I’m in, with the caveat that this is about no new gear for personal use. I run a rehearsal/residency space that needs a new PA and I’m premiering a new theatre piece in June that I will likely need to purchase some equipment and/or software for. I would also like to make an exception for things like cables, stands, and road cases.
For me, personally, I also want to commit to not selling anything unless I actually need the money. For me, selling often leads to regret which then leads to more buying. I have a few things that are up for sale here and on Reverb, but after that I’d like to keep my gear the same for the next year.
I’d love to see some synth youtuber try this, change their focus from gear to technique for a year. Some have great things to teach but unfortunately focus too much on reviews and gear display.
Would be awesome for sure. But I get that it’s A LOT more work AND (usually) fewer views than a half-hearted first 20 mins with a new synth, which may be even sponsored by the synth manufacturer. Sad but that’s the way it goes.
If I may confess a little too much, this here is interesting timing for me.
While I love fawning over new gear with you fine folk and even trying some myself, I’ve also wanted to really make quality/quantity a much bigger goal for myself too.
Since I got enthused to try and share my ventures in electronic music, I generally felt a pressure to record and share something weekly or biweekly if I could. maybe it’s seeing the stats and analytics… I don’t remember exactly what got me into that mentality but bleh.
Numbers are silly. Why try and quantify something I know I love.
Instead of trying to keep up with this self-imposed pressure churning out sometimes jams I wished I had polished more, I decided recently to really spend quality time with the gear that I have and am really gelling with.
I don’t believe in keeping up with the content machine side of the internet anymore. I’ll just record when I’m really ready for now on.
I love this NoGear New Year idea.
Shoot, I’m small fry! Full time job and kids; music is my meditation to escape sometimes and I don’t want to lose that by getting wrapped up in algorithm chasing. But the little bits of feedback feel nice and validate the pricey hobby in ways.
I WISH I was sponsored for anything since music is a fun and special (if a little expensive) hobby for me, but I want to add from my limited viewpoint: this is absolutely true if you care about view counts and “internet points.” The videos I’ve uploaded that have a wildly larger amount of views benefited greatly from how recently a device hit retail. I’m sure it’s a much bigger deal for more showcase, tutorial and review oriented channels.
This thread has already had the interesting effect, of making me look at the gear I own, with a new kind of affection. I’m very excited to see, where the experiment takes all of us.
i already had enough of NoGear years — and they were rather unhappy or at least boring.
i don’t need much new gear (just one spare and one upgrade) for now, but i also don’t mind happy occasions and accidents to let something interesting come.
