Members techristian Posted January 31, 2019 Members Share Posted January 31, 2019 Sometimes too much gear can cause "gear insanity" , where you try and use every piece of gear you have in one single tune......and just maintaining it takes up more time than producing music. I may be approaching that event horizon myself. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AlamoJoe Posted February 2, 2019 Members Share Posted February 2, 2019 ....I went down that road a long time ago....The more gear you use, the less you tend to actually focus on what's at the root of what you are trying to create. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted February 2, 2019 Moderators Share Posted February 2, 2019 but...but...but...how can there ever be too much gear? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Saul T. Nads Posted February 2, 2019 Members Share Posted February 2, 2019 Over the past year or so I've given away most of my gear. Took it to the local charity shop. All I have left is my acoustic guitar. And a few plectrums. That's it. It feels quite liberating, actually Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ggm1960 Posted February 2, 2019 Members Share Posted February 2, 2019 Sometimes too much gear can cause "gear insanity" , where you try and use every piece of gear you have in one single tune......and just maintaining it takes up more time than producing music. I may be approaching that event horizon myself. Dan That's really been the truth for me over the years. I'd also say that software is as bad, if not worse, than hardware. These things have caused downright paralysis for me at times! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted February 2, 2019 CMS Author Share Posted February 2, 2019 I never had too much gear, but then I never had much work either. I have more instruments than I need, but every one has a story and I can't really bear to sell anything. I don't need the money, so when I die I'll let someone less sentimental get rid of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted February 5, 2019 Members Share Posted February 5, 2019 Sometimes too much gear can cause "gear insanity" , where you try and use every piece of gear you have in one single tune......and just maintaining it takes up more time than producing music. I may be approaching that event horizon myself. Dan I think we have all fallen into that hole at one point. In my case, I have loads of software libraries that I rarely use. I forget I have them honestly... My most productive time in the studio is getting a basic idea down for a tune with your standard instruments... drums, bass, acoustic, and a lead vocal... then add flavors as desired. If I start with something abstract like a string patch, it normally takes me down the rabbit hole which is not a bad thing if thats where you want to go but if its a standard tune, I suggest sticking with the program. Then expand as you see fit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Luke17 Posted February 5, 2019 Members Share Posted February 5, 2019 I thought I was finally over amassing gear..then that Damned Bieke :-) hadda go put up all those Eye Candy pics of stuff featured at NAMM and my lust and list started to grow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bieke Posted February 5, 2019 Members Share Posted February 5, 2019 I thought I was finally over amassing gear..then that Damned Bieke :-) hadda go put up all those Eye Candy pics of stuff featured at NAMM and my lust and list started to grow. glad I could help ! I want : a Panoptigan a MicroFreak a Tele tenor the Fender Electric XII the Milkman JHS amp 61 SG with sideway vibrola Neumann headphones Beetronics Swarm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 but...but...but...how can there ever be too much gear? Short answer? There can never be, and you can never have too much gear.* Please write that one down folks. IMO you can never have too many options, too many tracks, too many guitars to choose from, too many microphones, too many effects, plugins, etc. etc. Sure, you can be hit with option paralysis, but IMO that more often than not stems from a lack of musical vision than it does an over-abundance of gear. If you know what you want to achieve, and you know what sound you're after, and you know your gear, then it becomes a matter of selecting the right gear to achieve the results you want. Without the options, everything becomes a nail because all you have is a hammer. You're in trouble if you want to bolt something together because you don't have a wrench - IOW, the right tool. IMO, having more musical tools means more sonic options and possibilities - and for me, those are generally good things. As the old saying goes, just because you have 24 tracks, that doesn't mean you have to fill all of them. But even though you might not use them all on every recording, having those extra tracks sure comes in handy when you DO need them. You don't need to use everything you have on every track, or every song - or even every album. Sometimes just a acoustic piano and a solo vocal is the best way to present a song. Don't be tempted to over-produce a recording - use what you need, and nothing more.** * As there often is, there's a caveat: More gear gives you more options and more possibilities... but it's not about collecting gear. It's about making music. So as long as you are able to utilize those extra options musically, then there can never be too much gear; but if you allow the quest for gear to become an end unto itself, or let it distract you from making music, or if you allow your rig to become so overly complex that it discourages rather than encourages you to use it, then yes, you may have too much gear, and you should probably consider simplifying things. ** Unless you're someone like Phil Spector or Jeff Lynne - it seems like what those guys needed all the time was "more." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 Beetronics Swarm That thing sounds monstrous... very cool pedal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Luke17 Posted February 6, 2019 Members Share Posted February 6, 2019 glad I could help ! I want : a Panoptigan a MicroFreak a Tele tenor the Fender Electric XII the Milkman JHS amp 61 SG with sideway vibrola Neumann headphones Beetronics Swarm Did I ever mention the story to you about how I butchered a pristine 1966 Fender XII in 1979? well, here goes.. bought it for 15 dollars and a small bag of weed from a Musician friend. i lopped off the node on the headstock and the bottom part of the body..put a telecaster bridge on it..I turned it into a six string.. I filled in the holes of one set of tuners with doweling. Russ Ballard of Argent was playing a Strat that he had modded..it had space age holes drill through the body..I tried to emulate that look with minimal success. I painted the body with Candy Apple red spray paint. I was playing it in a bar gig ..the bar door was open and I saw a Hassidic Dude standing outside.. when we went on break he waved to me to come out.. He asked me if the guitar was a F XII. I was wondering how he could even recognize it after I had raped and violated it? It still had the tortoise shell pickguard, and the original PUs. He asked me if any other original parts remained.. I told him the case, the bridge, and the tuners were in the case. He offered me 125 bucks.. He picked it up next day @my House..turns out he was a Rabbi visiting family and he was from Montreal Canada.. About 6 months later he sends me a CD of his band..The Fender XII is the CD cover, beautifully restored, original sunburst finish. He signed the CD and wrote, ‘You are off the hook from Fender Karma Retribution.’ I like to start off this story as; ‘ A Rabbi walks into a bar...’ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bieke Posted February 6, 2019 Members Share Posted February 6, 2019 Did I ever mention the story to you about how I butchered a pristine 1966 Fender XII in 1979? well, here goes.. bought it for 15 dollars and a small bag of weed from a Musician friend. i lopped off the node on the headstock and the bottom part of the body..put a telecaster bridge on it..I turned it into a six string.. I filled in the holes of one set of tuners with doweling. Russ Ballard of Argent was playing a Strat that he had modded..it had space age holes drill through the body..I tried to emulate that look with minimal success. I painted the body with Candy Apple red spray paint. I was playing it in a bar gig ..the bar door was open and I saw a Hassidic Dude standing outside.. when we went on break he waved to me to come out.. He asked me if the guitar was a F XII. I was wondering how he could even recognize it after I had raped and violated it? It still had the tortoise shell pickguard, and the original PUs. He asked me if any other original parts remained.. I told him the case, the bridge, and the tuners were in the case. He offered me 125 bucks.. He picked it up next day @my House..turns out he was a Rabbi visiting family and he was from Montreal Canada.. About 6 months later he sends me a CD of his band..The Fender XII is the CD cover, beautifully restored, original sunburst finish. He signed the CD and wrote, ‘You are off the hook from Fender Karma Retribution.’ I like to start of this story as; ‘ A Rabbi walks into a bar...’ cool story ! actually the Fender XII is top of my wishlist, and just looked, it's not super cheap but not too expensive either, the other stuff on my wishlist would be luxury items, hmmm, the XII would also be a luxury and not really something I desperately need, in fact, I don't need any more gear, oh well, that's what I keep telling myself Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 Did I ever mention the story to you about how I butchered a pristine 1966 Fender XII in 1979? well, here goes.. bought it for 15 dollars and a small bag of weed from a Musician friend. At first glance, I thought this said "bought it for 15 dollars and a small bag of weed from Musician's Friend." i lopped off the node on the headstock and the bottom part of the body..put a telecaster bridge on it..I turned it into a six string.. I filled in the holes of one set of tuners with doweling. Russ Ballard of Argent was playing a Strat that he had modded..it had space age holes drill through the body..I tried to emulate that look with minimal success. I painted the body with Candy Apple red spray paint. [ATTACH=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","title":"hqdefault.jpg","data-attachmentid":32470279}[/ATTACH] You're a bad man you're a very bad man! I was playing it in a bar gig ..the bar door was open and I saw a Hassidic Dude standing outside.. when we went on break he waved to me to come out.. He asked me if the guitar was a F XII. I was wondering how he could even recognize it after I had raped and violated it? It still had the tortoise shell pickguard, and the original PUs. He asked me if any other original parts remained.. I told him the case, the bridge, and the tuners were in the case. He offered me 125 bucks.. He picked it up next day @my House..turns out he was a Rabbi visiting family and he was from Montreal Canada.. About 6 months later he sends me a CD of his band..The Fender XII is the CD cover, beautifully restored, original sunburst finish. He signed the CD and wrote, ‘You are off the hook from Fender Karma Retribution.’ I like to start of this story as; ‘ A Rabbi walks into a bar...’ Redeemed by a Rabbi - great story Luke! It's kind of like a horror story with a happy ending! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Luke17 Posted February 6, 2019 Members Share Posted February 6, 2019 Thanks for wishing me ‘into the Cornfield’ Phil...I deserve it.I have a pic of my band playing with the butchered Fender..but I can’t find the CD cover ..when I find it...I will post both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Luke17 Posted February 8, 2019 Members Share Posted February 8, 2019 Bieke, a little OT ..but do you know if the Danolectro pedals you posted on your NAAM thread will be coming out in that retro relic Casing? Tried looking , but got nowhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Notes_Norton Posted February 10, 2019 Members Share Posted February 10, 2019 You cannot have too much gear. However it comes with a price - cable failures and equipment malfunctions. For cable failures the solutions is of course to resolve or replace. Of course, while you have not been looking the cables have been secretly tying themselves in knots with other cables making troubleshooting and extracting the offending cable a long frustrating affair. I suspect the cables are mating, but I haven't seen and wire eggs or newborns so I don't think their reproductive organs work any better than they do their primary function. For equipment malfunctions it's simpler. Get a big red club with "Fixin' Stick" stenciled on it and have a large memorized supply of great obscenities. The trick is knowing where to hit the gear and which great obscenity to invoke. That knowledge is what you pay the repair tech for. It's much easier just to put all the gear in a display case (aka rack) power them up so the lights all work, and then go about using the one or two pieces of gear you actually know how to operate. Notes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted March 8, 2019 Members Share Posted March 8, 2019 I don't use everything on a song in the same way I don't drive down the street using everything my car does. I mean, sure, I could honk, use my windshield wipers, have my hazards blinking, keep tapping on the brake and then the accelerator, lock and unlock my doors continuously...and do it all simultaneously. But why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 I don't use everything on a song in the same way I don't drive down the street using everything my car does. I mean, sure, I could honk, use my windshield wipers, have my hazards blinking, keep tapping on the brake and then the accelerator, lock and unlock my doors continuously...and do it all simultaneously. But why? Great analogy Ken! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Notes_Norton Posted March 9, 2019 Members Share Posted March 9, 2019 It's nice to have a variety of tools, but as stated by Kent, there is no need to use them all at the same time. Pick what is appropriate for the task at hand. Notes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members elsongs Posted April 3, 2019 Members Share Posted April 3, 2019 For what I want to do musically... I don't need more gear. I need more TIME. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members techristian Posted April 3, 2019 Author Members Share Posted April 3, 2019 The other problem I find with TOO MUCH GEAR, is that it is difficult to maintain a level of familiarity with EACH piece of gear unless you work with it at least once a week. Needing to pull out an instruction manual ,every time you want create, is counterproductive to the musical flow. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Makzimia Posted May 1, 2019 Members Share Posted May 1, 2019 As much or as little as you need to get the job done. On one hand, never enough choices, on the other, my experience, gear use brain freeze. I've got the hardware under control. Now if I can just keep the plugins and VIs under control.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Beck Posted May 2, 2019 Members Share Posted May 2, 2019 I think I have too much gear, and I haven't bought anything new in years. Too much gear for me has to do with maintenance. I have two older boards that are old enough already that I've had to recap them. I try not to complain. What would be worse is if I didn't understand electronics at that level and didn't know how to recap them. I can pretty much fix anything, except don't ask me to refinish a guitar or a gun stock. Whatever I learned about woodworking in high school shop class I've mostly forgotten. Too much gear is like too many guns. It's the same story. Rust never sleeps, so even the guns I hardly ever take to the range I have to take apart every now and then, clean and re-lube, then put them back in my gun safe. Same with cars when you fix everything yourself. I could definitely have too many cars/trucks if I had all the ones I like. I'll never have more than two vehicles. Too much work. From a maintenance perspective we can have too much stuff in general. And from a space perspective as well. I sometimes long for my late teens/early 20s when I could fit everything I owned in my Chevy van. Now it's more like I need a second house for all my stuff. Oh yeah... one other way people can have too much gear is if they get having lots of gear confused with being a musician. It's same story as having lots of guns doesn't make one a skilled marksman with any of them. You have to get to the range on a regular basis just like you have to keep your chops up on whatever instruments you play and stay proficient with the gear you have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted May 2, 2019 CMS Author Share Posted May 2, 2019 In the past month, I've repaired two reel-to-reel and one cassette tape decks. I've given up on my Soundcraft console and using the old reliable (and 20 years newer) Mackie. The real time waster, though, is computers. They don't break, they just change unexpectedly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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