I had a bit of a gambling problem back in the day and what I’ve just been doing with Eurorack feels very similar. Lots of dopamine peaks and troughs and lots of money pissed up the wall.
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Thanks for sharing, but like, wouldn’t keeping just a little crack around be good since it would go so well with your Pro 2? 
Can relate on many levels, especially having gotten into modular earlier this year. It’s a very back and forth relationship that’s easy to see is a reflection of my mental health.
The initial euphoria ended after a month or so and now I often wonder whether I want to keep around such a large and messy monosynth when 95% of the time I’m productive it’s just using Ableton or an Elektron.
I guess it’s good I’m at a point where there aren’t really any appealing alternatives, and I feel I’ve found all the modules I’d want so I might as well keep it but my enjoyment of it seems to depend a lot on my mood. Thankfully my partner is supportive and good at reminding me of why I have it, but it’s hard to not think about how much simpler life might be with something like a Prophet-5.
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Hopefully the monetary loss is minimal and whatever £ you lose was worth the learning experience - you definitely made some nice tracks along the way and had fun, learned new things etc, hiring the gear would probably have cost more.
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For a couple of years I’ve been considering modular. I can basically see a whole lot of myself in elements of what you’ve written, particularly in the research bit.
I don’t think it would be good for me - so I’ll stay out of it… genuinely - thanks. You’ve probably saved me money I don’t have and a relationship I do with this post.
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This is very much the case.
Like I said, it’s no big deal, no-one is gonna starve.
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Ive had similar many times. We are moving house and last night my wife said about getting new wardrobes and i said why waste money when we can just paint the old one. I had just paused the 5th video id watched about modules costing hundreds of pounds to make my bass modules sound slightly warmer. Bass sounds I hadn’t even made yet and I’m trying to make them sound better so i can record them and not one person will think oh that bass sounds marginally better than other basses I’ve been listening to.
Modules i cant afford but I’m convinced i need
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shit we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like 
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My wife came out of her office this morning and that’s the first thing she said.
She said, “it looks much less impressive without your modular there, but I guess that’s half the point”.
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Time to get into houseplants my boy 
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I personally feel like that is a really important box to check, because GAS can also be a real creativity killer.
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if buying synths is cocaine, then eurorack is crack: GAS in small doses, every small piece added gives a nice cozy rush of dopamine but it’s never finished, never enough.
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I’m glad you found something to keep that brings you some degree of joy, and that the kids are well cared for.
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Well done.
And.
There is always … Pro 3, Prophet 5, 6, 10,…
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Budgeting - and other “business” tools can be very effective or even critical for expensive hobbies. Absolute value of “expensive” doesn’t matter - what matters is that you remain in control when costs go above your typical casual spend.
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You mean besides keeping the accumulated price display turned on in ModularGrid?
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And if you don’t see it in a parent, they’re either very good at masking or there might be a difficult conversation to be had. 
Joking aside, I can relate both to the undiagnosed autism (I need a kick up the arse to start that whole process) and the added stress that eurorack can contribute (I go through phases of wanting to sell the lot too). Wishing you the best of luck with the divestment and the creative limitations that it brings.
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That’s a good start.
Before I bought my sailboat, I spent six months or so building budgets in Excel, talking to other boat owners, and scouring Craigslist and the sailing equivalent to GearSpace and Reverb.
After I bought the boat, I bought a “fireproof” folder to keep important documentation in, and dropped every receipt into a large envelope that I kept near my toolbag. Budget review consisted of taking three small shipping boxes and tossing receipts into the “no boat stuff”, “mixed boat and non-boat” and “pure boat” receipts. Took maybe 15 minutes to sort and double check.
“Unfortunately”, a bunch of my synths spiked in value, so if I objectively compare GAS with careful boat ownership, GAS has been more financially productive. In terms of mental health, though, sailing is amazing for me and covers a lot of the same ground as making music and going clubbing does.
Eating more red meat and doing physical labor in the sun have been the highest impact mental health (and physical) improvements for me. YMMV, and diet in particular is extremely personal.
Back to accounting - I think you just need to find a process that keeps you within safe limits, but isn’t so burdensome that you don’t actually do it. Hobbies don’t need GAAP accounting.
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yeah, but at least crack is cheaper than coke.
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I got out of modular a few years ago for similar reasons. It just wasn’t productive or fun for me anymore. I felt like I was always one more module, or a slightly larger case away from my perfect setup. Too much time wasted on Modular Grid. And while I loved patching and exploring, it was hard to settle on something that I wanted to record. I was always tweaking.
I sold it all and got back into standard closed system synths. It was a major spark to my creativity to go back to creating within the defined limits of what that synth manufacturer had envisioned. I also got more into semi-modular. Most of them have normalled paths, so I can use them without patching. But if I want to patch, then it is more about the love of patching, than the need to patch.
I do still have a few modules, but it is not about building the perfect system that I was after once upon a time, it’s just a few modules in a tiny case to add to or augment the semi-modular synths that I have.
We live in great times, with many options. I feel the best thing an artist can do is to figure out what setup works for them, and to get a nice workflow going.
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