This flood of threads in the Sales & Buy forum just gives me the impression that...

[UnbalancedBeats]

only a handful of users here are really making music.
I mean, all this hundreds and thousands of weekly second hand license transfers of top-notch software instruments are just insane. What happend to us musicians? Do we have way to many toys to play with and have completely lost our creativity and destination? Or is this even normal?

Wealth.

</thread>

I don't follow. If we are all so wealthy why are so many of us selling plugins to fund the purchase of more plugins or recoup some cash?

Wealth is a good argument. I think a lot of us are buying software just because we have the money to spend. Even if it´s a lot of money. And after a few hours or days with testing and playing, we suddenly decide that this is not something we really need, or is overlapping with other software we already own. If you ask me, this trend is scary.

Fully agree, sometimes a plugin is like getting married... you need sometime to get to know very well the plugin to decide if you want to work with it in the long run

[telecode]

Some people think with their eyes, rather than their brain....Whilst others who jump on the band wagon of buying a bunch of synths and effect plugins realise that they are just not cut out for producing music, because they didn't realise that you needed to learn how to play an instrument first to produce music worth listening to.

Hmmm yeah, I don't know about that. All depends the type of music you are making. It seems to me the major driving trends in popular music are rooted in EDM and HipHop genres and I really don't think you need to be that musically well versed or be able to play a traditional instrument in order to make good EDM or Chill Step or Future Bass. You just need to be very inventive and creative and be very well versed in the tools you use.

Playing an instrument and producing music are two very different things IMO. Playing an instrument is just about motor skills and dexterity, which are obviously important if you're performing live (and it can save you a bit of time as you don't have to constantly go into the DAW to correct sloppy playing). However it doesn't automatically make you a good song writer, sound designer, mixing engineer etc. You might be able to perform amazing guitar solos, but the songs you write can still be super boring, or the mix might be so muddy you can barely hear what's going on...

Besides, GAS seems to be an equally big problem for those who play "real instruments", just look at the Buy/Sell section of any guitar forum...

It sort of depends. I find that my background as a guitarist in bands gave me lots of experience and maybe a headstart in collaborating better with other musicians. If you played in bands, you usually were involved in arranging songs, and interpreting the songs the songwriters wrote. As you got more experienced you got getter at understanding where people are coming from and sort of finding a good balance and middle ground between adding your own contribution to the material as well as interpreting the material in such a way that the other person feels it's in line with what they originally were after. That experience is priceless when collaborating in online mediums line the Internet these days and producing songs in modern age .

[dune_rave]

Imho it's not only GAS , someimes it's rational decision.
Currently with these next gen synths you can do much more, than older synths, so it makes sense to sell the older ones, especially when you can replace them with the new one.
Another thing that the marketing policy of NI cause a decent number of second hand sales : the user first buys some individual license, then buys komplete, then sells the individual licenses.
So I think it has various causes why so much topics exist in Sell&Buy and based on this you can't say the majority of users don't make music, just sell&buy.

[stearine]

1. For one, it's been about the process of finding out what I do, how I work, and which tools and processes gel best with me - and because those aspects of my 'work' also evolve during the process, I've found myself trying, ditching and then rediscovering different tools and techniques. That involves my hands contributing to circulation of various tools in the second-hand market. I like to sense/experience everything, get the best that I can afford, and wealth enables me to "home in" on that ideal virtually without restrictions.

2. I just like technology, so the process of learning different tools can be rewarding in itself (even if in the end I realize I don't need/want it, or don't know w.t.f. I'm supposed to be doing with it).

3. I'm a good consumer; I like buying stuff! Present me your snake oil, sell it to me! I actually don't want the oil, but it helps me forget about the empty void inside me, which will be filled with an acute existential crisis unless I fill it with plugins first. It's a constant, never-ceasing battle between the all-devouring, black shroud of meaninglessness and the little distractions of faux happiness that make it a little bit easier to cope with the inevitable, certain death. Thank you, plugin. You truly are dear to me. Until next month, you cheap skank! In all seriousness, you think I'm joking but I'm not. GAS.

4. I'm not a professional musician/producer/engineer/l'artista - music is primarily a hobby for me, even if my goal is to make something more out of it in the future. As I'm not a "real" anything (in that list) I'm under no real or imagined obligation to do anything more virtuous with my audio gear than d*ck around as I please. Maybe I'm in the wrong forum, but please excuse me as we share some interests. :-)


Which brings me to something else that loosely relates to the topic:

KVR and gearslutz have been extremely valuable resources for me through many years when I've researched stuff related to this hobby and interest of mine, and I've always been under the impression that perhaps all these people with all that gear, experience and knowledge don't necessarily create or produce respectable music (or sound at all for all I care), and that is in fact secondary to me when I just want to find out what the opinions are on a piece of hardware or software which I'm eyeballing.

I don't care if the most opinionated person in the thread is deaf as long as he can explain his case in technical terms - or better yet - show some visual analysis. I don't care if the next person who completely disagrees with the first has no grasp whatsoever of technical and theoretical side of things, as long as he can explain where he comes from by using comparison, analogy, fuzzy adjectives or some strange ideasthetic depiction of how a sound or a processor "feels". Both opinions are valuable if you lack any of the topical qualities of the persons expressing them, and if your media literacy is at the level required for framing the information properly.

So it doesn't bother me in the slightest if somebody's focus isn't in producing music. Trading also produces data that's open to interpretation; selling or buying a product, supply & demand, are market signals - i.e. it says something, like "this product is crap", "this product is difficult to use", "this product is redundant", or "I need some cash". ;-D