I don't swap out my recording hardware gear very often - I've used the same preamp/channel strip, soundcard, and headphone amp for years, although I have swapped out a few mics.

Synths are another story. I've probably owned 4 dozen hardware synths over the past 5 years. I buy and sell them all the time. That's the beauty of hardware - you can find good deals, use them for a while, then sell them for the same price or more. Once that initial investment is made, there's little out-of-pocket cost and, if you're good/lucky, you can even pocket a little extra with each transaction. Six months ago, I had 5 synths. Of those 5, I currently only have 2 of those synths, but, I've purchased 6 others in the meantime. My current lineup consists of:

- Access Virus Polar TI
- Nord Rack 3
- Dave Smith Poly Evolver Rack
- Dave Smith Mono Evolver Keyboard
- Dave Smith Mopho
- Moog Voyager Rack
- Alesis QS8.2
- Roland Fantom X8

My plan is to sell off 3 or 4 of those and get back to having 5 synths. I'll definitely be keeping the Polar, the Alesis, and the Nord. I'll probably replace the Fantom with something rackmountable (e.g., Fantom XR, XV-5080, XV-5050) because, like Eric J, I use those for my "real" sounds and I have several of the Roland expansion boards (Classical, World, pianos, etc.).

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Sonar Platinum | Ableton Live 9 | Logic Pro X | Access Virus TI2 Keyboard | Kurzweil PC3X | Nord Lead 4R | NI Maschine

Well, I like to say that the only thing in my studio that I've been using since day 1 is nothing.

I'm always switching shit up... hopefully I now have something that is pretty damn close to what I'll have 5 years from now. I don't imagine I'll be upgrading my monitoring or converters...

But I have decided to sell my Blofld because it's a pain in the ass to use (not "knobby" enough... I don't see how they intended for it to be used for more than preset editing). Also I'm selling the Prophet 08 because my new Poly Evolver is quite literally capable of the exact same sounds and much much more.

So I guess there are two reasons people will commonly sell equipment. Financial reasons are always high on the list, tooo. I certainly wouldn't be selling those instruments if I wasn't confident that I was going to get back what I paid for them.

So I definitely agree with Cryo on the instrument part... I'm always switching that up. I was riding the same $700 the entire time I was in college.

But I don't think I'll be getting anything new this time. The Andromeda is so much a be-all-end-all synth. It's practically a 16 voice Moog and Oberheim rolled into one... so I don't feel a need for instruments from either of those manufacturers. It's also capable of acting as 16 mono synths.. each with their own output. With that fuc*er around, I really didn't feel a need for any additional excess. And besides, I was feeling overwhelmed with 6 instruments. I'm definitely in the place where getting a new instrument means I must dedicate the time to designing an entire patch bank for it (so long as I like the instrument). I think I'll stick with a max of four...


For shits and giggles, here's a full list of the gear I've acquired and sold... in as much chronological order as I can :

M-Audio Audiophile USB
Alesis QS 6.1
Event TR6 (pair)
Novation A-Station
Access Virus Rack
Roland JP-8000
Novation Supernova II Rack
Access virus Powercore
Several Powercore cards (PCI mkI and mkII)
Several UAD-1 PCI cards and plugins
Access Virus B
Access Virus XL
Access Virus Classic
Nord Lead 3 Rack
Mackie HR824 (pair)
M-Audio Audiophile 2496
M-Audio Delta 1010-lt

(soon)
DSI Prophet 08
Waldorf Blofeld

THREE CHEERS FOR EBAY *HIP HIP HOORAY!!*

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Last edited by alanzo on Mar-09-2009 at 14:00