From: dce@smsc.sony.com (David Elliott)
Subject: Re: Gear Lust
Organization: Sony Microsystems Corp, San Jose, CA
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 06:27:02 GMT

In article <1992Apr13.004912.4717@sbcs.sunysb.edu> estasic@engws10.ic.sunysb.edu (Edward Stasic) writes:
>Looking around at all that could be had, if you don't have any equipment, it
>would very easy to become paralyzed by the thought that something better will
>be in the market this coming (...fill in the blank...).

That's true.  Marketing strategists take advantage of this in the
form of preannouncements.  Companies announce products that won't be
released for months in hopes that we'll save our money, slobber over
what they have promised, and be so wrapped up in their product that we
buy it as soon as it comes out.

Sometimes, it works.  I held off on buying a sequencer because I heard
about Vision, which I received a full 6 months after I saw the first
information on it.  Sometimes, it doesn't.  How many of you remember me
slavering over the Peavey DPM-SP last year?  I doubt that I'll ever
own one now.

Then again, are there many things for which this isn't true?  If you
wait a year, cars will be whizzier and more efficient, TVs will be
flatter and brighter, and computers will be faster and cheaper.  At
some point, you have to grit your teeth and consume!

>As someone who doesn't have anything (yet?), I'm very curious about one thing:
>Is it true that a lot of what's out there is never used to its fullest
>potential?

Never?  I doubt it.  There's always someone who will make use of all of
the capabilities of a device.

>Simultaneously, I hear about the amazing abilities of some of the synths on
>the market and the inability or unwillingness of the users to go beyond
>using the factory presets and create custom sounds.
>
>Is it that these machines are overrated or are most users just plain lazy?

Neither.

Not everyone has the desire, need, or capacity to use every bit of a
machine.  Look at VCRs.  Some people never even learn how to set the
time (and don't give me any baloney about user interfaces), some use
them for nothing more than to watch rented movies, while some of us
watch only the shows we want, when we want, with only short comic
interludes (better known as fast-forwarding through the commercials).

For some people, it isn't important to be able to do everything
possible with their instrument -- they bought it because they liked the
way it sounded already.  I only have a couple of settings I use on my
Stratocaster, but that doesn't mean I'm lazy or ignorant; I just like
those two settings.

Some others would like to be able to tweak their sounds, but they
just don't have the background or experience.  Not everyone knows
what changing pulse widths or filter resonances will do to a sound,
or can readily understand what an envelope generator will do.

Then again, there are those among us who can tweak patches and set
multi-timbral parameters in the wink of an eye, but can't tell
you what the hell notes are in a Gbm7b13 without counting on our
fingers and toes.

Also, laziness doesn't necessarily mean you don't change your sounds.
You want to hear about lazy?  I used a random patch generator to produce
every patch currently on all of my synths and drums.  Oh, I'm using
the capabilities of my synths and drum sample player all right, and
some of the sounds are killer, but all I had to do was pick out the
good ones.