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The Source & Evolution of GAS


Song80s

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How did it happen ? How did we become afflicted of the varying degrees of GAS ?

 

Understanding a problem is the key to solving it.

( how much credit do I have on that 22 % Guitar Center

credit card ? )

 

Here is my theory on the keyboard/synth/computer/recording version of GAS:

 

-saw all the girls screaming at the Beatles

- Emerson and Wakeman had great sounding

instruments

- if I had 2 or 3 hit singles I would be set for life

- creative types are prone to obsessive/compulsive

activities

- Yamaha/Korg/Roland developed their product marketing

- Internet enables anything new to be circulated in a day

- eBay

 

What did I miss ?

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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- creative types are prone to obsessive/compulsive

activities

I think that's the real source of it ;-)

"You look hopefully for an idea and then you're humble when you find it and you wish your skills were better. To have even a half-baked touch of creativity is an honor."

-- Ernie Stires, composer

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I think the guitarists helped push us into it - who here WASN'T impressed when they first heard about Rick Nielsen's ridiculously large collection of vintage guitars?

 

I remember, in the seventies, despite our stacks and stacks of keyboards, that very few guys had an Arp AND a Moog, or a Prophet AND an Oberheim AND a Korg: We kinda picked our sounds and went with it. Key case in point was Zawinul and his twin Prophet-5's Ein and Zwei.

 

Even in my ridiculous (18 boards) collection, there's not a lot of duplication - only 2 of my boards do GM, and I'm dumping one of those. One analog poly, one analog mono, one digilog, a digital piano, a weighted controller, an unweighted 2-octave controller, a lot of old one-flavor electromechanicals (Rhodes, Clav, SE-4, Hammond), pair of 6-op/sine FM modules (I could dump one, I guess), a 4-op/8-waveform FM module, an early 90's digital that I may or may not keep, and a couple of piano modules that could go away without me ever missing them.

 

And the stuff I would buy is definitely to fill holes: a vector synth, a modeling synth, a sampler...

 

...an accordion... :D

 

Daf

I played in an 8 piece horn band. We would often get bored. So...three words:

"Tower of Polka." - Calumet

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Daf, quick ! Call the GAS Anonymous hot line.

 

Sure signs you have an addiction is denial and ' justification' plus having over 6 keyboards.

 

A sure cure is to ship us all your boards and

go cold turkey with only 1 GM module.

 

LOL

 

I blame Rick Nielsen for making me deaf in 1 ear but

thats another story

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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I've never been impressed by collections. I used to collect stamps when I was a kid, and then one day I looked at the book full of stamps and said to myself "WTF am I doing???" I immediately sold the valuable stuff and gave away the rest, and haven't been a collector of anything since. And I consider mere ownership of a collection of stuff to be an absolute waste of time, energy, and $$$.

Originally posted by DafDuc:

I think the guitarists helped push us into it - who here WASN'T impressed when they first heard about Rick Nielsen's ridiculously large collection of vintage guitars?

Daf

NOt a bit of my music gear represents a collection; if I can't use it I don't buy it. Some gear occasionally gets put aside for a time, but comes back out when needed. And "collecting vintage gear" is just stupid; I mean, what the heck is the point?

I used to think I was Libertarian. Until I saw their platform; now I know I'm no more Libertarian than I am RepubliCrat or neoCON or Liberal or Socialist.

 

This ain't no track meet; this is football.

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Originally posted by GregC:

I blame Rick Nielsen for making me deaf in 1 ear but thats another story

Hey, I'm deaf in one ear too. Just happened this year... :(

 

I blame Satan, but maybe they're the same guy, LOL...

I played in an 8 piece horn band. We would often get bored. So...three words:

"Tower of Polka." - Calumet

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Originally posted by InTheDark:

Quick, we definitely need some group intervention for Dafduc, has anyone ever seen a case of GAS this severe? ;)

I didn't even mention my 13 mics...

 

I also collect hymnals, have about 60 of those.

 

I really am pathetic, aren't I? ;)

I played in an 8 piece horn band. We would often get bored. So...three words:

"Tower of Polka." - Calumet

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First, the admission: Like most keyboardists I know, I have GAS. There's no denying it; for example, I've bought an Andromeda being basically broke. Let's go on.

 

In case you're interested in a partial/temporary cure for GAS, here's one: Take one old synth, one which you haven't programmed in a long time, and start making sounds on it again, from today's updated point of view. Almost invariably, you'll discover that you haven't considered a lot of its possibilities. You will be happily busy for a while making useful sounds, and you'll consider that at least 70% of the possibilities hidden in your rig of synths are still, well, hidden. So hopefully, you'll be driven to do the same with your other machines.

 

However, as I said, this cure is just partial and temporary. :P:evil:

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hey daf, heck I think you can get a lot of $ on eBay for the hymnals

 

Marino, you are 100 % right. The gear we have bought some years had a lot of merit. To be away from it for some time and then return is like a musical vacation for the mind.

 

I think creativity has a lot to do with the current frame of mind and emotion. Sometimes we limit ourselves unconsciously.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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I spend too much money on CDs and sheet music. Does that count? :(

 

Over the years a lot of the stupid stuff I bought was to try to make do since I didn't accept that I really had to spend the $$$ to get something that would really work. Cheap microphones, cheap mic stands, cords from Radio Shack. None of that stuff is worth a dime because none of it will really, genuinely, do the job that it purports to do once you get out of the garage.

 

A recent example is that I bought an old accordion on eBay about a year ago. I put on some new straps and fiddled around with it long enough to figure out that I'm not going to play an accordion, even a good one, and ended up selling it for less than what I had into it.

 

I have always been a sucker for musical trinkets, and so I have a bunch of recorders, harmonicas, maracas, a tambourine, two pennywhistles. I also have a guitar I bought for $50 at a second hand store in rural West Virginia.

 

And a harmonium (stupid move).

 

I suppose the banjo from Sears Roebuck would count as gear retention syndrome (GRS) since my father bought it and I have never quite seen fit to either dispose of it or give it back to him.

 

Bartolomeo.

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Nice justification for Gas you guys. I take a simpler route. I have a "home" set of instruments, ones that I will never take out of the house again. Then I have a portable set. It doesn't matter that I can make a patch on one of my "home" set instruments. If I'm looking for a sound that I want to put in a sequence and I don't have it in my portable set, then I buy another instrument for my portable set. NO, it doesn't matter that my Moog or Arp Oddessey can make that sound, they're not in my portable set....that doesn't count. :rolleyes:

 

It's a good thing I'm not married.....she'd never understand. :D

 

Mike T.

Yamaha Motif ES8, Alesis Ion, Prophet 5 Rev 3.2, 1979 Rhodes Mark 1 Suitcase 73 Piano, Arp Odyssey Md III, Roland R-70 Drum Machine, Digitech Vocalist Live Pro. Roland Boss Chorus Ensemble CE-1.

 

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