When people get older they learn from experience that things are never perfect and magic isn’t a real thing. (unless someone is religious I guess)
Also how is wanting less gear that does more a GAS problem?
Moaning about gear specs on a niche music forum isn’t really challenging the status quo, is it…
If anything, it is very much part of the status quo, especially round here lately.
Capitalism requires certain sections of the consumer population to remain in a constant state of moderate dissatisfaction. It’s a delicate balance that requires both the occasional nod to the shiftiness of capitalism and enough deficit of self-awareness on the part of the aforementioned consumer that their state never tips too far towards either contentment or aggravation.
The issue arises when those same tools used by the bigger corporate entities to maintain the above state of dissatisfaction begin to create similar expectations across smaller niche markets that are less able to provide a constant stream of “new” shit to profit from the resulting dopamine cycles of said consumers.
Like I’ve said, we get these threads coming up all the time, which is annoying for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it’s a boring conversation. Also, it always degrades down to the fanbois Vs truthtellers fucking snoozefest that does no good and ruins the mods’ evening. Finally, it just perpetuates/infects our mushy little consumer brains and their unquenchable thirst for newer/better/faster/stronger shit.
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Moaning about gear is the way!
Btw aren’t the smaller companies way more interesting than the big boys these days?
Awesome Kayne West song!
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OMG! I wanted that so badly when I first saw it. I thought my ipad 3 was gonna be my “forever device”.
Never got it but probably would’ve loved it for the year and half my ipad 3 was relevant.
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I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I love the current offerings today in Music Tech.
I started recording on a Roland VS1880 and that thing was pure unadulterated torture.
Logic on a laptop is really all I’ll ever need but everyday I walk into my studio and see all my hardware I smile! For real.
We are ridiculously blessed in this modern age. You can buy an 8 voice poly synth for under $400 from Behringer. Or, you could buy a $4000 Oberheim that would’ve been 2 to 3 times more (adjusted for inflation) that it was when it originally came out.
To be fair, nothing is perfect. But at the same time, that’s actually great!
I just recently got a Korg Drumlogue and a TE Medieval and both are flawed as shit! But, I am having a blast using them.
I’ve come to the reality that nothing will ever check all the boxes and that’s just as beautiful a thought than any philosophical meme/anecdote ever.
Once I learned to embrace the limitations, I realized I didn’t have to focus on what I wish I could do and had fun figuring out what I could.
Lastly, surely someone will find a post of mine that makes me look like a complete hypocrite. Truth be told, I am often a hypocrite as I am far from perfect and have plenty of limitations.
I’m okay with that now 
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The latter is very directly answered by the former! 
The unceasing, universal pattern is that complaining about a lack of worthwhile tools at any point focuses on the future perfect over using the necessarily limited gear we have now from every manufacturer on the planet. It’s more a matter of degree and breadth of complaint.
We all want little things here and there, but when it balloons to the scale of every hardware developer in the world, that’s when it enters magical thinking territory and stops being about gear you will ever own or use. Nothing could ever match perfection, so how could that ever provide satisfaction?
Rants about dissatisfaction with self and time, not having the headspace for relaxation and adventure, discovery are thus dressed up in rants about society because that makes for an easier narrative to bond over and find emotional truth in. Rearranging one’s busy life to be more conducive to whatever regularity of art requires introspection and dedication which is tougher.
It’s an antipattern to each one of us who use music technology and need to accept limitations to how we express ourselves, and how we also have to interact with the outside world in various ways, or can’t engage with others as creatively as we’d like.
Thus, the “self-help” style emotional release.
When you have more files and folders you need a system for navigating them comfortably. Typically that means more buttons, and a larger screen. Those put the price of the equipment up. Now you’ve got a larger screen your power draw is higher and you might need a higher spec processor. Those put your price up. It’s trade-offs all the way.
It’s very technologically challenging. Only a handful of companies can afford to make such high-spec gear. They can do it because they have massive levels of capital from other or earlier businesses. This capital gives them access to the best factories, which they then book out for years straight such that no other companies can use them. Apple is infamous for its strangle hold over supply chains, for example.
So, yes, it’s prohibitively hard to make the high spec gear if you’re a small player, for layers of capitalist reasons. (and this isn’t even me taking a dig at capitalism. I’ll save that for a different thread. Here I’m just suggesting an idea for why it’s hard to make some types of gear)
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^ very well put
and to add my final 2 cents to this topic
I used to be pretty “hurr durr hardware only, F a DAW” mindset and then i realized that being tribalistic and not hybridizing your process using the strengths of both is a massive disservice to your music making and closes many doors on collaborative efforts
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so this is the actual title/reason for the thread?
“I got m:c thinking it’s ableton in a box and it’s not, why hardware so shit nowadays?”
don’t be talking about self-help forum (whatever that means) and “challenging status quo”, just say that you got a device and you don’t like it, that’s cool, not everyone likes everything they buy.
people buying rytm and don’t like it, people buy ot and don’t like it. it’s ok not to like stuff.
but from this to saying “what is happening to music tech” is a pretty far stretch.
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Exactly. It’s so untargeted, asking “how can anyone make music with such bad tools?”
Bruv, other people have these problems, but working through them is all we can.
It’s “about the industry” and “about capitalism” as much as other magical thinkers obsess about meme stonks, they are a narrative that is palatable and contains references to reality, but it’s just as ungrounded as someone who thinks all world governments will collude to make them rich because their Bed Bath and Beyond stock was nullified.
Which is to say, there are aspects of the industry that are hella toxic, and so are the markets, but there are good people making good products even if they don’t match something that doesn’t exist outside of your head.
If that matters, devoting the time to making the product (and failing in ways you would criticize yourself for if it was another vendor) will still be self-improvement.
Ranting about static issues is about whatever emotional constipation begs for this not-art-in-the-slightest connection gear-grinding release.
There’s even a thread for that! 
I don’t think that one gets as negative as it’s self-aware enough in general in the venting.
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Limitations nurture creativity and fuel ingenuity, I could argue that restrictions force us to think outside the box, finding innovative ways to achieve goals.
Also, too many options can lead to paralysis. With endless possibilities, it can be harder to make decisions, leading to a loss of direction or purpose in a project.
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I don’t have an iPad.
That could explain a lot of things…
Seriously, I always need to create more opportunities for failure and striving through!
Yeah, I don’t always have answers for how to do so in a way that’s satisfying to an end, but i’ve got to end somehow? And that’s a skill I will always need to keep up on.
A very reasonable explanation, thank you.
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Yes I can buy something or not. In exactly the same way that you can read and answer a post or not. If it is nonsense, I’d be very happy with no one answering.
The ‘don’t be talking…’ fragment tells me all I need to know, thanks.
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is that wrong way to say it? you can replace it with “don’t talk about” or whatever is correct.
my point is seems that all of this thread is just a personal purchase regret masqueraded in weird layer of projection.
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I missed a bunch of this thread, did we find out what happened with music tech yet?
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