No New Gear Year 2023 AKA NGNY 2023

that is true as I waited forever for Rytm MK2 to go on sale and when it did last year I bought one. Same for Oberheim. This year no gear is my mantra. I have so much to learn and master it will take me several years before I can realistically justify buying another synth. Just the Virus is a beast by itself.

Frown upon me. Today I bought a USB-C to USB-B cable to directly connect my Syntakt with my laptop. My primary production setup for the year is centred around the Syntakt and a performance template in Ableton Live, and this means I can use the setup more portably. I was surprised I didn’t have the cable already!

I am trying not to indulge in too much ‘setup’, which is an aspect of GAS - always wanting to tweak the setup and make it ‘perfect’ instead of just getting in there. So it made me feel bad that I felt I needed this cable to ‘optimize’ my setup. Nevertheless, I grabbed the cheap cable and will take it as a lesson.

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same here well having to learn Logic 10.7 and relearn Ableton will take away G.A.S. for at least a few years and adding mastery of synths as well as learning the black art of mastering, mixing, gain staging and production as well.

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did well for 2 years and in December I purchased polyend tracker…and Fors Opal plus a host of sample packs including tutorials .
Back to reset and focus on the tutorial ( mixing and mastering, and music theory )

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I think you mean your new printer cable also magically works with the Syntakt, who could possibly have imagined, what a gosh-darn coincidental accidentally random-crazy-happenstance.

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In the spirit of NGNY I’m heading deep down the learning rabbit-hole of what I already have…starting with Logic Pro. This has forced me to go back to first principles and learning keyboard short-cuts which is already paying dividends…why didn’t I learn these in my first week of GarageBand/Logic Pro?!!

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To be fair, I’ve felt an attraction to / desire for a Digitakt for more than a few weeks now. But I gear you. (The irony of my keyboard autocorrecting hear to gear.)

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I already sold my Hydrasynth Explorer, and I’m putting my Korg Minilogue XD up for sale as well. I will eventually sell my MPC Live 2 as well, just need to get all songs exported first which is a massive project in itself.

But I’d honestly never buy a shiny new Digitakt. They’re overpriced if you ask me. $/€ 500 is the sweet spot for me and they’re relatively easy to come by. Bought my Syntakt second hand too and I’m convinced that’s the way to purchase these things since it’s a journey of exploration and figuring out what you actually like.

Luckily the seller isn’t even responsive so I probably will hold off on buying the used Digitakt whether I want it or not.

Anyway, I was serious with my question about the need for an AA-like focus: is this the thread where we all wear the collective anti-GAS hat and help each other out when someone is close to hitting the purchase button? If so, give me your top 3 reasons why the Digitakt sucks for me!

That’s the way I see it.

First, you would break your commitment. You’ve spotted an addiction, you want out.

Secondly: you already have enough gear to make ace music.

Thirdly: only 11 months to hold on!

:sweat_smile:

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If you buy it we won’t be mad at you, just very, very ,very disappointed. :rofl:

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Used is the way to go for sure.
Reasons to not
1 it’s not an octatrack!
2 see 1
3 dig deep on what you got, it’s the spiritual high ground.

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Thanks for playing! Since I’m the focal point, I get to not wear the anti-GAS hat:

I’d say I’m already out of the addiction phase. (Famous last words.) Meaning, I’ve learned a lot more about what I actually like using, which eliminates 90% of all gear out there. I know I love sampling, but I don’t love the MPC as a pure sampler. It’s a DAW to me and I don’t need that.

Thanks, but you don’t know that. :blush: Maybe I need a Digitakt. :joy:

Time flies. :see_no_evil:

I was just about to post the same…
Since boxing my gear, as I need to focus on a job…getting a fucking job…I found I can’t stop making sounds cold turkey. And as I use a computer for what I do, and as Logic is RIGHT THERE, I can’t help but fire it up here and there, and fiddle with it.

I’ve only ever used it to record and do some audio processing. I was mucking about with Alchemy…the presets are meh, but holy shit it does a lot. And sounds really good. Had no idea it could do some “granular” stuff with audio you can stick into it. And Quick Sampler is really good :neutral_face: WHICH, while I sit there tinkering, makes me wonder what a music hobbiest like me, is doing with any gear at all. Logic is pretty sweet.

I’m sure there is so much more in there that I am completely unaware of [using Logic 20 years or so :man_facepalming:t6:]

you can always learn something

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I find that hardware adds a dimension of fun and it forces me to not polish every little detail of a song until I’m bored with it. It also makes for much more engaging Youtube jams compared to e.g. a song with a static image.

But if you just want to make music, absolutely nothing beats a daw.

Oh of course…I agree with that 100%
The gear itself can offer inspiration to get to making sounds.

But I’m coming to a realization that someone at my competence level with music doesn’t really need what I have.
It’s a disappointing thought, but true.
As capable as I’m finding the stuff in Logic, it kinda crushed me a little.

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That series was a nice intro to Logic for me. The thing I regret about Logic is going straight to third-party VSTs. There is so much stock stuff that you could probably spend all of NGNY just exploring that and never get bored. Sounds like a pretty good way to fight off GAS to me. Good luck!

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The problem with this pledge for me is that I always want to buy something for myself in the lead up to the holidays as a reward for getting through the year.

Yes - intervention attempts highly possible :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’m not taking part (as I’ve said before) but thought my night might be inspiration for some of you. So, I love the subharmonic chord generation of the Subharmonicon (and miss it), then I remembered that a similar technique can be done on 0-Coast (which I also miss). So I watched a couple of videos on how it’s achieved on 0-Coast, opened up Bitwig and created the exact same concept in the Grid (which I already own). I’m so happy and my GAS for my former gear is totally alleviated. I’ll post my proof of concept in Current Sounds later on. Anyway, yey me! And maybe your current gear can do surprising things if you approach it from another angle? Food for thought. Depth year etc

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I didn’t know that about 0-Coast, but now I know what I’ll be searching for on YouTube.

I’ve always lusted after a subharmonicon as it was a decision to either buy the Moog trio vs Make Noise trio. I went for Make Noise but I can’t shake the curiosity as I’ve never tried the Moogs.

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