GAS theory - why it's so hard to get it right

[carbon111]

...All of my bannings are deserved for selling that one, stupid heathen that I am. Best non-modular synth that I've ever used by a WIDE margin.

 

 

...I sold THIS for a song and miss it more than I can say. Nothing else plays or sounds remotely like it and I won't readily find another, probably ever...

 

{censored}ing stupid.

[droolmaster0]

...I sold THIS for a song and miss it more than I can say. Nothing else plays or sounds remotely like it and I won't readily find another, probably ever... {censored}ing stupid.

 

 

Never tried one - only emulations, and wasp modular filters.

[carbon111]

It was a real monster! Very unique timbre. Also, if you cranked up the sensitivity on the capacitance keyboard you could play it like a theremin with your fingers above the keys, not actually touching them....

 

Me, I've never played a Sunsyn. Always was interested though.

[droolmaster0]

It was a real monster! Very unique timbre. Also, if you cranked up the sensitivity on the capacitance keyboard you could play it like a theremin with your fingers above the keys, not actually touching them.... Me, I've never played a Sunsyn. Always was interested though.

 

 

Part of the thing about the Sunsyn is the combination of a complex synth with an interface that is just there for the tweaking. The Xpander has a great interface, but even with that, it is to a great degree menu driven. And I don't think that the sound quality is nearly as good as the Sunsyn. The Andromeda has way more mod routings, but the Sunsyn can do crazy with far fewer tweaks of the fingers and brain, and the basic sound quality is superior. The Code/Omega has great sound quality but (to my mind) little else. The Sunsyn is just this perfect balance between complexity, great ease of use, and great sound quality.

[ripe]

I took a break from music for almost 4 years. The octopus got me interested again. I've been pretty lucky with getting over GAS lately. For me it was a few things:

* youtube - even though my songs may be simple, youtube actually motivates me to get something finished, even if I hate it. quantity vs. quality, increases quality. working on songs reduces GAS.

* no special racks/tables - I used to have all of my equipment arranged "just so" but I never used it. I do my best work when I remove pieces and focus on them in isolation, like on the floor, bed, sofa, etc. Not having anything mounted allows me to move stuff wherever I want. When I make something I really like with a piece it fulfills the GAS bubble for awhile.

* extra power supplies - this ties in to the previous one. I have 3 or 4 extra power supplies for gear around the house, so I can just plug in and go.

* choosing a stable of sounds - This gets boring for a tweaker, but I try and use the same sounds over and over again, for example, I need a pad? use the supersaw pad from the v-synth. bass? virus TI patch... the patches evolve, but it also takes out the trap of tweaking and looking for new sounds every song (= GAS)

* buying cheap things - Usually my GAS came from boredom, I would get the urge to buy "something" it didn't matter what it was, I convinced myself I needed it. Now I buy cheap stuff instead, like balanced patch cables, 1/4 adapters, MIDI snakes, power supplies. It definitely satisfies the GAS, but saves the pocketbook.

wow, long post...

cheers
ripe

[stikygum]

hmmm - trying to figure out exactly what the thought process is. You send me pm's challenging my gear decisions, and then you don't reply to my responses. If less is truly more, then what is more? If more is more, then it is the same as less, and that is apparently good. If more is less, then it is more, and that is also apparently good. Should we be writing 'songs'? Damn - if you want to write songs per se, if you really want to be doing that, it's great. But maybe you're doing something different than some people who really like making and tinkering with sound. That latter can certainly be music, but is it creating 'songs'? Probably not - but then maybe I don't want to be on a site where I'm posting 'tunes'. Very different way of looking at things, and leads to very different ways of thinking about gear and sound.

 

Oh yeah the lack of replies were just from lack of time on my hands. Sometimes when I read stuff, I quickly move onto other sites/topics and the end up forgetting to respond.

 

For me, too many tools = lack of focus , which is a personal thing since I don't know all my gear inside and out. If I did, I wouldn't always be gravitating towards some.

 

What is the purpose of a synth if it can't be heard by others? Bliss? I know most on here are mostly into synthesis and exploring synths, but dang, when I think about all the firepower we have, it makes me feel like we could do some damage in pop culture. Or could we? Which makes me go against my initial feeling and see we won't and therefore can't sort of. I think out forum would be best at composing a sample cd of synths as opposed to making tunes. I've heard a lot of good music here, so I'm rambling now.

 

GAS is also 50% interface. Connect or be disconnected.

 

Ripe, the best for me is to rearrange my synths. This keeps things fresh and facilitates learning and playing with other synths. Feng Shui comes into play.

[droolmaster0]

... What is the purpose of a synth if it can't be heard by others? Bliss?

Synths don't have purpose. We have purpose. The primary purpose may be simply to make sounds for ourselves. Ultimately, I think that this SHOULD be the primary purpose, and that after satisfying yourself then playing for others is fine, but that is not meant to be prescriptive. It is my ideal.

I know most on here are mostly into synthesis and exploring synths, but dang, when I think about all the firepower we have, it makes me feel like we could do some damage in pop culture. Or could we? Which makes me go against my initial feeling and see we won't and therefore can't sort of. I think out forum would be best at composing a sample cd of synths as opposed to making tunes. I've heard a lot of good music here, so I'm rambling now.

I'm primarily interested in making sounds/music for myself, and that at some point I'll put some stuff up. I'd like to. But I lost interest in making money at this a long time ago (or lost motivation for directing myself in that direction,maybe), and find it very satisfying to think about what really pleases ME. So I just can't relate anymore to some of the concerns expressed here and the way that they are expressed.

[AfroRouge]

Now, how about working out a trade between my prophet 08 se and your 777...

Not interested.

[droolmaster0]

Not interested.

Figured that there was about a .02% chance you'd do it...

[oldgearguy]

hmmm - I'm interested in an opinion on the Chroma's work flow versus it's capabilties vs its sound. Occasionally I've had the opportunity to get one, and I've scared myself off, but I kind of want to try one. What I hear is that it is a tremendously capable synth with a lousy interface.

 

 

The Chroma is very flexible. It has the ability to rearrange the basic oscillator/filter configs (sure it's a preset list, but still), lots of modulation capabilities, fantastic sound. It's fast to call up a sound and edit it.

 

Downsides - you currently *need* a printout of the parameter chart. When you choose a modulation soure, the display just shows a 1 or 2 digit number. Same with the actual osc/filter algorithms and some other params. Filter resonance only has a range of 0-7. Most Chromas need work done to them to make them electrically and mechanically stable. Once that's done, you'll rarely have major issues with them. The Chroma is big - you need real estate for it. The bonus is the top is flat so you can arrange it in a stand with another synth on top easily.

 

Why do I keep it? I really don't have anything that sounds like it. Plus, David Clarke and friends created an awesome new MIDI board that gives you CC control over all the params. They also built in the ability to add an LCD display and that's the next thing they're working on. A real display added to a Chroma would wipe out any remaining hesitations.

[eric]

This thread is a fascinating read as I've been quite a gearoholic myself for at least the past 10 years. I don't even know if I can remember all the things I have repeatedly bought and sold. It is exhilarating to get a big package on the doorstep. I've had a longstanding love/hate relationship with adding a 3rd keyboard to my rig (typically a real analog or virtual analog), but never am happy with the logistics of gigging with more than 2 keyboards. Being primarily a live player (though I do have a music room at home) I tend to prefer that my gear "pays for itself" on the gig and I get edgy if some high-dollar shiny object is not getting used on the gig. So I'll often flip it to try something new and there is always some rotating piece of gear in the $1k-2k range. Keeps it fun!

 

As for the items I have bought more than once, here's a short list:

 

- Jupiter 8 bought and sold, picked up a second one that I hope to keep for the long haul. Just too rare and nice. But I don't gig with it.

- DSI PolyEvolver rack - owned 3 of them, all sold along with the PEK

- Roland Juno 106 - owned 4 of them, all sold (last one helped subsidize the Jupiter 8

- Voce V5 - owned 3 of them, all sold

- Voce MIDI Drawbars - owned 3 of them and still using one set to control my Nord Electro

- Motion Sound Pro3T - owned at least 4 of them, along with several other Motion Sound units. I still have 3 Motion Sound KT80s, 2 of which are used in my live rig and 1 stays at rehearsal space permanently

- Invisible Stands. I love these things. I have 4 of them now and pieces and part from a long history of collecting them since 1987. I've owned several others that I fixed up and flipped, probably had a total of 8 pass through my hands.

- Roland JV-1010 - kept on trying these in the late '90s as I liked the sounds and it was a convenient size, but could never deal with the poor UI and ultimately sold them (bought and sold at least 3 times)

 

I'm sure there are others.

 

Regards,

Eric

[droolmaster0]

...... The Chroma is very flexible. It has the ability to rearrange the basic oscillator/filter configs (sure it's a preset list, but still), lots of modulation capabilities, fantastic sound. It's fast to call up a sound and edit it. Downsides - you currently *need* a printout of the parameter chart. When you choose a modulation soure, the display just shows a 1 or 2 digit number. Same with the actual osc/filter algorithms and some other params. Filter resonance only has a range of 0-7. Most Chromas need work done to them to make them electrically and mechanically stable. Once that's done, you'll rarely have major issues with them. The Chroma is big - you need real estate for it. The bonus is the top is flat so you can arrange it in a stand with another synth on top easily. Why do I keep it? I really don't have anything that sounds like it. Plus, David Clarke and friends created an awesome new MIDI board that gives you CC control over all the params. They also built in the ability to add an LCD display and that's the next thing they're working on. A real display added to a Chroma would wipe out any remaining hesitations.

 

 

that's right - the thing is huge. I probably don't even have room for it, which could save me. It probably wouldn't fit on my keyboard stand. (sigh of relief)

 

There is a local one for sale, but I probably shouldn't go there....(maybe I'll research its exact dimensions just to prove to myself that I can't do it)

[llamastorm]

I think it's just really liking musical instruments and certain timbres and trying to get a hold of what you hear inside your head.

That, and it's really impossible to know something unless you've had it for a while.

I think I've bought a bunch of software (no resale value -- stopped!), a MIDI controller, a LP, a Nord Stage, owned two Lexicons (didn't like them), some Moogerfoogers, and some other effects boxes.

I think I'm learning what I like now though.

[Delicious Lamprey Problem]

I like new things. I like buying myself gifts. Life is short, I work hard, I don't believe in an afterlife, I may as well either embrace the dopamine or stop living. Simple as that.

I also don't believe that performing music makes one a better person, although I do enjoy some performances. Music-as-art is masturbation. Nothing wrong with that, but let's not put it on a pedestal.

Surrender to your reptile brain. Anything other than Hedonism is self-flagellation.

[AfroRouge]

* choosing a stable of sounds - This gets boring for a tweaker, but I try and use the same sounds over and over again, for example, I need a pad? use the supersaw pad from the v-synth. bass? virus TI patch... the patches evolve, but it also takes out the trap of tweaking and looking for new sounds every song (= GAS)

I've been moving in this direction as well, though I attribute part of it to my development as a (hack) synthesist. I've been working on building a single Machinedrum kit that I can use for the "set" that I am theoretically working on, which has focused my attention.

I also am working on reminding myself that I have a lot of powerful gear and most likely that next piece isn't really necessary to accomplish what I think I "need". Especially with synths, it's too easy to get trapped into the idea that somehow your synth isn't as good as another one at a certain task, when in reality it may just be a matter of a little more effort on the programming side. I'm working on a pad on the micromodular right now, with the goal of preserving as many voices as possible (with some help from the T-Resonator to keep things from being to brittle).

It helps to not be a gigging/studio musician where time is more critical. I can work on this pad for months and no one will care.

[Yoozer]

I've even gotten private mail from people here, incredulous that I've just sold a particular piece of gear for the 400th time.

 

 

There's this guy on the Dutch synthforum who had a Korg Prophecy. 37 times. That was the actual number (a year ago or so), and most of the forum's members either bought his or sold it to him. I don't think it's possible to top that.

 

Anyway:

 

If I want to get satisfaction in playing, I have to simplify it to a piano or Rhodes and a monosynth (or polysynth in mono mode). I wouldn't mind a Voyager OS for that, or anything ilke it. The feeling of the keys means a lot here.

 

If I want to get something done in terms of producing complete works, hardware and I just no longer go together. Dumping Cubase for Ableton did that; I adore that flexibility of recording a waveform, taking it, and then being able to use it wherever and whenever I want, and that's a zillion times faster. I love that sheer speed, that magic of thinking "this is how it's supposed to work" and then have it work exactly like that - no more fighting the interface.

 

If I want to be nostalgic, I have to use my pile of Roland synths. I recently added a groovebox; not that I'm ever going to use it to compose anything with, but it's a bit more capable in terms of backing tracks than the Alesis SR-16.

 

I have no idea why I still have all this stuff - the first requirement is most important to me now and any gear doing that is missing - but I do know that if I'm going to sell it, I won't get half of what I paid for it back, so I'd rather keep it for the future if I ever get a kid that's interested in daddy's weird pastime.

 

Oddly enough spending a lot of times on forums and a lot of time with synthesizers I long for a no-frills, traditional piano, and I'm even looking at other instruments: not to pick up for fulltime, but it'd be neat if I could dabble a bit on bass guitar or something, because the interface's so different. Everything's cheap enough to not get burned if you want to try something; but the need for a teacher is obvious. So many things to experience and learn.

[controlvoltage]

I am not wealthy so I mentally digest all the possible gear "wants" and distill it to a synth Life List that changes only extremely rarely. I am slowly acquiring all the synths on this Life List, and so far I have been exactly right about almost all of them, in terms of how well I get on with the gear, how glad I remain to have it over the long-term.

Only pieces that haven't clicked as perfectly as I had hoped are the VA/digitals... Nord Modular and microQ. I love these units in theory, and I love a lot of the sounds I've programmed on them... but there's something missing in the interaction process. I am heavily skewed toward the analog way of working and so it could be that I don't interface with digital intelligences as smoothly. I'm keeping the synths though because I *know* what they can do that nothing else I have can do... it may just be that I go for that thing less frequently than the analog thing. I would rather eat ramen noodles for a month than sell a synth, as long as I can be assured that my actual survival is assured. Mere discomfort or inconvenience is temporary and will pass... whereas a lot of factors have to come together to make a sweet deal on gear come to pass. So I don't buy until I'm certain, and then I don't second-guess myself afterwards, I guess is the deal. It's an almost-ideal solution to the GAS problem.

When I see 400-dollar E-mu samplers on the 'bay, though, I get real weak...

[Gribs]

I like new things. I like buying myself gifts. Life is short, I work hard, I don't believe in an afterlife, I may as well either embrace the dopamine or stop living. Simple as that. I also don't believe that performing music makes one a better person, although I do enjoy some performances. Music-as-art is masturbation. Nothing wrong with that, but let's not put it on a pedestal. Surrender to your reptile brain. Anything other than Hedonism is self-flagellation.

 

 

You are so damn right.

 

I don't believe in an afterlife either. I have had one heart attack, watched my wife go into an insane panic while on the phone with 911 and make noises and faces I hope I never see her make again, and I have taken that 80 MPH ambulance ride that I know a large number of people start alive but finish dead. While newly wed, I watched my in-laws' hopes and dreams fade away when my father-in-law decayed from non-hodgekins lymphoma to leukemia to brain cancer to death at age 54; he never saw any of my three children. My good friend Dan who was a genius and one of finest and funniest people I know suffered some sort of event a few weeks ago (not a heart attack - probably a stroke), lost control of his car, hit a tree, and died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital at age 55; his daughter is engaged and he never saw her get married. He planned to go back to grad school to get a PhD in geology when he retired. Seeing all the pictures of him fishing and camping and stuff at his funeral and his corpse lying in his box across the aisle just really had the effect of mentally smacking my head up against the wall, and it smacked up a lot of other guys from my lab, too.

 

I want to provide for my family but I am also not going out of my way to stuff my mattress. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to work for enough money to do that, save a significant amount of it (and lose an assload when the market crashed but still have something there), and have enough to spend on fun things like synthesizers and coffee (yeah coffee - I spend about 10 USD per week so it is not trivial), and having pizza delivered once per week. The one thing I don't have is time. I just want piles and piles of it to play with my kids, do all the stuff with music and life I want to do, and have a mentally stimulating and interesting time at it all.

[keybdwizrd]

I also don't believe that performing music makes one a better person, although I do enjoy some performances. Music-as-art is masturbation. Nothing wrong with that, but let's not put it on a pedestal.

 

 

The ability to perform music, which implies the ability to find an audience; the ability to express yourself through music, to communicate, to connect with others; many would consider that to be an accomplishment, to be productive, to be making a contribution. Society has placed value upon the ability to perform, to be able to communicate, to share; and many people, past and present, thankfully, have pursued performance as an objective.

 

Perhaps some would characterize "music-as-art" done alone as "masturbation," but indeed for those who choose to expand and share their ability to communicate musically beyond their own singular experience, "music-as-art" can be so much more, and certainly has been for countless millions of people.

[depulse]

Acquisition fever got so bad that I'd often have a synth sitting still boxed up for 2 or 3 days after it arrived before I got around to opening it.

2 or 3 days, I sometimes bought the same synth or equipment twice when I had forgotten that I had already bought it and not unpacked it for months. For a while I had 37 synthesizers plus loads of effects, etc. I realised the absurdity in the situation and sold most stuff. Now I try to control the urge to shop new stuff, but I still keep looking for "bargains".

But I see myself nowadays more like a collector than a musician. People collect old cars, stamps or antique furniture. I collect synths.

But once I have the "perfect rig" my hunt will be over.

[born2die75]

...I sold THIS for a song and miss it more than I can say. Nothing else plays or sounds remotely like it and I won't readily find another, probably ever... {censored}ing stupid.

 

 

Theres one here in the uk with a filter fault at offers on the sos readers ads under the keyboard section you could try for that

[Delicious Lamprey Problem]

The ability to perform music, which implies the ability to find an audience; the ability to express yourself through music, to communicate, to connect with others; many would consider that to be an accomplishment, to be productive, to be making a contribution. Society has placed value upon the ability to perform, to be able to communicate, to share; and many people, past and present, thankfully, have pursued performance as an objective.

 

 

Is communication always a force of "good"?

[droolmaster0]

.... When I see 400-dollar E-mu samplers on the 'bay, though, I get real weak...

DOOOOOOOD - I have an emu 4xt Ultra that I've been trying and trying to sell. If you want it, I'm SURE we can work something out. PM me.

[droolmaster0]

The ability to perform music, which implies the ability to find an audience; the ability to express yourself through music, to communicate, to connect with others; many would consider that to be an accomplishment, to be productive, to be making a contribution. Society has placed value upon the ability to perform, to be able to communicate, to share; and many people, past and present, thankfully, have pursued performance as an objective. Perhaps some would characterize "music-as-art" done alone as "masturbation," but indeed for those who choose to expand and share their ability to communicate musically beyond their own singular experience, "music-as-art" can be so much more, and certainly has been for countless millions of people.

 

 

To play devil's advocate here, because I think that it's a viable position, I would argue that performed music is not necessarily communication. In fact, I'd say that it is not usually communication, or in essence communication.

[droolmaster0]

oh, by the way, oldgearguy is a jolly good fellow.