Confession time! I caught myself going over to the dark side again with the deadline looming. Went on YouTube last night looking for a cheap drum machine. Nothing seemed right. Anyway, I woke up today thinking what the fuck am I doing? I have an Octatrack! So, just because it’s 97% off the whole Samples From Mars collection, I got the lot to ward off any need for a drum machine over the next year (or ever?) Now I’m spending my night carefully curating and chaining just enough hits for my needs with not a single sample more than necessary. Anyway, thought I’d share 
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That’s the spirit!
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Yup. Born in 1963.
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I did the same thing as one of my last purchases of the year with the same idea–I get a whole bunch of “hardware” gear (including all kinds of russian synths I’ve never heard of), to keep my curiosity in check.
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I picked up that once!
One of the things I’m doing as a part of my early spring cleaning is to get my samples actually organized for use. Hoarding- not just for physical gear!
I can take the time to delete anything I’m not ever going to use or need.
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Strategy works. I don’t feel like spending for a while 
FWIW, this is roughly the equivalent of a Digitone.
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Nice to meet you.
You too!
This is a fantastic collection, I got it last year and I’m still working my way through the essential WAVs folder on my OT, so much to go at even just in that one section with the OTs mangling capabilities.
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Yeah, I’m really appreciating the curated 16 hit kits in there – with OctaChainer, they’re perfect. I really hate choice paralysis so having a bunch of stuff already collected into a ready-made kit really helps me. After all, once I’ve bitcrushed and filtered everything, the raw samples chosen matter very little. I haven’t even got beyond the clean 606 kit yet to be honest. Having too much fun
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I bought the entire collection too recently. Some very usable synth ones.
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Exactly.
How I’m taking NGNY is less about the monetary cost (though there is that!) so much as any practices that keep in my way of going “deep”. Sometimes that’s buying new synths, sometimes that’s having too many samples, sometimes it’s too many free vsts or even patches!
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Same here. I’m glad others have bonded with that SFM collection. I got it a few years back but for me it was just way too much to process, even when making multiple sampled instruments out of it in Logic.
I think @thermionic and I are on the same wavelength. I find it’s all part of the same over consuming pattern for me. Too much stuff just gets in the way for me, whether digital or real.
Also, not judging @craig! I seriously hope you enjoy it. I think anything people use is a great purchase and it sounds like you have a good plan for it!
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Ha, don’t you worry. I will cut that collection down to the 30-40 most useful hits in no time
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That’s not a confession! That’s a modest and well considered investment that will set you up well for the coming year… A confession would be something like “I’ve just sold a synth and so I’ve got the funds available and getting an OT again would be good to keep me occupied next year” which is something that I’m definitely not doing, oh no siree, not me. Not at all… honest guv, and make no mistake. 
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I am on board with this. Fortunately though I feel like my setup has reached it’s pinnacle and there’s not much else I want, nor many gaps in sound or process, so I don’t anticipate there being any unexpected acquisitions. I guess if Roland released an updated TR8S I might be in trouble (depending on its features), but even still, I’ll make my goal a negative gear new year, to finally sell off the few pieces collecting dust in the closet.
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That sounds like a really good goal.
One thing I’m interested in seeing is if putting a one-year freeze on buying helps clarify what in my studio I really don’t need. There are a couple of things I’ve considered selling and I want to give them another chance next year before deciding if I want to get rid of them. If I am able to stick this challenge out, I’ll probably do a clean out sometime next year.
I’m also interested to see if some of things in the back of my head that I’m currently interested in, but not buying, like a nylon string acoustic guitar, are things I’ll still want in 2023. I currently don’t play enough of my two electrics to justify an acoustic, but if I use this year to play/record more guitar and learn more about mic’ing instruments, I could justify it.
Maybe it would be an interesting experiment to list up the things we are tempted by, and see if that stuff really interests us after waiting. That might give us some insight into impulse buying. Like if those purchases would have been good ones or just stuff we probably wouldn’t have used/kept. (It is true you don’t know if you bond with something before having it, but for some things it would maybe be clear it would have been a bad idea, especially if it’s something that’s popular now but quickly falls out of favor, like the reverb flavor of the month).
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LIke, a separate thread, “What are your purchasing plans for 2023?”
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You make some really good points. I’m coming up to three years on here and I can mention numerous bits of gear that got loads of hype and positive feedback around their announcement and launch, which made me watch loads of reviews and think about spending cash I don’t have to join the party, but after a couple of months the thread dies down and I end up questioning why I even considered X, Y, Z in the first place. Luckily, I don’t have any money, otherwise I’d be a gear buying (and probably very depressed) monster.
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As a grizzled two-decade veteran of gear forums, I’ve learned the hard way. I’ve seen so many best reverbs or guitar pedals ever (and got caught up in the hype). Haha.
I mostly learned my lesson until I went ITB and discovered a whole other world of “best things ever” I didn’t know anything about. Old habits die hard.
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