GAS

Gear acquisition syndrome. Seems to be a problem many people have but it is particularly pernicious among musicians. Magazines and other blogs telling us of new toys that feed the fantasy of musical magic. Different people lust after different things. Some lust after the perfect vintage guitar or amp, some lust after modules for their synths, others collect stomp boxes, and others (like me) collect software.

Of course, when you get a new toy, there is a kind of responsibility to learn how to best use it. Sometimes this is relatively easy (a new guitar will not pose a huge challenge) and other times it's a huge investment (as in moving from Garageband to Logic). In the latter cases, the siren song of GAS will start to call before you develop mastery over the new toy. Soon the new toy becomes an old-new toy, and eventually just an old toy.

I have been lusting after a new effect from Electro-Harmonix called Freeze (to say nothing of their other super sexy stompboxes). This lust has been growing for a few weeks now. Until this weekend. I was waiting for my computer to churn on something or other and I started pushing buttons on my GT-10 (Boss). I'll spare you the details but the GT-10 has whole bunch of effects (maybe 42ish) and one of them is called "Sound Hold". Played a bit with it and damn if it didn't do what (I think) Freeze does. Shit's been under my nose the whole time! The only thing to do is break open the manual (OMG where the fuck is the manual?!?) to figure out how to map one of the pedals to the hold function... Fast forward a few minutes and I have something close to what I had imagined.

Damn thing has been in my studio for more than a year.

So while you're all drooling over the press releases from NAMM, consider taking the ideas and possibilities presented by new gear and ask yourself if you can make something similar with the tools you already have. You just might surprise yourself and save a few bucks at the same time.

But really, who am I kidding.  I'll end up buying a Freeze soon enough.