Software Hoarding

[BONES]

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.

You've got it arse-backwards. Once you sell a hardware synth, it's gone forever. One of the biggest attraction of working ITB for me was that I'd be able to keep using softsynths forever and, therefore, all my old songs would keep working forever. OTOH, every time I bought a new synth, I'd spend months trying to recreate the old instruments parts with the new synth. If I forgot about a song at that time, chances were I wouldn't be able to play it ever again. Every song we have ever worked on ITB, all the way back to 2002, is still accessible on my current PC. They all still load and play pretty much perfectly. The most I have to do is relocate a few samples.

I don't need a bunch of plugins, it's been collecting dust. HW demands your attention.

No it doesn't. I find it the easiest thing in the world to ignore. I know I have four hardware synths somewhere on my boat but, right now, I'm not exactly sure where two of them are and I realised a couple of weeks ago that one that I thought was in storage was actually buried in the back of a cupboard, here on the boat. I'll probably end up throwing a couple of them out, because they'll rot away here for years before I can be bothered doing anything with them, and giving the others away, assuming they still work.

Easier to sell too as the value doesn't depreciate that much.

Don't be f**king ridiculous. You'll lose hundreds, if not thousands, when you sell hardware. OTOH, you can just stop installing software you no longer use and not be anywhere near as out of pocket. And hardware can be much, much harder to unload. I've been trying to sell a Novation Ultranova and an Elektron Analog Keys, both in very good condition, for well over a year now. They've been sitting in a second-hand shop for most of that time and I'm going to take a bath on both of them. It won't be so bad with the Ultranova because I got that really cheaply, second-hand, but I had to spend $300 on repairs to the AK before I could even think about selling it. When (if) I sell them both, I will lose more money than I have spent on software in the last 20 years. Seriously, the soft bag I bought for the AK cost more than Studio One but it won't add $1 to the resale price.

Some folks compare making music to being a mechanic? lol
But nothing like being a mechanic.

You clearly have no idea what "being a mechanic" involves. If you've done both things, the parallels are obvious - technical skill, creative solutions to the problems that come up, fabricating something beautiful from a steaming pile of shit and a huge sense of achievement and pride when the job is done.I'd rather spend a day behind the wheel of my car than behind a synth keyboard or computer monitor. It's at least as engaging and, at the end of the day, more enjoyable and more rewarding.

If we didn't play live, I'd definitely spend way more time working on cars than I'd spend working on music. The enjoyment I get from music is far more fleeting - you finish a song and it's sounds great but if you're not getting up on stage and performing it, the thrill fades very quickly and you move onto the next thing, trying to get that little buzz again. OTOH, when you finish working on your car, that's when the fun really starts and it won't normally fade for years, if ever. If I had to choose, I'd take cars every time.

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. )

I know a reasonably successful artist - her paintings sell for thousands of dollars, sometimes tens of thousands - and she paints with her own blood and shit. That's "shit", as in faeces.

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'.

Is that how it works for you? I've never had that experience. For me there is never any hint of anything until I start playing around. My songs always come out of that. Same with my bandmate. We can start with another song in mind but, obviously, we'll be trying to make something different to that, using it purely as inspiration. A few times I've had maybe a bassline in my head but it's just a sequence of notes, I've never had a sound in my head for it. What I end up with is invariably nothing like the thing in my head was, so it also just serves as inspiration.

[vurt]

its not the woman who knitted with the ball of wool in her vagina?

[jlgrimes11]

I think buying software is very different than buying hardware in that it doesn't really take up physical space and costs significantly less

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

If you golf you buy clubs, balls, gloves, tees, pay greens fees etc, if you are a professional plumber you buy tools, and plumbing supplies that you use up or wear out and you get more

Most plugins cost less than a round of golf costs once you factor in greens fees and cart rentals. Even the most expensive plugin I own which is Omnisphere costs less than I would pay to play a round at several nice courses around me

When it comes to buying a plugin if it's something that brings me enjoyment for even a few hours and I can afford it why not buy it? 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? You can use Serum 2 next weekend and pay nothing if you want to play golf next weekend you have to pay more money

for professional use where you are getting paid to use a synth it's a simple question. Can you make more money from buying that synth than you will spend on buying it. Even if you will only use a piece of software once if it makes financial sense to buy it for a job do some it's a consumable

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. It's not going to sit in some landfill, and you can feel good about doing so

If course you can also use it for years to come

Yes. The main thing is deciding what to put on your computer or not.


When you do this for 10s of years you will accumulate software.

Some things will become obsolete. Others you will just naturally stop using. Others you might need to update to use and others you just forget about it.

With tagging and filtering, software hoarding is much different.

[JoeCat]

My Steam library and VST folder are competing for the shame award

[markello]

Bones I don’t want you mending my car or fixing up audio into the music I listen to. Thanks. I fear you’d be like a hammer and view everything like a nail.

[BBFG#]

Hitting a nail with a hammer takes a little more skill.

[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.

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'.

I get it with respect to crafting sounds and using audio tools such as eqs etc, but the overall experience of music making, for me, with all that it entails is certainly not close to doing what a mechanic does.

[IvyBirds]

HW demands your attention. Easier to sell too as the value doesn't depreciate that much.

I have lost more money buying and selling hardware synths over the years than I have ever spent on software Synths and I am pretty much 100% in the box and own pretty much every premium expensive synth

The days of making money selling hardware synths even vintage ones are long gone

[sin night]

I have a little too much software, I buy mostly effects nowadays because I work 99% ITB when it comes to mixing, while my synths are often hardware.
Sometimes I bought a suite because it was more convenient than single purchases of the items I actually wanted (and I actually use).

Anyway, I try to be picky and it comes to software, I look for long time support and a certain overall quality… I want to be able to open my projects after years and to be able to use a specific plugin if I still like it.
Also, while I like having options, I try to avoid option paralysis (and I’m already on the edge of it…).

Finally, in the last few years I took the decision to stop using certain software/brands after some changes in their policies…

Last thing: I rarely sell my licenses. It happened very few times over the years, because I don’t want to break my old projects. Usually it’s things that I never actually used (or where used just in one or two unfinished projects I don’t care for).


While my setup is definitely not basic, I made the conscious decision to prefer a certain “stability” over time, which prevents me from hoarding software (to a certain degree, anyway).

I went through several changes over the years (Win 9x to NT/Xp architecture, Windows to Mac, 32 to 64 bit, vst2 to vst3 and I think there was a previous one regarding vst2, then x86 to Apple Silicon… just to name a few), those are always on the back of my head and they push me towards a “more conservative approach” to avoid issues in the long time.

[c0nsilience]

Consumers consumed by consumption. I'm sure almost all of us are guilty as charged. Whatever trips the dopamine trigger - buying synths or just talking about them on a forum.

[midi sentinel]

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.

I was unfortunate enough to click over block notification and read this answer and holy crap, you literally don't have a slightest f**king idea what you are talking about, yet you also try to be loud about it.

Now I remember why I blocked you years ago.

I hope noone gives any attention to nonsense you are spewing.

[El°HYM]

The funny part is, that Heinz 57 indeed has 2 animal Ingredients. So why is there no f**king Heinz 55 Vegan variation.

[vurt]

The funny part is, that Heinz 57 indeed has 2 animal Ingredients. So why is there no f**king Heinz 55 Vegan variation.

it's not 57 ingredients
it's 57 varieties, except, heinz have always had more than 57 varieties, but the founder of the company, liked the number 57.

[waxtrax]

Makes me think of Mayostard

[BONES]

I was unfortunate enough to click over block notification and read this answer and holy crap, you literally don't have a slightest f**king idea what you are talking about, yet you also try to be loud about it.

Thank you for your positive contribution in moving this topic forward. You couldn't even come up with a counter-argument, you had to go straight into the personal attack. I'm sure absolutely no-one appreciates your worthless insights. Well done, you.

My "nonsense" is born of actual experience and knowledge, not speculation or ignorance. We still have computers at work running Windows XP just fine, even though there have been no updates of any kind for more than five years. That's 18 years from first release to final update. OTOH, Windows 10 is still getting as many updates as Windows 11, so it's going to be 10+ years before anyone has to worry about it being any kind of problem.

All that Microsoft have said is that software updates will end in October. That means no new features or bug fixes, nothing more. If you're happy with it now, there is no reason not to stick with it for as long as you like. There is certainly no plan where I work to upgrade any of the thousands of computers we have to Windows 11. But all of this is completely off-topic so let's leave it here. If you want to argue further, there's always the 24H2 thread, OK?