2019: YOUR YEAR IN GEAR

[Disarm D'arcy]

it's nice to come to a conclusion for the year before setting new goals for 2020 viewtopic.php?f=149&t=63184&p=1371929#p1371929

What did you get? What did you get rid off? Who's your daddy? What's a suck cut? Where is Brian? Is the answer to everything still 42?

[Disarm D'arcy]

For my mostly, I moved to a new place which meant a much nicher overall music corner:



I got some serious ring mod from you friends:



And I got some serious fat cabinet for the practice space:



This cab has been gutted of it's original crappy innards and now sports an Eminence BETA15A and now twitter so it sounds like our inevitable doom and it does. I've also removed the ashdown logo and the fugly beige lining around the grill cloth because damn that's lame.

I sold a bunch of stuff as well: https://66.media.tumblr.com/a5a6dea1a69 ... 1_1280.jpg

[tremolo3]

Only thing I got was an OP1, but only because Sweetwater was nice to ask "you still want it at non-douche TE new price?"

I also moved and downsized to this:



Getting rid of Tensor and OP1 soon.

[crochambeau]

2019 saw my project synth and amp piles deepen, my hopes for 2020 is to shift the ratio of stuff that functions against stuff that doesn't in a productive manner.

[dubkitty]

a Gretsch Special Jet, a mahogany slab guitar with DeArmond 2000 pickups which are near as dammit to Dynasonics. and a used Velcroscillator. i had to flip my entire wardrobe and replace an uninsured car i totalled, so music gear was way down the list.

[weebles]

Having a baby made this kind of a weird music year, and I’ve mainly been trying to find a few minutes here or there to play. I did flip a few things, get a couple new things, and replace a couple of old things, though.

Out: [dead] PS-5, Bitquest, and Mini

In: [replacement] PS-5, Mood, and Longsword

I also picked up a dmc.micro midi controller, but I don’t really find myself needing it. Maybe if I was playing live again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m still on the hunt for a good headphone amp solution so I can play in my little townhouse without pissing off my neighbors/waking my kid.

[Dowi]

2019 was probably the year i got more pedals going in and out than in my entire life. The fact that my band stopped touring gave me the freedom of experimenting with sounds without fear of messing up my board/sounds.
Top 3 Main happenings:
1 - Bought/Sold Dr.Scientist The Atmosphere (and been wating it back ever since)
2 - Fell in granular territory and tried some really interesting stuff, which leads to..
2.1 - ..because of the previous point, i tried Red Panda pedals for the first time and now the Particle 2 and the Tensor both stable on my board.
3 - bought a piezo-equipped kalimba, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!


Anyway, Deep Thought confirms that the answer to everything is still 42.

[Dowi]

I’m still on the hunt for a good headphone amp solution so I can play in my little townhouse without pissing off my neighbors/waking my kid.

if this is of any help, i just bought a BOss Katana for the very same reason (less than 2yr old kid/neighbors), and is work good with headphones. I'm not entirely satisfied by how it reacts to Muff-style pedals, but anyway it behaves better than i ever thought a digital amp could do

[MrNovember]

I have sold, traded, and bought a lot this year. Probably more than any other year. I've also had a lot more of a direction than I ever have before, which probably has something to do with that.

Most notable additions would be the Moog Matriarch, Fender Player Jaguar, Fender Dimension Bass, Yamaha HS7, Simon and Patrick Songsmith acoustic, Chase Bliss Mood, 16n Faderbank, Zoom H5, Novation Mono Station, Walrus Luminary, EQD Levitation, EQD Rainbow Machine, EQD Data Corruptor, EQD Spatial Delivery, Midfi Clarinet, Mattoverse Tremstortion, OBNE Rever, Roland TR-330, Teenage Engineering PO-33, QuBit Prism, Mannequins Just Friends, Mannequins Three Sisters, Xaoc Praga, and Xaoc Zadar. Probably a few things I'm forgetting too.

Most notable sales would be the Novation Peak, Moog Sub 37, Moog Mother 32 x2, Korg SQ-1, Korg Poly 800, Eventide H9, Chase Bliss Warped Vinyl, Chase Bliss RKM Tonal Recall, Koma Field Kit and Field Kit FX, EQD Pyramids, EQD Transmisser, Dwarfcraft Witch Shifter, Montreal Assembly Fewtility One, Boss VB-2w, Mutable Plaits, Mutable Tides, Mutable Veils, Mutable Ears, Music Thing Modular Radio Music, Mannequins Cold Mac, Intellijel Planar 2, Intellijel 7U 104hp case, and numerous other pedals and euro modules that I'm not even going to try to remember.

[codetocontra]

Pedals:
DL4 - Sigh, my 7th now. Still a solid pedal looper.
Tensor - Gave it a 2nd chance and all my original problems are gone. Might end up being my favorite glitch pedal.
Blooper - Very cool looper I am just getting to know.
#Rip. - Rad AF. Didn't need a 3rd gain pedal but I can't part with any right now. Some surprising overlap with my beloved Rat.
CT5- My 3rd came and went. Nice to revisit. A classic for sure.
Zoia - Glad to try it. Probably would have been more in to it if I wasn't already into modular. Like 2 years ago would be a different story. Gone now.
Tonal Recall RKM - Solid analog delay with a lot of features to keep me happy. Might become my main live delay, kicking the EP3 for home use only (or sell?!?)
Cioks DC-7 - needed a better high current power solution
Pedaltrain Metro 24 - Interesting gift. Not everything I have will fit but it would make a good board to play shows. Tempting to re-adopt a minimalist attitude about having one board with all my pedals and no extras, but I am having way too much fun with the above pedals at the moment to make any deeper cuts than I have. Just give me time though.

Rack:
Never owned rack gear before, ultimately decided the format doesn't solve problems and just leads to more setup and things to worry about.
Echoplex Digital Pro - Such a fantastic looper that allows loop evolution and tricks not found in so many loopers since. A classic for sure.
Valverb - Jangle turned me on the the drip surf sound, this nails it. Nice gain on tap too.

Modular:
Decided to redirect my focus on putting together one case with all black and gold Make Noise modules and I couldn't be happier. This is a big deal. All the anxiety about planning on new things and playing modular Tetris on ModularGrid is gone. The fear of missing out has diminished. I found a lot of zen just focusing on these modules that all work so well together. It becomes a full instrument. Still getting to know some deeper layers.

Other:
Swapped a Drumbrute for a Roland TR-8S. Still getting to know the new drums but I am happy to have so many sounds available and doubled the pattern storage. Finally ordered a better turntable, a subwoofer to match my JBL studio monitors, and spent hundreds on various cables.

Jeez, hell of a year in the end.

[Starthief]

2019 was kind of crazy for me in terms of gear:

- Started off the year by consolidating my two Eurorack cases into one, and replacing a bunch of modules with an ER-301 Sound Computer. It was a huge shift in how I approached modular, and I learned some cool techniques, but... we'll see.
- In the space that opened up, I went for maximum overkill in Eurorack effects.

- After a couple months I had second thoughts. I really missed my Hertz Donut mk2 and some of the other stuff.
- I realized that the most loved instruments have a specific character and their limitations are really strengths -- it's part of a focused design.
- Dumped the overkill and the ER-301. Fumbled a bit through a transition period with several things I was curious about, but ultimately got my modular into a pretty good, fairly stable place. It was a couple of cycles of downsizing followed by filling in other things.

- Switched my DAW from Maschine to Bitwig. It suits me much better and is what I should have done instead of trying the ER-301 in the first place.

Overall between those changes I sold 44 Eurorack modules and bought 31, sold 5 pedals and bought 2, sold one synth and bought two.

Favorite new gear of 2019:

- Soma Lyra-8 Organismic Synthesizer: it's super quirky and unruly, but basically perfect for me in a lot of ways. Definitely falls under that "specific character" thing.
- 16n Faderbank: neat open-source controller with 16 faders that send analog CV + MIDI + i2c. I thought I was getting it to control the ER-301 and Monome Teletype, but I use it for mix levels and timbre adjustments and it's now my favorite "live" controller.
- Make Noise Mimeophon: it's almost exactly the delay I always wanted. (If it had an external send/return with a compressor in the feedback loop it'd be perfect, but I can patch that externally.)
- Akemie's Castle: based on NOS Yamaha FM chips from the early 90s, it's dirty and grunky and really versatile. I need to explore this a lot more in the near future but the Lyra distracts me
- DDMF MagicDeathEye: a super musical compressor where there are no bad settings. It can't really do aggressive, but it almost always makes everything sound better. I don't have the hardware to compare it to, but the software version is definitely awesome.
- Wavesfactory Cassette & Spectre: both really good plugins for adding a little saturation and character, or for overcooking things a whole lot

Stuff that may not make it to 2021:

- Sequential DSM03 Feedback: probably redundant with the Mimeophon, definitely redundant when I get my SynthTech E520. I won it in a charity auction, so no regrets, but it's probably gonna go.
- Hertz Donut mk3: it's cool but I am not in love with it as much as I was the simpler, more immediate, noisier and less stable mk2. I have made myself hold onto it for a while, but I keep thinking I'd rather have the old one back.
- Instruo tanh[3]: I don't use it all that much, and the new Klavis Flexshaper seems a lot more fun.
- Make Noise Contour: this used to be my favorite envelope, but with the music I'm making now, it's not getting a lot of use. I'm thinking about replacing it with a Zadar, but to be honest, I probably don't need that either.

[dandy13]

Everything in, nothing out
Pedals:
grand orbiter- best phaser, westwood, hummingbird, palisades, plumes
Zoia, Attack/Decay, Mood, Blooper, CBA gen loss, generator 7446, fabrikat , analog drive, purpll, a couple Moog ep3's
synths/modules:
TE400, PittsburghModular 208hp case, Folktek Matter 2,Gait,and synesthesia modules, oplab module for opz
misc:
PT nano+, zuma ps, some JBL monitors, a beta58, TCelectronic 200w bass amp

[dandy13]

Most notable sales would be the Novation Peak, Moog Sub 37, Moog Mother 32 x2, Korg SQ-1, Korg Poly 800, Eventide H9, Chase Bliss Warped Vinyl, Chase Bliss RKM Tonal Recall, Koma Field Kit and Field Kit FX, EQD Pyramids, EQD Transmisser, Dwarfcraft Witch Shifter, Montreal Assembly Fewtility One, Boss VB-2w, Mutable Plaits, Mutable Tides, Mutable Veils, Mutable Ears, Music Thing Modular Radio Music, Mannequins Cold Mac, Intellijel Planar 2, Intellijel 7U 104hp case, and numerous other pedals and euro modules that I'm not even going to try to remember.

Any regrets on the things you sold?

[coldbrightsunlight]

Moved into a new place so new music room setup

Major purchases:
- Quilter 201
- Moog Mother 32
- Gibson Les Paul Tribute
- Zvex Sonar

Sold a fair few extraneous things but probably not as many as I'd like.

I've tweaked my eurorack a bit but not too much. Have some fairly solid plans for next year to tweak my synth setup into a workflow/stable connected rig that will work well for a new project and also other stuff.

[MrNovember]

Most notable sales would be the Novation Peak, Moog Sub 37, Moog Mother 32 x2, Korg SQ-1, Korg Poly 800, Eventide H9, Chase Bliss Warped Vinyl, Chase Bliss RKM Tonal Recall, Koma Field Kit and Field Kit FX, EQD Pyramids, EQD Transmisser, Dwarfcraft Witch Shifter, Montreal Assembly Fewtility One, Boss VB-2w, Mutable Plaits, Mutable Tides, Mutable Veils, Mutable Ears, Music Thing Modular Radio Music, Mannequins Cold Mac, Intellijel Planar 2, Intellijel 7U 104hp case, and numerous other pedals and euro modules that I'm not even going to try to remember.

Any regrets on the things you sold?

At the moment, not really. I could see myself wanting to get another Peak or Sub 37, but I sold most of the synths to fund the Matriarch and I am incredibly happy with the Matriarch. So that was all totally worth it. I might regret selling the Chase Bliss pedals a bit. Honestly, the only thing in that list that I would never consider again would be the H9; I just didn't get along with the interface.