The Overcoming Gear Lust Thread

[redroom]

to overcome gear lust stop visitng Gearslutz

[Chris Lago]

Originally Posted by redroom

to overcome gear lust stop visitng Gearslutz

Best Advice

[Lemontree]

After going through a few mid sized consoles and mid range priced convertors with racks full of flashing lights my gear sluttery was quenched with a Yamaha N12 and a couple of UAD cards.

There's nothing more I need that would better the quality of my recordings at present. Future (spare) cash will go on out of house mastering.

Shit, am I not a propper gearslut anymore?

[ejmaroney]

Yeah, whoever it was who went on that dumb show, needs to 'fess up. My wife saw that too, made us all look bad... tutt

[alex_]

Originally Posted by redroom

to overcome gear lust stop visitng Gearslutz

+1

either that, or read GS for 7 days straight, 12 hours per day, then you ll be cured for life. (And if you re not, you will have gathered enough knowledge about human gearsluttiness to get a job as a very efficient gear salesman :-)

Now personally, what saved me (or did it?) was probably to work as a buyer for a (very) big music gear retailer for a few years.
Spending daily the company's money on masses of gear ($$$$$$) -some sexy, some not at all- and looking for bargains + new products definitely altered my gearslutty ways for life.

I also have saved 0 money while working there and bought loads of gear for myself (at stupidly cheap prices as you can imagine. there s only so much one can resist ^_^)

Since then, I have had little reason to buy anything at all as I was fully kitted for the projects I had in mind.

As a reaction to lakeshorephatty I would like to express my disagreement : owning expensive gear is NOT at all a necessity to make good music or even good sounding recordings.

As a matter of fact, one of my old friends and former flatmate from the drunken student years has become a (very) respected and (very) successful musician, touring around the world and selling enough records (he composes, arranges, records and mixes most of his stuff, as well as working on other people's music). Yet he still works with a ultra budget ($50?) second hand rig I got him for his birthday back then. ok, I did grab a bargain, but here we go, this comprised :
a good, big pair of hifi speakers (celestion ditton I believe)
a nice denon amp to go with it
a pair of decent headphones (from the late eighties).

before I gave him this, all he had was a wonderfully ugly but awesome sounding italian custom shop bass guitar. somebody must have owed somebody else some money, and somebody else lent it to someone else and somehow it ended in my friend's hands... dont ask...

then he uses some old self-assembled PC running a seriously outdated version of cakewalk (for some reason, he loves it and wont use anything else). he probably got it for close to nothing (the day he actually decided to go and pay for it)

and finally a very affordable soundcard (cant remember what it was, but it was definitely something I wouldnt remember e. M-audio maybe?).

As far as I know, the only 3 sexy things my friend aquired over the past 10 years were :
-some second hand oktava ribbon mic (was given to him or lent forever I think)
-an old roland "space echo (he likes the flavour of its pre and runs a lot of stuff through that box). nice little tape-echo, bought for a bag of nuts at a carboot sale
-a fender rhodes keyboard (ok, that s sexy, but is an instrument so doesnt come under the "studio gear obsession" category)

He worked with that because not only did it work very well for him (and well enough for the labels that signed him) but he had little money then, so little choice. However, as things went better financially, he decided to spend it in an other way than to satisfy a gear addiction.
I suspect he instead favors a french wine and spanish smoked ham addiction.

Being limited by gear can make your mind more creative and your techniques less sloppy as you have to draw the maximum out of what you have! And yea, get real pro mastering, that s something you cant replace, even with good gear.

et voila :-)

[sameal]

ive tried endlessly to kick the habit. all ive found is distractions.


the one that worked 95% for me was:

no internet. hence no ebay.

but i still got to the library now and again, and well.......

repairing gear satiates the gear lust for short periods of time. your still buying things for the repair, but hopefully less money is being spent.

im about to be jobless soon, for a stint, so im bulking up to a workable setting in my home studio. unfortunately workable isn't satisfying enough. ive found some nice things, and maybe a few that ill never get rid of, but on the whole, i know there's better to be had. and its killing me.

my thoughts are, i get a working setup, and after finding suitable employment again, selling/trading up to the next step.

i also went the worst direction possible for my pocketbook. i want a good analog/digital setup, so i can work in both realms.


it can all be blamed on my first band. since then the gearlust has not let up. i got a taste of how rewarding putting in the time and money to something you really care about can be, and it's been eating me alive ever since. and how important having a good sound is.

really, all i want in life is a house full of gear.

retire from whatever crappy job i had to take cause i didnt make it in the biz' and just sit around learning music all day. the end.

[You_Father_Sky]

Thought I had kicked the habit. Until a girl at work said "yeah that's a good deal"

$1600 later, I have an ISA 428 on it's way. Sigh.

[SkunkWorks]

Originally Posted by chrislago

But Seriously, my life will be complete once I actually get my SSL Alpha Channel...

... which we will see in the classifieds in 2 months (wink)

[sameal]

Originally Posted by You_Father_Sky

Thought I had kicked the habit. Until a girl at work said "yeah that's a good deal"

$1600 later, I have an ISA 428 on it's way. Sigh.

hey man, look at the bright side! you saved 400 + shipping off sweetwater price!

thats saving money!


d'oh. im giving you my excuses!

[Hammer v2]

Great Thread!

I am officially "cured"!

Been mobile the last few years, and every job had me using LESS gear....Too heavy and the computer does most things well enough to write and be creative.

Turns out the $$$ is in creativity. Not sound.

It also turns out 90 percent of a good sound is good players, good ideas and a great room. Good mics and gear certainly help, don't get me wrong, but not as much as ideas, room and Muso's.

People listen to music to feel something. Love they lost, memories, anger, inspiration, sadness, happiness...whatever....It's all emotion and if you're recording captures that....well..I'd say you've won.

[noah330]

For the first time since I was about 13 I have no gear lust.

I finally like everything I have and can do what I need to do. There are always a few things I wish I could have - but I'm not dying to get them or waiting to get them before I start working on something.

[KeithMoonwannabe]

Originally Posted by noah330

For the first time since I was about 13 I have no gear lust.

I finally like everything I have and can that I need to do. There are always a few things I wish I could have - but I'm not dying to get them or waiting to get them before I start working on something.

this is where I'm at now

[Draw the Moral]

I'm really close to being pretty content. And when I say that, it's because I'm actually missing a few really vital components of a studio.

I don't have any lust for things that I don't really need.

But I'm missing a LDC Mic. As in, I don't have one. You kinda need one of those.
I have a great interface right now (apogee duet) but I really need more than two inputs, so an ensemble is on the wish list so that I can record drums. Also, I don't have a nice acoustic guitar. As a guitarist, I definitely need a good acoustic. I don't have one right now.

And finally, acoustic treatment, which I am in the process of making myself right now.

I know these are kinda odd things to be missing, but I was on tour with a band in the Air Force, so I sold a lot of my gear before I left. Since I've been back, and now have a family...the order in which I'm building the studio back up has been very strange indeed.

But that's not too bad I think. Four items, and I'll have a very respectable, workable home studio that will last me a long time.

In the mean time, I'm making do with my 57 and Rode NT-3.

[synthdude]

I don't really have this problem, only thing I am gear lusting for is a mac pro and a newer ekit since both my mac and e kit are obsolete and impacting the workflow. I would only consider buying new gear if it will pay it's self off by saving time over the year that would be equal to it's list value. Like if I got a MC mix I would only get if I i figured it would save 1500 a year on mix time at the arte that i charge and the time it would take me, other wise I wouldn't even consider it ,and also I have a budget which restricts the GAS being that I am on a limited income.