What's the point of buying the newest plugins once you already have your bases covered?

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Because buying and learning and programming synths is a way to procrastinate from actually composing music. With Reaktor you can procrastinate a lifetime...
"and the Word was Sound..."
https://www.youtube.com/user/InLightTone

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InLight-Tone wrote:Because buying and learning and programming synths is a way to procrastinate from actually composing music. With Reaktor you can procrastinate a lifetime...
Yeah, but you know what? That's not always true. I've got more synths than I could ever use and just now I uploaded yet another of my over 400 tracks to Soundcloud.

Not everybody who buys tons of stuff makes no music.

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<delete>
Last edited by egbert101 on Mon Feb 19, 2018 9:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
<List your stupid gear here>

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InLight-Tone wrote:Because buying and learning and programming synths is a way to procrastinate from actually composing music.
Who does?
I will take the Lord's name in vain, whenever I want. Hail Satan! And his little goblins too. :lol:

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I've been buying VST plugins for 13 years, and am basically at saturation in terms of software. It takes something really different/special to get my attention now, and I have to be confident that I'm going to actually use it before I will spend the money.

On the other hand, I've gotten into hardware, particularly Eurorack, so I'm spending money there. But I have a space budget of 9U 84HP; I filled the first 3U in 4 months and it's quite functionally dense and capable; the second row will add more modulation and utilities, one more flexible oscillator and another filter or two, and the third is just for GAS expansion. Any other modules I'll want after that are going to require something else to move out first.

Anyway -- there's quite a long developmental phase between "bases covered" and "enough already." I was already feeling invincible when I owned the first release of zeta+ and PlastiCZ along with a bunch of freeware. :hihi: But there is no doubt in my mind I am better equipped now than then. Granted, I also have a bunch of software now that I basically never use -- but some of that was an important part of the journey. Given the advancements in VST quality/technology between when I started and now, and my own musical evolution, I don't see any direct path from the beginning to where I am now. Same with hardware; I went through several non-modular desktop synths before deciding that wasn't the path for me, but I doubt I'd have luckily stumbled into MicroBrute plus Eurorack without some stops on the way.

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chk071 wrote:
whyterabbyt wrote:What's the point of threads like this?
Confirmation, i guess.
I can see why it looked that way, but I really wanted to know what people had to say. This thread has been an eye opener. It's clarified some things I had inklings of, but that hadn't quite crystallized in my head. This thread is realizing its purpose very well.

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MackTuesday wrote: This thread is realizing its purpose very well.

You're targeting all the suckers in this thread who will buy your product ??

:hihi:
Amazon: why not use an alternative

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layzer wrote: what do you know. go listen to my soundcloud or read the comments on my posts in the music forum. you might learn something about tech. BTW, i'd appreciate you keeping your replies away from my posts... you just didn't learn from the last incident huh? :idiot:
My point stands. Who takes new tech advice from a confessed hater of all things new? It's usually heavilly biased. Keeping an open mind is always the way to go, with buying new equipment as well as everything else. Old may work, so may new. Best tool for the job etc...
If a just released product compliments or supersedes what I already have, that's a good place to start for a purchase. Lovely.

As for your personal drama, you'll have to deal with that by yourself. There's no rule stating I can't provide replies to particular members posts as long as they follow the general rules (which your weird aggression laden rants often don't), so you can rule that particular attempt at manipulation out. You are of course free to block my posts, as is your wont, though I won't be doing the same in return. I never choose to ignore any user.
Oh, and I still prefer the original skin - Get over it.
Last edited by Aliens on Wed Feb 22, 2017 10:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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I would like to ask an additional question to the OP:

"What is the point of getting the latest CPU processor once you already have your bases covered"

?

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There are practical reasons to buy things, they just aren't the things that make us collectively pull the trigger on a purchase.

Like, we've been through a big vintage-analog craze and that is still going on to some extent(maybe more so in the hardware market than VSTs) and it's both admirable that they're being rediscovered, and also revelatory to see what the limitations of the genuine old stuff is. 70's subtractive architectures have a raw, piercing depth to their sound quality and are fun to jam with, but most suffer from limited sound design options. Regardless, if you pony up the money you can have "real analog sound" in a nice new casing, or for a little more, start building a modular setup for tinkering. I wouldn't mind having a little setup based on some of those new desk modulars like the Make Noise gear.

With plugins, we started from the opposite position. Softsynths and plugin effects earned a reputation for being dodgy because they would so often have fizzy filters, aliased oscillators, harsh delay line FX, and poor performance controls. But right from the start, you would find some wildly experimental stuff on the modulation end of things, since there were no real limits to that. The churn of the plugin market has been directed towards building up the sound quality, and to most ears, we're done with that - new (commercial) synth plugins differ in character more than they differ in objective measures of quality. The limit is with the computing resources, not the synth.

But that still leaves ease-of-use as a goal. The happy medium for both hardware and software was, and still is, in samples and presets. New synths are marketed around their preset content, not their programming; orchestral samples continue to command high prices, and there are endless numbers of loops and construction kits. Buying a new sound, in this form, is a temporary release from the genuine struggles of creative work - the programmability is nearly superfluous, indeed having a complicated, inscrutable architecture is likely to create buyer's remorse. This aspect of finding "the special key that makes a little melody" is going to keep driving people towards GAS even when it's the kinds of sounds and architectures that they already have - after all, it happens in every other instrument market, and with much more minute differences.

I found an escape hatch, though. I collect free samples. No buyer's remorse, desk space or licensing burdens, just a nice evening hobby. Hard to run out of space for them, too. I do keep around plugins, but they basically fill in gaps where my samples don't reach.

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Numanoid wrote:I would like to ask an additional question to the OP:
"What is the point of getting the latest CPU processor once you already have your bases covered"
?
It might be faster. You can never have too fast CPU and do the same task in shorter time. This is actually what limits my productivity :help:
Blog ------------- YouTube channel
Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)

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Regarding software I think there is an element of wondering if you are missing out, maybe you wonder what your peers are using or seasoned pro's and hanker after this sound. Synths and their characters can help get you there, no doubt about this. There are always subtle differences between synths and some that excel at certain synthesis methods.. if you are relatively serious about your music and art I think these subtleties are worth $160.00-$220.00 to achieve a desired sonic result without thinking... "If I had synth X I would have that sound nailed and instead I have to make do with second or 3rd best at that type of sound." I know I bought a few "plum" synths that sit there never used. That is how it goes I guess in the grand scheme of enjoyment I get from music making it is just how it goes....you gotta have some passion in life and passion often mean making mistakes and gaining experience. I have a core set of synths which get hammered because they are so nice to use and hear.

Once synths/sonic palette is covered in their entirety you have no where to hide. It is you and you alone that needs to improve musical knowledge, creative approaches, production, sound engineering and mixing skill.

You know where to look for this and it is not always your tools. I suppose this is luxurious and some may have better tool selection processes and make less mistakes along the way. I have got better as GAS has reduced at making decisions on sonic abilities of synths but it takes time. We all need a journey.

Clearly we are all different I find productivity and quality 2 separate things. I can produce endless amounts of garbage in a really short time, I am great at that :lol: . Producing something that I am actually wanting to represent myself at any given stage in the musical journey takes time, unfortunately a long time. The CPU is the last thing on my mind when it comes to this. It depends what your goals are. For some reason everything I do sonically and musically takes a long time, maybe I am just making a disproportionate amount of garbage to quality (all within the same solely worked on track, I work on 1 track at a time)and need a long while to sift through it all.

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The point is that you hope developers will cook up some new and interesting musical algorithms. Unfortunately we live in a age of cpu conservatism due to the EDM scene. So we are kind of in a standstill until this scene blows over.

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I want to make clear that it doesn't mean you can't be highly creative and musical with what we have because we have a great deal to use and play with. what we have is pretty amazing, but yeah, once you have your bases covered, sit down and start playing because it's at a point where we are just buying into the same algorithms over and over again.

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Dasheesh wrote:The point is that you hope developers will cook up some new and interesting musical algorithms. Unfortunately we live in a age of cpu conservatism due to the EDM scene.
:dog:

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