2023: A Year in Gear (What You've Bought or Want to Buy in 2023)

[pekbro]

@ghettosynth, re: g&l

You can get some deals on them, mine is a custom shop guitar that i got comparitvely
cheap as the shop wanted to sell it. Prob $1200 or so less than it would have cost me
from the CS. $1800 (still alot) brand new 2021 guitar. Just sayin, i would have bought a fender but honestly the quality control is hit or miss and has been for some time i would imagine.

[ghettosynth]

Yes, nothing like the context of a tightly fitting pleather outfit to clarify the situation. Haven't seen the movie FWIW, I tire quickly of the superhero genre. Time to turn my fan on, it's getting warm in here. No, seriously, it's hot today and it's warming up in my house.

[ghettosynth]

@ghettosynth, re: g&l

You can get some deals on them, mine is a custom shop guitar that i got comparitvely
cheap as the shop wanted to sell it. Prob $1200 or so less than it would have cost me
from the CS. $1800 (still alot) brand new 2021 guitar. Just sayin, i would have bought a fender but honestly the quality control is hit or miss and has been for some time i would imagine.

For sure, I've heard that too, especially for the MIM guitars. I'm not ruling anything in or out at this point. I'm just trying to get to know what's what so I can make a good decision when the right deal comes along.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Only have a small list of modules I keep looking out for on sale and just nabbed one, a Xaoc Zadar quad envelope generator

I’m hoping it’ll pair up nicely with the Befaco Noise Plethora to make interesting sounds for rhythms and drones.

[ghettosynth]

Only have a small list of modules I keep looking out for on sale and just nabbed one, a Xaoc Zadar quad envelope generator

I’m hoping it’ll pair up nicely with the Befaco Noise Plethora to make interesting sounds for rhythms and drones.

On sale or used?

[WatchTheGuitar]

Used one for £250, not a massive saving but still £40 off the new price.

I’d say three quarters of my gear, maybe more, is stuff I picked up secondhand from places like eBay and Reverb.

[ghettosynth]

Used one for £250, not a massive saving but still £40 off the new price.

I’d say three quarters of my gear, maybe more, is stuff I picked up secondhand from places like eBay and Reverb.

Just curious. Wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing out on a sale that I didn't want to miss out on. Eurorack seems to go for close to new price used. I'm sure it will crash at some point, right? I don't mind used modules in most cases, but not demos from dealers.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Eurorack seems to go for close to new price used. I'm sure it will crash at some point, right?

Well before I started buying eurorack I was spending a lot more money on plugins so I feel slightly better about depreciation of prices with modular gear.
By buying second hand at the lowest prices I can find I think it cuts out some of that instant loss you get as soon as you use sometimes. To an extent eurorack module prices stay relatively high due to scarcity.

[ghettosynth]

Eurorack seems to go for close to new price used. I'm sure it will crash at some point, right?

Well before I started buying eurorack I was spending a lot more money on plugins so I feel slightly better about depreciation of prices with modular gear.
By buying second hand at the lowest prices I can find I think it cuts out some of that instant loss you get as soon as you use sometimes. To an extent eurorack module prices stay relatively high due to scarcity.

I feel this. Plugins need to walk the dog and do a dance if they want to work their way into my wallet these days, but, a module that spits out a voltage based on ambient temperature, that sounds interesting.

[cryophonik]

Seriously considering a Behringer TD-3 MO to fill that last remaining (and glaringly empty) input on my ADAT. Cheap, small, MIDI over USB, sounds great in demos, and fills a niche I don't currently have in hardware. Hmmmmmm... anybody here have one and care to tip me one way or the other?

[WatchTheGuitar]

Seriously considering a Behringer TD-3 MO to fill that last remaining (and glaringly empty) input on my ADAT. Cheap, small, MIDI over USB, sounds great in demos, and fills a niche I don't currently have in hardware. Hmmmmmm... anybody here have one and care to tip me one way or the other?

I haven’t got an MO, would like to try one. I have an OG TD-3 and it’s pretty limited, not least as it’s MIDI only for pitch and gate no CV input for them like on the MO, also things like that muffler circuit could make a big difference to change things up. I’ve got D16 Phoscyon 2 and it’s way more fun and better sounding than the TD-3.

[ghettosynth]

Seriously considering a Behringer TD-3 MO to fill that last remaining (and glaringly empty) input on my ADAT. Cheap, small, MIDI over USB, sounds great in demos, and fills a niche I don't currently have in hardware. Hmmmmmm... anybody here have one and care to tip me one way or the other?

I love mine. If you like the 303 I think that it's a modern day "must buy."

[cryophonik]

I haven’t got an MO, would like to try one. I have an OG TD-3 and it’s pretty limited, not least as it’s MIDI only for pitch and gate no CV input for them like on the MO, also things like that muffler circuit could make a big difference to change things up.

Have you seen the Starsky Carr comparison of the OG and MO versions? It definitely sold me on the MO.

Seriously considering a Behringer TD-3 MO to fill that last remaining (and glaringly empty) input on my ADAT. Cheap, small, MIDI over USB, sounds great in demos, and fills a niche I don't currently have in hardware. Hmmmmmm... anybody here have one and care to tip me one way or the other?

I love mine. If you like the 303 I think that it's a modern day "must buy."

I'm not really an acid fanatic so much (like it, but don't listen to it much), but I do like the 303 sound used in other forms of electronic music. The MO might actually turn me into an acid house fanatic, though.

[ghettosynth]

I haven’t got an MO, would like to try one. I have an OG TD-3 and it’s pretty limited, not least as it’s MIDI only for pitch and gate no CV input for them like on the MO, also things like that muffler circuit could make a big difference to change things up.

Have you seen the Starsky Carr comparison of the OG and MO versions? It definitely sold me on the MO.

Seriously considering a Behringer TD-3 MO to fill that last remaining (and glaringly empty) input on my ADAT. Cheap, small, MIDI over USB, sounds great in demos, and fills a niche I don't currently have in hardware. Hmmmmmm... anybody here have one and care to tip me one way or the other?

I love mine. If you like the 303 I think that it's a modern day "must buy."

I'm not really an acid fanatic so much (like it, but don't listen to it much), but I do like the 303 sound used in other forms of electronic music. The MO might actually turn me into an acid house fanatic, though.

What I listen to is probably more classified as experimental techno or minimal acid. Yes, I have all of Hawtin's discography, much of it twice, CD and Vinyl. I think that if you're aware of the limitations of the 303 sound then, as I say, "if you like the 303," then you will like the MO.

With the filter input as well as the filter FM input you can get a much wider palette of sounds adding a second oscillator.

But, there's not much there that couldn't be done on a capable modular with the right bits. The real win with the 303 is that there's a lot of complexity all wired up and ready to play. It is an instrument that exceeds the sum of its parts in a performance context and the MO is really that on stereoids. I still like my FR-777, which is a very different, but 303 inspired, acid machine. But the 777 is not subtle like the 303. The MO is still very subtle in many ways and you get characterful manipulations of the playing line in interesting ways. Because the eg modifications have this history of being by a guy who was essentially a hobbyist/musician just trying to get more out of what was already there, they have a quirkiness to them, slightly more sophisticated than a circuit-bent machine, but only slightly. It's very different than if you started from scratch and said "let's build a 303 with much better envelopes," e.g., the 777.

A lot of times bent machines can go just too far off of the edge of controllability and playability such that they become un-interesting and too unpredictable, unless you're the person that finds that appealing in and of itself. The 303-MO is just on this side of that edge. It can sometimes seem a little annoying, but it's very controllable and playable. Little things can be annoying, like the weird decay settings on the VCA EG, as Starsky Carr points out, but it's not unusable, it's just enough to inspire fanatics to have both. I don't, I might at some point.

[cryophonik]

But, there's not much there that couldn't be done on a capable modular with the right bits.

I see what you did there. Nice try, but you modular guys will NEVER take me alive!