It's some time ago, that I tried quite successfully to stop me from getting gear just for the sake of getting it at all and because it was new and acclaimed.
I decided to:
1) get new gear only if it excels at some point others don't
2) get new gear only if it has something real new up it's sleeve and adds to the studio.
I made an interesting observation. Researching new gear still is fun, but sometimes I find a great new feature that I desire. But after checking my "old" gear I find out that I had it all the time already - at least in some way.
May be it's a silly way to learn about what I have in the studio, but with those discoveries I have the same fun as when buying new instrument or equipment
wannna add sth . positive
to one of the channels of this twisted "stereo thread".
Austrian countryside during a campfire percussion session (pretty loud) there were horses on the next meadow .
We had no contact with them before that , did not know each other .
They actually came as close as they could , head over the fence and joined our group for the complete session , instead of running away (what we had feared ).
It was so amazing , kind of like a time travel back to a common past .
I would add another reason we're buying so much gear now: we've reached the point of saturation of equipment on the market that we can get those synths we've always wanted without spending a terrific amount of money. Back when I was gigging in the 80's, my M1 was 2 grand, my Emulator III was 9 grand and my Prophet-10 was 4 grand (used.) 15 grand for 3 keyboards, and that didn't count the rack modules I gigged with. Today, you can drop 2 grand (which isn't the ridiculous sum it used to be) and pick up 3, 4, maybe 5 different used synths for that, or maybe 2 or 3 new ones. Try them out, see which are keepers, and sell off the rest. Rinse, repeat, so we end up with a LOT of instruments.
I'm guilty of this now myself: When I was gigging 4-5 times a week, I could never buy the 'boards I wanted, I had to buy the boards I needed for the band. (Except the EIII And the P-10: I LOVED those 'boards!) There were bunches that appealed to me, but didn't fit in to the rig I played out with, so they were passed over.
Some boards I really liked were:
Akai AX-80
Yamaha DX7
Akai S-612 (though why I wanted one of these when I had the EIII I can't fathom!)
Moog Minimoog (I had an Arp 2600 instead.)
Roland JX-3P
Roland Super-JX
Roland Jupiter-6
Korg N1
Korg BX-3
And that's just the really short list,. There were dozens more over the years. Now that I'm not gigging and playing in my home for my own enjoyment/recording the music I want, I can buy/try whatever I want and then sell the rest off as I get bored/dissatisfied with them. In the above list, you seen the Super-JX: in my signature you'll see that I now have one. I got to scratch that itch, found out that it's not really a synth that's a keeper to me, so it will be sold off in the near future. Arriving today: a Roland S-760 sampler; I want to get back into sampling. Next up: A Korg N5ex: I lone my N1r, and adding a keyboard, setting them to receive on odd/even MIDI notes respectively gives my quite the versatile system.
..Joe
Current setup: Korg Kronos 61, Roland XV-88 Korg Triton-Rack, Motif-Rack, Korg N1r, Roland M-GS64, Alesis QSR, Yamaha KX88 & KX76, Roland Super-JX, Juno-Stage, Kawai K4, Kawai K1II.
I would add another reason we're buying so much gear now: we've reached the point of saturation of equipment on the market that we can get those synths we've always wanted without spending a terrific amount of money.
That's very, very true. I wished I had the old boards I bought at pawnshops back in the early eighties. I bought them for peanuts and I see them selling for a lot of money on ebay. I picked up a new Moog Source, played it a couple of times and put it back in the box. It sit in my closet for years. I finally sold it to a music store for about $150.00. Now I see them on GC site and ebay for almost $1,000.00. Damn! I should have kept that.
You are so very right that today you can get a lot for your money. It may be made of plastic and toothpicks but they sure sound good.
Couldn't resist it!
Z1 winging it's way to me. I NEED those missing modelling engines.
I never understood why Korg left them out of the Oasys/Kronos.
I've notice a ridiculous price drop recently on "older" digital keyboards - Two weeks ago I got a Roland XV88 in almost perfect condition for £350. For me, It's a perfect controller for the Kronos, and the XV engine is still handy to have around. I've recreated most of my X6 patches on it, so that'll be the next keyboard up for sale for more cheap goodies.
Last edited by Broadwave on Fri Jul 11, 2014 7:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
Joe Gerardi wrote:we can get those synths we've always wanted without spending a terrific amount of money.
EXACTLY!.....I can't tell you how many hours-days I spent in Washington Music store (Chuck Levins) especially in the 90's in the keyboard dept...They had so many brands set up it was like a mind numbing overload!....They had an area set up with all Ensoniq stuff, all Korg stuff, a complete rack of Emu modules, Akai drum machines and then stuff I never heard of like the General Music S3 turbo or Technics WSA-1....You never knew what you were going to find around the next corner.....If I was lucky, I would get to choose 1 keyboard to take home that day.....How could you possibly choose just 1??!!!
Keyboards - Korg Kronos X, Kawai K5000W,M-Audio Venom, Ensoniq TS-12,Kawai K4
Computers - Macbook Pro, Mac Pro "Nehalem"
Interfaces - M-Box Pro, Digidesign 96i,192, Midi IO, Digidesign PRE
DAW - Protools 9 - HD3 Accel
Plugs - All Spectrasonics,Steve Slate Drums 4.0,Slate Trigger,NI Komplete 9 Ultimate,Korg Legacy,Melodyne 3,Evo Autotune,HD3 Pack,Liquid Mix, Eleven, Ample Sound Guitars
Mics - Audio Technica 4033sm, Apogee mic, several Shure SM-57s, 2- Beta 52, 2- AT 3031, 2- Samson CO2
Other - V-Drums, DW Drums, Zildjian A Customs, Muse Research Qu4ttro, Open Labs Miko Timbaland Edition
Back in the 90's, I also spent an inordinate amount of time in local music stores, playing and lusting after every new piece of gear that came out. But I didn't have a lot of extra cash and had to get only the gear that met my immediate needs. I continued in this fashion up through the early 2000's and then stopped buying gear until the OASYS finally came out.
One play was all it took and the OASYS went home with me in 2007. No more gear for a couple of years until a chance meeting with a fellow e-musician led me to get a V-Synth GT.
Blast...GAS again...2 more V-Synth's, another JD-990, two Fantom XR's, a Jupiter-80, a Kurzweil 2500RS and an Integra-7 later, I finally have enough stuff to create some serious noise.
Even so, I still keep my very first serious keyboard (D-70) and have only gotten rid of very few pieces of gear over the years, choosing instead to use every piece in some way or another. You just never know when one of those cool Wavestation grooves will fit a song like a glove! Lately, while building custom banks on the K2500RS, a play with the "Alaska" patch led me to create a tribute tune to Eddie Jobson.
I also agree that you can get real bargains out there that are just too good to pass up. That is the only reason I got the second Fantom XR and the K2500RS as well as a VP-9000.
For people who understand GAS, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't, no explanation is possible!
I also have 2 cats but I try to keep them out of my studio. My guitarist is allergic to them. I only have one wife, and even though I thought about getting a couple more I figure they probably wouldn't get along.
Regarding the drop in prices on some gear, I bought a used Roland U-20 back about 8 years ago for $200. It was my third one. I had to leave on in Sweden and the other one here was getting worn out. I really like them though. I find the sounds are useful and the programming architecture is quite easy to get around. If I'm doing a simple gig, it's a lot easier to carry them my K73.
Right now I'm kind of looking at the Boomstar modules.
They look amazing! However, since I just got a King Korg, I think I'll hold off for a while!
If music is the food of love, play on and play loud!
Gear: Kronos 73, Wavestation EX, Polysix, King Korg, Monotron and Monotron Duo, Minikorg, Moog Grandmother, my very old MiniKorg, 4 acoustic and 9 electric guitars, 1 Ibanez 5 string bass, a Steel guitar, a bunch of microphones, 2 pairs of studio monitors and other very cool toys, 1 wife and 4 cats and a lava lamp!
