Why do I seem to like free synths better ?

[Erisian]

Limitations are just that.....limitations. They bring no advantage.

People who paint know better. Modern pop music shows that with tons of technology, the quality of the music, more frequently than not, suffers. Your point about painting a sunset with blue is absurd. Of course you choose the colours according to the subject. How many spectrum colours are you going to use to paint a sunset? Only reds, oranges and yellows.

[excuse me please]

It's hard to write a 90s song, for instance. A 90s song is per definition a 90s track which "brings people's attention back to the 90s for some reason." Whether they lived in the 90s or not.

Enfin, you'll get the picture. Eventually

[Erisian]

oops

[chk071]

Limitations are just that.....limitations. They bring no advantage.

People who paint know better. Modern pop music shows that with tons of technology, the quality of the music, more frequently than not, suffers. Your point about painting a sunset with blue is absurd. Of course you choose the colours according to the subject. How many spectrum colours are you going to use to paint a sunset? Only reds, oranges and yellows.

I don't think that's the consequence of a lack of limitation. Rather that, with everything, at some point, you reach a certain saturation, or normality, and the musical work in a genre which has become popular and "professional" leads to good handicraft, but lacks fresh and original ideas.

I think it also has to do with life in a society of wealth though. If you're fat and spoiled, there's not much creativity or originality to expect.

Conclusion for me is definitely though that there's no right or wrong thing about limiting yourself, or not doing so. If I take a look at some artists' studios (Chemical Brothers, Junkie XL to name two), they have a crap load of stuff. Actually, thinking about it, I don't think I could name a single artist which doesn't have loads of stuff. I don't really think the people arguing that less is more have much of a point, when all those professionals own gazillions of gear.

[FapFilter]

True, but how much of that are they using constantly?
Of course everyone works differently and for some, “gazillions of gear“ might make perfectly sense in their way of working creatively, but on the other hands, i have also seen / read numerous interviews of some of the best musicians, film- or video game makers who seem to be in the “less is often more / limitations sparkle your creativity camp“

I haven't seen too many interviews from painters though i would be surprised if most of them would say that you have to buy as many brushes, pencils, paint and canvas from every single manufacturer to really set your creativity free.

[excuse me please]

Limitations are just that.....limitations. They bring no advantage.

People who paint know better. Modern pop music shows that with tons of technology, the quality of the music, more frequently than not, suffers. Your point about painting a sunset with blue is absurd. Of course you choose the colours according to the subject. How many spectrum colours are you going to use to paint a sunset? Only reds, oranges and yellows.

I don't think that's the consequence of a lack of limitation. Rather that, with everything, at some point, you reach a certain saturation, or normality, and the musical work in a genre which has become popular and "professional" leads to good handicraft, but lacks fresh and original ideas.

I think it also has to do with life in a society of wealth though. If you're fat and spoiled, there's not much creativity or originality to expect.

Conclusion for me is definitely though that there's no right or wrong thing about limiting yourself, or not doing so. If I take a look at some artists' studios (Chemical Brothers, Junkie XL to name two), they have a crap load of stuff. Actually, thinking about it, I don't think I could name a single artist which doesn't have loads of stuff. I don't really think the people arguing that less is more have much of a point, when all those professionals own gazillions of gear.

I know one. Made with a SH-101, TR-808/909 and a TB-303:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-_UlgGJ3DQ

[evilantal]

True, but how much of that are they using constantly?
Of course everyone works differently and for some, “gazillions of gear“ might make perfectly sense in their way of working creatively, but on the other hands, i have also seen / read numerous interviews of some of the best musicians, film- or video game makers who seem to be in the “less is often more / limitations sparkle your creativity camp“

I haven't seen too many interviews from painters though i would be surprised if most of them would say that you have to buy as many brushes, pencils, paint and canvas from every single manufacturer to really set your creativity free.

To be fair... they don't always actually use all that stuff on releases. Once you make the bigtime, you can afford to collect some toys just for fun.
JXL's scores don't usually have lots of hardware synths in them as evidenced by his Studio Time Youtube series

[excuse me please]

PS btw the song was toppled by the Mad Stuntman, but that's hardly a shame.

https://www.top40.nl/top40/1994/week-19

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vuo8kD5zF5I

[Vortifex]

Edited

[Passing Bye]

Whatever works for one, not everyones goal is making or finishing music, so whatever works for ones pleasure.

[excuse me please]

I know one. Made with a SH-101, TR-808/909 and a TB-303:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-_UlgGJ3DQ

They definitely used more gear than that in that track.

I'm pretty sure they had more gear, but many tracks were composed this way att.

[whyterabbyt]

True, but how much of that are they using constantly?
Of course everyone works differently and for some, “gazillions of gear“ might make perfectly sense in their way of working creatively, but on the other hands, i have also seen / read numerous interviews of some of the best musicians, film- or video game makers who seem to be in the “less is often more / limitations sparkle your creativity camp“

That just might be unconscious confirmation bias. Ive seen/read huge numbers of interviews of the same sort of people over the past 20+ years, and I'd say its no more prevalent amongst them than anyone else.

The other thing I'd say is that the more dogmatic proponents of the 'less is more' thing seem, for some reason, to deliberately overlook the fact that its entirely possible for someone to work minimally at any given point in time by using a subset of a larger pool of gear. I guess that's about 'winning the internet' more than it is about a reasonable examination of people's workflows, but the maxim is definitely skewed; more can easily be less, as well as a different less the next day.

Its fine if someone doesnt have a use for more than one hammer themselves, as it were, but trying to say that noone does, is just wrong.

[Erisian]

True, but how much of that are they using constantly?
Of course everyone works differently and for some, “gazillions of gear“ might make perfectly sense in their way of working creatively, but on the other hands, i have also seen / read numerous interviews of some of the best musicians, film- or video game makers who seem to be in the “less is often more / limitations sparkle your creativity camp“

That just might be unconscious confirmation bias. Ive seen/read huge numbers of interviews of the same sort of people over the past 20+ years, and I'd say its no more prevalent amongst them than anyone else.

The other thing I'd say is that the more dogmatic proponents of the 'less is more' thing seem, for some reason, to deliberately overlook the fact that its entirely possible for someone to work minimally at any given point in time by using a subset of a larger pool of gear. I guess that's about 'winning the internet' more than it is about a reasonable examination of people's workflows, but the maxim is definitely skewed; more can easily be less, as well as a different less the next day.

Its fine if someone doesnt have a use for more than one hammer themselves, as it were, but trying to say that noone does, is just wrong.

Admittedly but I think the OP was about general preference and not black and white purism. People often generalize in conversations because it is easier to do so but I would say that, on the whole, the core of a good piece of music does not require a ton of fancy gadgets. One can too easily get bogged down by one's fascination for gadgetry and exciting sounds and forget the whole purpose of making music. Of course, if it's just fun you want, then I am the same as everybody - let me loose in a studio full of expensive gadgets, please!

[chk071]

I know one.

That's great. But, "one" isn't any prove that it's generally preferrable to limit yourself for more creativity.

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

I cut my teeth on free stuff.

Charlatan
Once
Steinberg Model D
Dexed....etc

I have demoed just about everything thing you can.

As my knowledge and ear grew I bought some commercial synths.

Tal U no Lx
The Legend
Bazille
Synth master
Ana2
Oxbd ( donated )

Simply.....it's the last 10 percent. For example....U no Lx is slightly more detailed sound wise than Noisemaker.

The Legend is simple but the sound is a cut above most things.

When I want to get a musical idea out....I reach for The Legend, U no Lx or OBXD because they are simple. These in my opinion have a better sound than Freeware. But only slightly.

Bazille is simply a beast.....but Bazille CM is free with the same sound just slightly less features. One being cpu efficiency as It's said.

Synth master and Ana2 balance feature and sound quality pretty well and keep up to date.

Then there is maintenance......Hard for Freeware to keep up with ever changing HW/os changes.

I believe there are good places for both Freeware and paid