How to (Not) Buy a Synthesizer
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- čas přidán 11. 08. 2022
- I promise this isn't clickbait. I just want to help.
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I like Tim Heckers approach which is have a buying/acquiring period, then enact a buying ban and go to the cabin in the woods and make an album with it all, then return and lift the ban. Buying stuff is definitely addictive and becomes cyclic, Euro is more addictive because it’s so plentiful and fast moving. It’s almost all a luxury, I trust that people know this, I think one would have to be severely lacking in imagination not to. But also it’s so easy to conflate your favourite musician with the gear they use - yet who gives a sweet f what pencils davinci used. It’s that promise of a magic bullet, something that is particularly strong in technical fields like euro. But if you want to make acid for example, then it’s going to be damned hard to do with a piano, if that’s all you have. I’d say buy all the gear you want, but if you do want to also make music, put systems in place to ensure that you do (eg. make a large bet with a friend you’ll deliver the album on a certain date), and the gear is therefore justified or will take care of itself.
Jeremy wants us to stop buying gear, so that he can be the only one that has it, and then make better music than us.
Take a drink every time I say "pieces of gear" before you comment
I built a 5000$ modular to realize that I make my best tracks at ten times the pace with the same digitone and SP404 combo I’ve been using for a few years already.
Quickly deletes last 400 Reddit posts
so NOW you tell me
And just like that, Red Means Recording became the first person to be banned from r/synthesizers for posting a video to CZcams.
The trick for me is falling back into love with the gear you already own. What I find helpful is to go back and watch as many CZcams reviews you can for the gear you currently have. You will see those gushing reviews, excellent demos of its capabilities, how cool it looks, and how great it sounds! (I still do this even with computer/console games of old games I never finished or haven’t played in a while.) Before you know it you will be wanting to dig into that Synth or pedal again! Try it!
Surprised to hear to say that Elektronauts is a place that's toxic in terms of comments on gear. I find it one of the friendlier forums, pretty open and very well moderated, compared to most others.
Dogs hate rants. Speaking from experience.
Here's the big question: do you want to be an artist, or a technician?
My dad, a longtime guitar player, preached that "sound is everything." I had a guitar and a tube amp, and he said I wasn't allowed to own a pedal until I understood every knob and switch combination between the two instruments. I played that raw live for years and years, and I recorded my first EP with just that. Slowly, I've built a small pedalboard of stuff I use and understand. I'm glad I had that experience before coming to synth - I really want to have a complete "music to sleep to" setup to record one mix live. I liked the idea of all this DAWless stuff, but I found out my iPad plus a Keystep could do, like, 90% of the stuff I was hearing. And it's going to take me MONTHS to learn the synth plugin and Keystep.
My solution to avoiding modular is to build out racks on modulargrid with stuff I see skilled people demoing on youtube. Finish that, and the instant I see the estimated cost I freak out and close the tab and am safe (until the next gear demo).
Really great video!
I think a lot of folks forget that every piece of gear they add to their ensemble is adding multiple points of failure--both physically (cables, power, adapters, etc) and workflow-wise, and people's ambitious ideas very quickly go out of scope. It's a huge stopping point I see in my peers who have grandiose concepts of "the perfect setup", buy all the shit, talk about it all the freaking time, and then never even start because it requires so much work to learn and maintain.
Hi Jeremy, I've never commented before but watched your content for many years. This video resonates with me.
As a "noodler" - I'm happy to hear you bring up that distinction between that camp of people, and the mucision/artist camp of people who genuinely want to create musical end products. I'm a noodler, and I love gear for how fun it is to play with with and jam on (and just the experience of learning to use it). It's kind of hard to feel bad about how long a piece of my gear has sat on a shelf for, when I don't ever have to worry about "how should I fit that one into my setup?" or "I should really see if I can make that one work in this song." I just pick it up if I wanna play around with it.
This whole video hits the nail on the head. It contains all kinds of wisdom that took me years, and a lot of money, to find out by myself.
I was pretty shocked when Tom Holkenborg announced he was selling all his gear. Because he really did have infinite money it seems and had acquired an extremely comprehensive collection of not just synths, but all kinds of instruments. It was a 'to die for' collection. But he said (paraphrasing here) that he just wasn't using it, he had too much choice. And that owning all that stuff that he didn't use was making him both feel guilty, and distracting him from making music.
I relate so much to projecting myself into the music makers showing off gear. Even though it's silly, it feels like those creations emanate from the device, rather than being the product of the musician. Consumerism is never as fulfilling as it seems to be. Thanks for making this - good stuff