Why are we more interested in buying gear than using it?

The Lounge
#103

I think a lot of people who get into hardware are reacting to the lack of inspiration felt staring at an empty DAW project. Hardware can feel more inspiring because it is engaging more of your senses, but still has its own “blank canvas” problems - you get a loop going, but where do you go from there? I don’t think this bit of friction makes people consciously think the answer is “more gear” - but the frustration can certainly leave one open to the influence of marketing.

Really, very few people can come up with a fully fleshed out, creative idea out of thin air. Most of us would do better by composing in a way where we are reacting creatively to something pre-defined - maybe a song structure, a sample, or even non-musical content.

Here’s a video from Analog Kitchen showing how you can get a composition going using familiar elements from popular songs.

GAS perpetuates because there is so much marketing content out there, and comparatively little content out there to teach us how creativity works. It’s so bad, that even in this thread, many responses call out GAS as a means to “hide” a “lack of creativity.” I don’t think there are too many people spending thousands on music gear because they “lack” creativity - they just don’t know how to best utilize their creative energy.

3 Likes
#104

I think we go to YouTube to see good video of people which take a gear and make great compositions.
It is filmed in a way where it look to be spontaneous.
So we feel in a confortable place looking at this.

Promo video/review are made of people which has joy playing with gears. They are not sad playing them.

We love this energy on those video moment.

And… and… when we take a gear or two in front of us. Sometimes it’s just a blank sheet in front of us. Which is frustrating.

But take some step back from that. Music is like cooking. If you open your fridge and you don’t know what to cook, you feel bad. But when you have your idea settle before doing it, it’s quite simple….

After years, I see cooking and making music both similar. You don’t need the Magixmix 5000 or the super cooking 4000 kit to make a good thing. That does not help. What you just need is just doing the same shit as yesterday with a bit of this and that. Something you know you master, and which make you happy. Just that ( if you are hobbyist of course ).

1 Like
#105

honestly, coming from the modular world, i see it as quite a healthy thing within moderation. i see a lot of the gear being like textbooks. i was fascinated by the mannequins/monome stuff. i learned so much from owning them - learned how to code, got into supercollider, learned all about serge style patch programmability. plus they sounded amazing. once i felt like i could explain it all to a 5 year old, i realized i could live without them, and moved onto other gear that i also learned a lot from. seeing what has remained for a long time during this process has also been illuminating. it brings me joy, and connects my work and my intentions by expanding my knowledge and connection to sound. the gear is just a means to an end to feeling excited and energized about creating.

5 Likes
#106

I did this same thing with astronomy gear. Spent thousands but also bought and sold like crazy…for 5 years. Now I do it with music gear…i miss the days I was a poor student…sometimes.

#107

From an economics point of view, everything is accessible now. Cost wise.

There was a time things weren’t and people probably didn’t buy gear on a whim.

The cost of buying used to be really high so you probably had to make the most with what you bought. The investment was just too great not to.

Today. A couple hundred dollars here and there, for some, doesn’t equal that big of an investment. Hence. We buy gear we don’t even use or put the time into learning.

Raise the price of gear and people will buy less. But the gear they buy, will get used.

6 Likes
#108

and discover how much good free software to use is way to bridge the gap and avoid buying anything else. I never realized how many incredible free stock effects and tools were in new versions of Ableton Live 11 and Logic Pro X. Like Linn Drum and DMX vintage drum kits mandatory for synthwave that cost a fortune to buy the real Linn Drum for example are free now in Ableton plugin. So think I can use those with some pads and leads from Virus hardware.

1 Like
#109

I appreciate the thrust of this thread and the reflections on creativity, but it frustrates me to see the occasional post implying that GAS is somehow an individual failure, or that the drive to acquisition, consumption, and novelty is somehow part of human nature. The reality is that millions of dollars are being spent to make us want new stuff. We don’t exist in some neutral place where “user + tool + creativity = music” but a consumer niche within a hyper-financialized and attention-mining capitalism, where even wondering aloud whether a new synth might be fun or useful or simply cool triggers a deluge of advertisements straight to your eyeballs. Why do we buy stuff rather than use it? Because only the former part makes someone money.

4 Likes
#110

But it is more than Capitalist Reality, it is more than marketing budgets.

Yes there are patterns of work-life balance and emotional grind that drain persons of time and energy to use what they have, or small wealth that persons are encouraged to use on products.

It is not just guitars or camera lenses. Is it materially different if we are buying from hobbyists with no marketing budget?

Obviously i do not ascribe to the sinner/saint dichotomy of GAS. “Blame” does not help if you’re only looking at this from the lens of some decentralized conspiracy of marketroids.

It is not about “personal responsibility” in a patronizing sense either.

But to look outside of your current lens you need to acknowledge your relationship with stuff. The magical thinking is created from within, which is why no marketers are needed! The hype is coming from inside the studio…

Any instrument can be used to make music.

That we may acquire more than we strictly, functionally need- if we blame marketing we are doomed to fail as consistently as believing overconsumption to be endemic to human existence. Marketing of small products by people who are basically peers reminds us of cool things and ideas.

It is us who engage in magical thinking and rapid priority shifting to learn new gear and run through less productive experiments along the way… or to place these objects in stasis until we’ve gone through some backlog of stuff.

If we want to address our relationship with things, it is between us and us, throwing up a fist and focusing on the “marketing” class is not going to address our misprioritizations of life energy.

Basically, kinder self-honesty in the time domain could help us tune our impulses and antipatterns more than merely acknowledging whatever form of economic Realism imposed on us from birth, “productivity” until death.

Sure, we can step back and understand the vast amount of products being sold even if markets and music making equipment will exist under less exploitative systems. But the lack of individual focus on marketing is probably not why people get stuck in GAS loops.

My opinion of course! Mostly giving a different vantage point based on my own struggles.

6 Likes
#111

This is exactly why my rack gear is now a closed system with pre wired FX, mixers and midi that I patch in small desktop setups into.

#112

Hoarding gear is moar fun than hoarding money.

7 Likes
#113

Collecting gear and making music are two hobbies that sometimes intersect.

18 Likes
#114

I legit wish that my workflow was improved by patchbays (digitally controlled or physical.)

I still own a few Samson S-Patch plus bays, i tried out a SSL X-Patch, but keeping a clean desk and re-routing on the fly each time is how I seem to be most productive. Cognitive energy to get behind the desk each time, sure.

But the energy of visualizing routing and developing complicated spreadsheets with possibilities, enumerating I/O of each item i own, the additional mass of cables to move around as i go (waiting to get enough XLR to TRS connectors or DB25 snakes…) always seemed to make me less productive than more.

I suppose the venting is still about GAS?

I have a main interface and laptop, that one is generally not being re-wired very often.

I’ve also got an older laptop and a cheap interface that i have additional space for with “backlog” items that i’m not as fast with yet, don’t have mastered, and i can keep the setup for experimentation, tearing down in an instant.

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#115

don’t hate the player, hate the game :joy:

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#116

right? well I am happy with my setup and no need to buy anything else for years. Taxes, home repairs and funding a new car will take my cash anyways the next several years. Forces me to master my instruments and produce an album or two so all good. Just the Rytm is super deep for making entire albums of music as is my Virus TI2. I did get on the Cirklon 3 year wait list again as I would like another master brain sequencer and the new H90 pedal would be great additions to my setups.

#117

Once I get the patchbays labeled, it’ll be much better. Right now I have a Google Sheet with the layout but it’s still not so bad.

This setup has for me been the best of both worlds, so I’ll re-route a small setup with a portable mixer, and if I need to connect it up to the rack, it’s just another quick step in that setup process. Takes me about 5 minutes now to get going which is vastly superior to the hours I used to spend.

Edit: and focusing on small setups, as many of you know, has helped me be more focused and productive too.

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#118

It really is! I have absolutely no respect for money, but I love musical instruments.

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#119

Possibility and potential are often more exciting than the present!

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#120

I used to love the thrill of getting new gear. It was like another world, every piece of kit I tried to learn.

Now, I’m exhausted just thinking about learning something new. I either explore stuff that’s already familiar to me somehow (like a new Chase Bliss pedal, since I know their brand quite well now) or just dig deeper into what I got. Not because I’m not the gas kind of type - I am - but I’m just too lazy to be bothered these days.

7 Likes
#121

…there are humans who like to work…and humans who like to collect…
people who think outside of the box…and people who think inside of the box…

it’s like everywhere else…we gotto get the balance right…creator mindset vs consumer mindset…

1 Like
#122

I think the times during which I’m more interested in buying gear are those where I am between projects, being lazy, or am bored with current options (often a result of laziness). For those with disposable income, it’s much easier to buy a thing than it is to overcome the temporary laziness, and you get the reward of that sweet, sweet, dopamine hit.

Also, the easy availability of credit makes this even more tempting, but it’s also a trap, and one which I got sucked into briefly and am still sometimes tempted by.

I don’t know if I am actually more interested in buying gear than making overall though, and like anything, there is a balance. A new device can be inspiring and open up new creative possibilities that were untapped before in other workflows or UIs. I think experimentation is good, within healthy bounds.

This year as I’ve sold off a bunch of stuff I bought over the past few years, I’m realizing how relatively easy it is to also sell or trade gear. I probably won’t buy as much new any more if there is something I’d like to try out, and am going to practice a harder one-per-device-type rule, excluding some rare or unique items, going forward.

1 Like