Push 2 (sold)
DN (sold)
Volca Drum (sold)
M:C (sold)
ND3P (still have it, won’t sell it)
A4 (sold)
Hydrasynth (still have it, won’t sell it)
AR (sold)
DN again (sold)
And then Push 2 again right now.
I’m feeling like I have accomplished a full circle.
I’m also feeling like it was a lot of time waisted but now I finally know what I want and don’t want in terms of hardware/software. So I won’t start another circle and I will try to be more productive with what I have (at least this year…).
It is funny but fascinating how many ways there are for creating art. The first ten years from about 2003 I made electronic music I only used software VSTs. It was kinda pioneer times then.
Then I wanted to touch instruments again (I´m a guitarist, too), so I bought an used VirusTI2 that I use till now. Some years ago I started experimenting with the then new but good small synths like the Arturias and some Behringers. Until Elektron released Overbridge (best of both worlds for me). Now I own and use AR,A4, DT, DN and ST every day. Sometimes the Virus. The Midi only synths I have I used not once in the last year.
So the other way round. Overbridge made me buy everything that uses it (and a model:samples for noodling). But I never sold any synth (ok, all of them are cheap except the Virus)).
I feel complete and happy. Until Elektron releases something new I fear. I´m not a fanboy, but they closed a search.
I think the most important thing is to just find something that fits your needs and your creativity. Instruments are just tools.
circles are critical part of my workflow.
because rotating gear is fun.
that’s why there is so much redundancy in my gear list.
i just realized there’s no need to sell/buy gear to rotate it
I made music entirely in software for ten years, then added guitar every now and then for another eight years before I got my first real synths.
Now, eight years after that, I’m thinking of getting Ableton because it’s nice to start a track by idly poking Note on my ipad, transferring it over to Ableton, saving it to Google Drive and being able to not only flesh it out on my laptop in the loungeroom, but also open it on my studio computer and add some hardware synths to it.
I’m thinking I’ll aim towards ultimately having a pretty lean hardware setup but I can’t decide what to get rid of
I just got into gear in the past year, and I didn’t want to go through trial and error.
I bought all modern classics that I’ll never sell, but the caveat is that they all have distinctive sounds, so it sounds identifiable. Not that it’s a bad thing.
But I also experience a full circle. Since I have more gear than time, I will forget about something like the Mother32, and then go back to semi modular analog gear for a couple weeks before going somewhere else.
I started years ago (early 90s) with Ableton + Push2, but I wanted to move away from the computer, so I bought my first synth (Korg Minilogue OG). Then I went bananas in buying more stuff. First smaller synths until I finally decided to plunge into a very decent synth: Elektron Analog Four MkII.
I kept on buying (all Elektrons + lot of ‘bigger’ machines) until end of 2021 until I had way to many synths/options, so my focus was going nowhere.
End 2022 I started to sell a lot of stuff, mainly because I realized for me I need more focus and since I really like the Elektron workflow: I kept all my Elektrons (except the Models) and I will keep some synth I will probably never sell (like Subsequent 37, Hydrasynth, …).
Looking back, I kind of feel that I needed to have TOO MUCH gear to be able to realise that I actually don’t need that much stuff and that it actually became a blocking factor. And what I also learned: if you buy decent stuff, the value remains. I think I only ‘lost’ like 500 euro over gear that I bought and sold again in the last 5 years. And I now know the other synths, I no longer miss them and I had quite a bit of fun. So money well spent and it got me where I want to be now.
