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#183

For what it’s worth, my MS-20 Mini scratches a lot of itches in that regard and definitely feels like it’s an instrument that I will never reach the bottom of.

Where many people find innovative sequencing options in modular or Elektron units, I tend to use the iPad. It’s not the same, I’m sure, but, when allied with my DAW and external synths and pedals, it feels like it covers all bases (certainly enough for me to happily commit to a depth year & feel very excited about the prospect).

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#184

I sold a huge amount of modular stuff earlier this year (mainly Serge) – realized how much I missed it, then basically bought equivalent stuff again (again Serge), especially when the opportunity to own a 1973 system came up. A lot of pointless churn that I’m somewhat embarrassed about but in the process I did change… so I’m not unhappy where things ended up.

In really committing myself to the limitations of the early designs, plus doing all sequencing/composition live at the modular itself, I’ve taken major steps forward. I couldn’t really see this path with my old setup.

The major things I learned were the benefits of converting software to hardware and learning to work with the hardware on a very intimate, low-level basis, to free myself from ‘note-level’ abstractions and other artifacts of working with MIDI.

Apart from this, and to push the concept even further, I’ve been planning a project for 2020 which is to get rid of the computer entirely and learn to work with tape. Here my biggest worry is finding replacements for the great Valhalla effects. I know what I should do but it’s not cheap, especially since I’ll avoid gear unless 1) parts are still obtainable and 2) I can identify someone who’s currently servicing it, which rules out most of the Lexicon stuff.

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#185

Going the opposite route. I decided as of last Summer not to sell anything.

For years I’ve had the mindset of only keeping what I use. If something went unused or I felt that I needed to exchange some things for others I would do it without hesitation. Nothing was safe. That said my set-up is pretty minimal. I have a Music Easel, another DIY 2 row 4u buchla case with clones and 1979 modules, grid for computer based MLR looping (would go Norns but love recording at 24/48 with my Apogee Element- may do it some day), and a small euro side car with DLD, Field Kit, Warps, Erica Pico EG and I/O modules, and a Synovatron format converter. Recently got an OM-1 Cassette Synthesizer but that is literally it. I record to tape. I use it for improvisation and I haven’t sold anything for 6 months. I plan to keep this going. I felt like an addict at first and still struggle with keeping everything. My theory is that I made the decision to purchase for good reason and I only want to master the gear I have. I might as well name them because they are part of the family now.

Update: got a Norns Shield kit. Excited to embark on this journey.

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#186

I have never sold my soul! :raised_hands:
(sorry, i have nothing relevant to add here, this thread simply inspired me to shout with joy over that, and now i’m done :walking_man:)

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#187

I have rented my soul out a few times! Gotta pay the rent somehow.

January 1st, 2020 finds us about 12,000 pounds lighter, possession-wise, than a year ago: Most of that was the motorhome, but I’ve been on a sales tear and general de-acquisition kick since last spring.

It feels good.

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#188

Nietzsche has a passage on religious wars:

Religious wars start only after the more refined quarrels between sects have refined reason in general to the point where even the mob becomes subtle and takes trifles seriously, and actually considers it possible that the “eternal salvation of the soul” may hinge on small differences between concepts.

Anyway lol…

I sold most of my stuff in 2019.

I kept Mannequins (that’s for life), Teletype (which I currently have swapped out for Marbles), and a couple LPGs (some people drink wine…). Oh and my MFB Tanzbär — that’s not going anywhere.

I find myself back to where I was a decade ago — staring at a cheap laptop hooked up to an even cheaper MIDI controller.

I don’t regret any of it. I’ve come to understand that instruments are forged in the shape of thought — and over the past decade I have collected innumerable such ideas, designs, and patterns.

In fact the very notion of buying and selling belies the significance of the things we surround ourselves with — namely the sediment, impression, outline they leave in us once they are gone. Because only out of sediment do new things grow.

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#189

yes I did! i sold every hardware synthesizer, my ipad, my amps, my professional speakers.

all i’m going to work with for 2020 is ik multimedias syntronik, loaded with 60 gigs of analog synth samples. in ableton with a midi keyboard. i’m going to use my pc speaker which i’ve had for years and years so i know it really well, plus it gives a good realistic listening scenario for people listening on phone or bluetooth speakers.

how nice. nothing to think about! :slight_smile:

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#190

I love this viewpoint.

While I’ve not yet taken the plunge and sold everything, my time with modular (and electronic music focused hardware in general), has wildly impacted my approach whenever I work in the box these days, and that is something I’ll never lose :slight_smile:

Very well said.

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#191

Music stuff has really taken a back seat for me over the last two and a half years - an MA, a big move back home after five years away, and my first time in consistent work - so while I didn’t sell everything, I did sell almost everything. I still have just under 9U of modules in various smaller cases, my Monome stuff and a Plumbutter, which, written down, sounds like a lot more than it feels like it is. Having it all around and not in consistent use sometimes gives me some anxiety and guilt that I’m not utilising these amazing tools, but it’s something I’m going to try to work on this year. That is, I’d like to work on using it more, and I’d also like to work on not feeling guilty about not using it. Life is too short.

I’ll be doing a depth year for 2020 on a number of fronts: music stuff (easy, ha), board games (slightly more difficult), clothes (as much as is practically possible), and wine (I only actually own like 3 cases, but still…). I think with all of these things, not consuming the media surrounding them makes not buying stuff a thousand times easier. Don’t get caught in the rat race guys. Let’s make a depth year moral support thread.

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