Are you a gear hoarder or a minimalist?

[Paul Vnuk Jr.]

The plug-in hoarding topic got me thinking—do we (do I) do this with gear? Do I, can I, can you have too much gear? 
 

How and when is it time to hold ‘em and when is it time to fold ‘em and purge the gear…synths? Processor? Mics? Pedals?

[KuruPrionz]

For me, it's been a process. Searching for what works best for my needs requires buying, testing and selling. 

Fortunately, I don't have to buy only new items, used items can often be sold for the same price or higher than what I paid for them - depending. 

Opportunity presents itself often enough. I had one black Shure KSM8 and a friend offered me a like new nickel one for $200, I had to grab it. 

 

Sometimes a new item appears on the market and ticks too many boxes to ignore. I have both a Presonus Quantum TB and an SSL 2+. I've used the Quantum quite a bit but currently I'm using the SSL while staying at a friend's vacant home. Both get the job done but seeing the new SSL 12 has me thinking it could be all I need for the work that I do and both the 2+ and the Quantum could become somebody else's fun. 

 

Regarding other microphones, I still don't have a small diaphragm condenser mic but I don't feel an urgent need for one either. I had an inexpensive ribbon mic, the figure of 8 pattern is not ideal for recording in a 33 unit 3 story condominium complex, it picks up too much from the backside. It was a cool mic - CAD D-82 but I don't miss it. 

I won a contest on Microphone-Parts.com for an upgrade kit for an MXL 990, bought a used mic and upgraded it. Sounds fantastic, so I bought another upgrade kit and modified my MXL 1006bp to line up the mount screws and that's a great sounding mic too - different capsule. Last but not least, I bought their complete kit for the T-67 mic and that is a great mic too. I have 3 flavors of condenser mic, that's plenty. 

 

2 pairs of studio monitors and while I haven't hooked it up yet (when I return to my condo after repairs are done) I will try hooking up my home stereo to the SSL 2+, which has RCA outs connected to the second headphone amp. I found a pair of JBL 10" 3 way speakers in great working condition at Starvation Army and that would make a great reference system (I also listen to my laptop speakers, which suck but are a valid reference).

 

If you have a good interface, good speakers and good microphones you are in the game. 

Currently I have a bit of gear racked up in 2 rack cases but working off site with a simpler system has me thinking I'll keep the Focusrite ISA Two and the ART Pro-VLAII and send the rest of it to happy new homes. 

 

Along the way, I picked up a Tech 21 Bass Driver DI, the current version. I got enough good use out of it to justify getting the Para Driver DI and the Q\Strip DI and I use all of those for various things. They are compact, fully featured, versatile, studio quiet and sound great. I've been tweaking the Q\Strip for bass guitar for a while now, it's fantastic for that, currently messing about with running the Para Drive off the parallel input and adding some high frequency harmonic distortion, just enough to get the bass to cut through on crappy little speakers while still sounding huge and full on larger speaker systems. 

 

I'm also thinking that one could use the send and return loop to run the Para Driver in parallel with a microphone and add harmonic distortion to a separate track so I can control it in the mix. 

 

No real answer for you, a work in progress. Stuff comes and goes. The things that work well for me get to stay. 

I recently checked out a video by Venus Theory on YouTube where he discusses the importance of allowing yourself to blunder about and make mistakes. 

Kinda how I go about it, sometimes I'll play something wrong that sounds great and I never would have done that if I'd been trying make a "perfect" recording. 

 

I think since we are going to be imperfect we should embrace that and use it as an asset rather than put ourselves in conflict with our own short-comings. 

[David Emm]

Welcome, Paul. Good questions!

 

The temptation of shiny gear is sometimes the enemy of keeping your goals in sight. Taking up an M1 Mac sort of auto-provided me with a good house cleaning. I've winnowed it down to a solid basic tool box. I added the GX-80 and took up Valhalla's Super Massive and Delay, which perform quite well with little distraction. Otherwise, I've stayed fairly disciplined where I once grabbed new things too often. I live within Logic's world of compressors and etc., which hasn't left me hanging yet. I'm nowhere near an Anderton-level boffin; I have too many distracting melodies buzzing around in the back of my head.

 

I was nearing hand independence in my keyboard playing- a big hurdle- when my hands went south enough to finally crater that angle of approach. I haven't lost that THING where you lean in and start working the keys with gusto; I just have to run it through the right mental filters as a composer/controller monkey now. Having a giant orchestra and a pipe organ on my table is a welcome consolation prize. `

 

Frankly, I'll always mentally begin the way I did when I had a Baldwin baby grand. I don't dig into exotic processing plug-ins or modular synths because my work flow takes a different direction. I'm always thinking "PIANO!" the same way my dog thinks "SQUIRREL!" That's part of why one of my most effective compositional tools is going back and REMOVING distracting blather that was overplayed. Its all part of the fun. 

[Dave Bryce]

I like to think of myself as more of a gear collector.  I enjoy owning lots of cool instruments and pro audio tools - especially ones that have emotional significance for me, and/or products that I've played a role in bringing to market.

 

I feel like an argument could be made that I have more gear than I need (what does that mean, anyway? 🤔), but I'd not sure I'd call myself a hoarder, per se.  I do sell stuff off here and there...

 

I'd even go so far as to say that there's one category for me that risee well abive the others - keyboards and synths.  I did have a bunch of audio processing hardware, but I've sold the majority of that over the past few years.

 

dB

[Dr Mike Metlay]

I have gone through cycles with respect to this, for over 40 years now. I usually go with my gut, and these days my gut says that the less I have to learn in order to go deep with what I have and need, the less other stuff I want cluttering my brain.

I am currently selling off a crapton of gear, including things that haven't been plugged in in decades and have been kept around for sentimental reasons, because they are just sitting there rather than being used by someone who could get good use out of them. (That reminds me, I should post my latest for sale list on MPN.)

 

My current rule is that where possible, I buy one piece of gear and sell two. I just sold a huge pile of gear to a friend who's opening a building with multiple small rehearsal studios for beginning musicians, and I'm even giving stuff away to local music education programs. 

My shelves are emptying out and I breathe easier with every sale. But that's just me.

[Bill Heins]

I'm a hardware minimalist...I live within my means I find I get bigger bang for the buck software wise. I just upgraded my Cubase Pro to Nuendo for a song

 

Bill

[mcgoo]

On 1/25/2023 at 4:37 PM, Dr Mike Metlay said:

... my gut says that the less I have to learn in order to go deep with what I have and need, the less other stuff I want cluttering my brain.

 

I have felt the same way regarding the acquisition of any new synths ever since I got a Polybrute. That thing is so deep that I fear any other polys would distract me from the constant deep dive that thing deserves. 

 

I'm also going to sell some front end processing to pay for some new stuff. I have 4 mic pres and 4 compressors. I haven't recorded 4 singers or acoustic instrumentalists at once in probably a decade (they'd be really crowded in my booth!). 2 at once is all I need. Time to re-tool with things I'll get more use out of. 

[OG_Dave]

Total gear head but not a hoarder. Anything that realistically won't get touched ever again goes back into the world. Odd what does and doesn't go into that bucket but I've moved mountains of gear over the years.

 

When it comes to physical gear, I encourage a broad experiment and have scads of stuff. Not just for music, I'm a carpenter and have a huge collection of tools. I never hesitate to buy a tool and I avoid crappy ones. Same with instruments. I don't buy things above my station though, like a Neve Summing amp or Burl Mothership. Guitars, drums, and mics are weaknesses though. I just love microphones in all their glorious idiosyncrasy and want lots more.

 

I did fall prey to the plug-in marketers for sure. I thought having the ability to instantiate 100 tracks with LA2A's would be cool. Plus I could EQ everything, twice!! That was a waste of money. I've found I really hate the design of pretty much every plug in I've used. I hate mousing to set parameters and if I use 100 plugins my mixes sound like caca. All that money on plugins could have bought a really nice piece of analog gear to help keep my rack toasty in winter, like a 33609/N even if it IS above my station. Good thing unused plugins don't take up closet space!

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

4 hours ago, OG_Dave said:

Total gear head but not a hoarder. Anything that realistically won't get touched ever again goes back into the world. Odd what does and doesn't go into that bucket but I've moved mountains of gear over the years.

 

When it comes to physical gear, I encourage a broad experiment and have scads of stuff. Not just for music, I'm a carpenter and have a huge collection of tools. I never hesitate to buy a tool and I avoid crappy ones. Same with instruments. I don't buy things above my station though, like a Neve Summing amp or Burl Mothership. Guitars, drums, and mics are weaknesses though. I just love microphones in all their glorious idiosyncrasy and want lots more.

 

I did fall prey to the plug-in marketers for sure. I thought having the ability to instantiate 100 tracks with LA2A's would be cool. Plus I could EQ everything, twice!! That was a waste of money. I've found I really hate the design of pretty much every plug in I've used. I hate mousing to set parameters and if I use 100 plugins my mixes sound like caca. All that money on plugins could have bought a really nice piece of analog gear to help keep my rack toasty in winter, like a 33609/N even if it IS above my station. Good thing unused plugins don't take up closet space!

 

 

I bought more plugins than anyone would need too. 

Slowly but surely I try them all and mess about with them. Some of them are amazing, beautiful tools I would have loved to have a long time ago. 

Some of them are pretty OK, those are the ones to toss. Little by little, I'm learning them. Sometimes it's good to really push something so it sounds terrible.

I've always found a way to sneak that into a recording somewhere. Bad can be good. 

[The Real MC]

Hoarders keep everything.  I have purged gear over the years so I don't fit that description.

 

I really went through a purge when I was preparing relocation to a new job new town.  Finally got the motivation to get rid of stuff I don't use anymore; only seller's remorse was the piano I got from my late parents that I learned to play on, but the relocation package had a weight limit and I had to give up the piano.

 

Like others, if I don't use certain gear very much then I get rid of it.

 

I'm 100% OTB.  No RSI worries using a mouse to tweak parameters.  I did have RSI years ago, don't care to go through that again...

 

I have everything I need, and space prevents adding any more gear.  I knew I have to downsize my studio as finding a house with large enough room to house the studio would not be easy, and I needed to find a house to buy quickly at the time.  No regrets over the compromise.  Lack of space can be a good deterrent to adding gear.

[Anderton]

Eventually, I'd like everything I need to fit into two or three flight cases, so I could live somewhere for a couple months and work on a music project. Slowly but surely, I'm figuring out what to pare down. Of course, this means relying on doing as much ITB as possible. So for keys, I'll only need a good controller...but choosing a few specific guitars is going to be tough. Gotta have acoustic, 12-string, PRS, Tele, LP.

 

[KuruPrionz]

2 minutes ago, Anderton said:

Eventually, I'd like everything I need to fit into two or three flight cases, so I could live somewhere for a couple months and work on a music project. Slowly but surely, I'm figuring out what to pare down. Of course, this means relying on doing as much ITB as possible. So for keys, I'll only need a good controller...but choosing a few specific guitars is going to be tough. Gotta have acoustic, 12-string, PRS, Tele, LP.

 

Yep, the guitars are the difficult part. I can get away with 5 but no less for recording. 

[Mighty Motif Max]

I try to only buy gear that I will use long-term, especially when it comes to keys stuff. The only time so far that I have "sold" equipment was actually on a trade-in to upgrade. But I am thinking that I will hit a point with the guitar/bass collection where I'm going to have to start pruning down...those things pile up quickly. I had no idea what I was getting into with that one lol...it's not like the keyboard world where you can do almost everything with two instruments in a pinch.

 

I'm not a hoarder but I'm definitely not a minimalist either - although sometimes I think I might be happier with less equipment, there's also something to be said for being able to cook up virtually any possible sort of sound or style at the drop of a hat, and in good quality, especially when my music tastes are all over the place. And I have a backlog of projects that need some of that stuff, for in "all my free time", whatever that is.

[Stokely]

I don't really get attached to gear, though I have had regrets about gear I let go.   I have too much hardware (keyboards) right now for one simple reason:  I abhor the actual selling process.     Local (FB marketplace, Craigslist) or shipped.  I need more friends that I can sell gear to!   My work gives me a good deal on boxing and shipping using their Fedex account so I'll probably do the shipped thing just to avoid the local flakes.