Software Hoarding

[Funky40]

options, i think in having options. I buy plugins to have options.

And yes, how much was it worth it to spend a few hours having fun, sayed $50 for 4hrs ?
live costs, wherever i spend those hours,...out in town for example.

Yes, SW has turned cocaine.
Have a kick for 4 hours. Donne.
Then back to normal again.


and yes, ofcoarse, it´s the hunt for the ever and ever better.

All i all I don´t care. Reason is: some SW is so so good, it really makes me happy to play with it.
The total cash spent vs. what i get out is so much better than has ever been for me with HW, it´s insane ! no regrets. or lets say so, not many.

[BONES]

sell what you don't use if you are able to. having everything doesn't make you a better musician, being good at a few select things is much better.

That's simply not true. Most synths have virtually zero learning curve; once you know how to use one, you can apply that knowledge to any of them, really. There may occasionally be something a little bit different that you need to get to grips with - e.g. the unusual modulation system in ArcSyn - but that's the work of 5 minutes to conquer. Beyond that, it rarely takes me any time at all to learn how to get the most from a new synth. e.g. I had kind of avoided ARP2600 emulations because it all looked so hard but when I heard how good Korg's sounded, I was determined to get my head around it and discovered it took all of two minutes to completely banish my fear/apprehension. It's all OJT and you pick it up by using it.

No mechanic complains that they can't get to the job done because they have too many tools.
Daily people complain in electronic music discussions that they have access to too many tools.

Brilliant analogy! I'm definitely going to steal it for my own use.

Vegan Ketchup is also delicious!

It must be very different to Keto tomato sauce, which is absolutely horrid (and three times the price of the good stuff). But, of course, it's all made from tomatoes so it's likely all vegan and you're paying a premium because you didn't think of that.

I view software as a "consumable" product. In any profession or hobby you will buy things that you use for a day, a week, a year, or a decade and then discard, sell, or giveaway

Another good analogy. I used to build plastic models and often I'd buy a pot of paint for one specific task, knowing I would only ever use about 1% of it an then it would sit in a box until it all dried out. That didn't stop me buying it, even as a broke teenager, because at the time I had a use for it. Same with softsynths. Every one of our albums features one or two synths that are on almost every song but that we never used on any other album. Each of those albums relies heavily on that instrument but, over time, different and sometimes better things come along that displace them. So what? They did the job we bought them to do, we got our money's worth out of them and we moved on. But we keep them around because they may still prove useful at some later date.

What's the difference between buying the new Serum 2 for $189 and having a fun weekend with it, or playing a round of golf that costs $189?

Nothing, both are ridiculous amounts of money to pay for each of those things. No softsynth is worth $189 and you'd have to pay me a lot more than that to play a round of f**king golf. As Churchill said, it ruins a perfectly good walk. An afternoon at a driving range is another matter. There is something intensely satisfying about belting the bejesus out of a bucket of those stupid, little, round balls with a long, heavy club.

The best part about considering software as consumables, is that when you no longer want to use it, you can sell it, give it away, or just delete it.

I don't think you should sell plugins you no longer use. As you say, they are consumable items and it's hard enough for a developer to scratch out a meagre living from this business, without us taking sales from them. I just stop installing them in new machines if we don't need them anymore.

[Morty-C-137]

I look at it as an investment, most everything I have will have some resale value indefinitely
pretty much.

Yeah? Plugins? Really? These days?

Just embrace that whatever you spend in plugins is money you’ll never see again.

Yea I think so, I have good taste and you name it, chances are I got it. I like to have complete sets as well. Selling them would take some doing of course. But there are usually plenty of folks looking for good deals and think. I would lose money of course, but still make a lot, even
for stupidly cheap prices. For me it’s mostly about effects though, my sw instrument collection is modest.

This is only plugins too, I’m not talking about
all the HW that I have as well.

I used to.. back then also bought a lot. Now I just can't be bothered anymore with reselling plugins because I mostly only buy occasionally and deep discounts. So I just accept the cost. As sometimes license transfer costs are higher than what I bought the plugin for. I also keep a very slim and tailored collection of tools I love and know and the rest goes into a 'discarded' folder on my backup drive.

Some people like endless options (or at least the idea of it). For me, the less decisions I have to make the better (that's not a process I enjoy). I know that the end result will not be better by having more options choosing between either 3 very capable tools or 500.

[harvon]

... what happens to all our work when we're gone? For most I suspect the PC is picked up by waste management and ends up in a landfill.

yeah, but I don't care.

[BONES]

So what do you do when the time comes to get the studio into a newer comp. Do you install back all that you had in the old comp or as I do, just what you have been actually using?

I try not to install absolutely everything again but after a few months I still end up with around 300 plugins installed, as I realise there is this or that old song that still needs something I've forgotten about. Sometimes I will try and replace that one thing with something else but usually it's jsut easier to install the plugin.

Aside, microsoft set the win 11 technical requirements high enough to force people to buy new computers. Just a way to sell more win 11s.

That makes no sense - you don't sell more software by forcing people to buy new hardware first. Anyway, Windows 11 is a free upgrade AFAIK and OEMs would be idiots to pay for something their customers are getting for free, wouldn't they?

[harvon]

Depends, my 2015 fujitsu w530 tower is not win11 compatible. I can install it but microsoft doesn't serve updates to incompatibles so the fujitsu would become virusvulnerable. I had to buy a newer comp for win11 and install linux on the old one.

[buffalo roam]

Even if buying software does get to be a sort of addiction, I agree with those who argue that at least it doesn't cause bodily harm, it costs less than some obsessions (including tickets to various shows), it does offer new creative possibilities, and it doesn't harm the environment. So what the hell. I've been putting off updating NI's Komplete Ultimate for a number of years, and I expect I'll pick up a lot of sounds and some synths I may never hear or use. But I'll get some use out of it. And I'm waiting to see what Zebra 3 shapes up to be.

[Tj Shredder]

Aside, microsoft set the win 11 technical requirements high enough to force people to buy new computers. Just a way to sell more win 11s.

That makes no sense - you don't sell more software by forcing people to buy new hardware first. Anyway, Windows 11 is a free upgrade AFAIK and OEMs would be idiots to pay for something their customers are getting for free, wouldn't they?

Oh, yes, that is exactly what they do. They force you to buy a new computer that has a part of its price for Windows 11. its even worse, even Windows 11 computers might fall out of updates even earlier than the support of Windows 10 ends. If the world would open their eyes, Microshuft would have been replaced by Linux long time ago.
But there are too many dependencies - also for me, Apple isn‘t better in that regard…
And its only for security reasons that you need to be up to date.
You can easily keep a machine off line and run older software on it as long it doesn‘t break… Or you place it in a virtual machine…

But to be honest, I haven‘t touched my old machine for music for quite a time. The new toys are shining brighter…

If you have a faible for minimalism (I don‘t), Linux would be a pretty good alternative…

@Bones - I am proud of my sort of stupidity…( anticipating the reaction…; - )

[BONES]

Your absurd attitude towards MPE is definitely a special kind of stupidity, you should be proud. Ably supported by your conspiracy theories concerning Windows. Seriously, what you've said there makes no sense. Computers don't "fall out of updates", Microsoft just stops updating things like virus definitions. If you use third party anti-virus software, it's largely irrelevant. Moreover, if you're on an ancient computer with an ancient version of Windows, nobody is going to be targeting you anyway, just as they don't tend to target Linux.

Also, how much do you think OEMs were paying for Windows licenses? They get volume licenses that probably only add $10 to the price of a computer, if that. Hardly worth worrying about. Some OEMs offer Linux but it isn't one penny cheaper than one running Windows. In fact, I think HP used to charge more if you wanted Linux pre-installed. Now that Microsoft have moved to a "Windows as a service" model, they probably aren't charging anything at all (although I have no knowledge one way or the other).

I gave Linux a red-hot go 25 years ago and, as hard as I tried, I couldn't make it work for me. I've looked at it a few times since but the reality is that you can't choose your applications, you have to find things that will work with Linux, which restricts your choices too much. And unless you build your own custom kernel, Linux is at least as bloated as Windows, often moreso. e.g. When Windows installed off a single CD-ROM, SUSE Linux came with 6 CDs and you had to install packages from all of them. It took up more disc space than Windows by the time you were done. I love the way I could customise the UX but even that became an object lesson in why Linux sucks - my favourite window manager was a thing called WindowMaker and when I started using it in 2000 it was at version 0.5x or something. 25 years later it still hasn't got to version 1.0 and development has moved from one place to another the whole time, as one person gets bored with it and someone else decides to take it on. One thing that hasn't changed in all that time is the website, which looks exactly the same as it did 25 years ago. It makes me a bit sad, if I'm honest, and that's my whole experience with Linux - it promises so much and delivers so little.

The lesson I learned is that you should always choose the applications you want/need and then find the OS that best supports them. The OS itself is largely irrelevant, it's the applications that matter and once you've got those choices locked in, the OS mostly chooses itself.

[pekbro]

Wow, Windowmaker, I haven't thought about that in years. An attempt to replicate the nextstep UI, a unix variant which later became the basis of OSX.

I got to use a nextstep machine a few times, loved it...

[keyman_sam]

One problem with software, I find, is that it's a bit harder to sell it once you use it.

i.e. there's always the danger that one of my old projects used it and I'm worried it might not open. Just FOMO I guess. I don't need a bunch of plugins, it's been collecting dust. HW demands your attention. Easier to sell too as the value doesn't depreciate that much.

[markello]

Some folks compare making music to being a mechanic? lol

If having too much software stops you making music you certainly don’t deserve to have so much stuff and should give up.

But limiting yourself can be invigorating and spark creativity, like an artist limiting their colour palette for a project.

But nothing like being a mechanic.

[Morty-C-137]

One problem with software, I find, is that it's a bit harder to sell it once you use it.

i.e. there's always the danger that one of my old projects used it and I'm worried it might not open. Just FOMO I guess. I don't need a bunch of plugins, it's been collecting dust. HW demands your attention. Easier to sell too as the value doesn't depreciate that much.

Commit stuff to audio sooner. Also does wonders for the process.

[BBFG#]

Some folks compare making music to being a mechanic? lol

If having too much software stops you making music you certainly don’t deserve to have so much stuff and should give up.

But limiting yourself can be invigorating and spark creativity, like an artist limiting their colour palette for a project.

But nothing like being a mechanic.

I equate it more to painting art. There are different mediums and different paint makers. I have my most used and favorites, but some companies do certain colors and transparencies/opacities/interferences better than others. They also are often cheaper in bundles and kits and some things get used more often than others because of it. Of course, they can and will expire and sometimes that can promote using them beyond our comfort zone whereas plugins only expire by OS or lack of developer updates. And again, while I have my favorites, I've been known to use things that weren't ever actually made for my medium. (Such as old nail polish or spray cans that someone was throwing out. )

[ROTMetro]

Some folks compare making music to being a mechanic? lol

If having too much software stops you making music you certainly don’t deserve to have so much stuff and should give up.

But limiting yourself can be invigorating and spark creativity, like an artist limiting their colour palette for a project.

But nothing like being a mechanic.

TLDR: just a dumb rando defending his internet comment

Do you play acoustic only? With acoustic instruments the process can be more straightforward, but when working with synthesis, production, and layering, it’s like assembling and tuning a machine to get the song I hear in my head out, assembling the right parts in the right way, and then sounding 'correct'. Even just tuning your instrument is more being a mechanic than being a creative. Or adjusting a reed. Heck I had different mouth pieces for my sax, mutes/muffles, reeds, parts I changed out to meet my need. That was being a mechanic (replace x with y to meet a purpose). Or the wrote memorization and perfecting of hand movements is more mechanical than music. Hundreds of hours of practice to build/maintain technical competency.

I use tools—EQ, reverb, filters, volume—to shape and refine each part like I adjust engine/exhaust/suspension components to get the right performance. Sometimes every part just comes together, but more often than not I have to put on my 'mechanics' hat and use technical knowledge over 'vibes and feels'. Some technical stuff I'm now so familiar with it's become second nature but that's no different than rebuilding an engine/adjusting a carborator being second nature to my dad.

I have to troubleshoot my songs all the time. Sometimes fixing something obvious if I have the technical knowledge/skill (remove boxiness, this note is out of key). Sometimes the customer (My head) just says 'this sounds wrong, fix it' and it's a deep dive and lots of learning, deconstructing, putting back together. I use tools like EQ, reverb, filters, and volume to shape my track, refining each sound until it works as a whole. Like a mechanic, I diagnose issues, make adjustments, and apply technical knowledge—harmonic theory, rhythm, EQ techniques, and tension control—to get everything running smoothly.

Being a modern musician is way different than being a painter in that we push ourselves to get a sound that originally involved a team (including a sound engineer) of people who themselves had a combined decades if not a century plus of music knowledge and tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment. And because our ears don't give the leeway our eyes do when seeing a photograph vs a artists work. Our ears (at least mine) compare all songs to the others I've ever heard, and just goes 'this sounds wrong! this sounds really harsh! etc etc'.