Why You Should Save Up To Buy Gear

I’m going to go over a few reasons why you should save up to buy higher quality hardware and software.

Please note, however, buying new equipment won’t save you if you aren’t putting in the time to improve your understanding of music theory.

I see the tools as just a means to create what your mind and mood want with your songs. If you don’t understand how to construct melodies, chords, percussions, and all that jazz it won’t mean a damn thing if you get the most expensive, most diverse VST/Hardware out there as you won’t have any idea how to bring the most of it’s potential out. So please do not assume this is an article trying to tell you that buying will make you a better producer. It simply makes things more efficient and straight to the point if you know what you are doing.

With that said, lemme start getting into the benefits of changing your mind when it comes to buying gear.

It Forces You To Learn The Software Inside And Out

Alright, if you just spent hundreds of dollars on gear/software, you are going to learn that software inside and out because those are your hard-earned money’s going to work. If you pirate your software, you aren’t going to have as much of a mental investment as you would if you bought the software legally. I’m not passing judgment on people who do that as we all gotta do what we gotta do, but I would recommend you legally obtain all your software to support the developers and whatnot.

It Limits You So You Create More

Check it: people pirate a lot of software, right? Well, that just leaves a mess in your DAW. You have thousands of programs, yet you don’t know a damn thing about them and what they do. So, when it comes time to create, your brain is overloaded with too many decisions because you have so many options. Well, when you legally buy your stuff, it forces you to limit your options and you learn to innovate by working with less. As the human mind is meant to be creative and think of different obstacles in order to overcome our limitations. The same applies to producers/musicians when it comes to your choices in software/hardware.

So, in the end, this mentality aspect will most likely save you stress, defeat creators block, and de-stress you because you have a few programs that just work and it forces you to just create and learn to work with what you have without feeling overwhelmed by the freedom of choice. Why do you think those old video game soundtracks on the SNES and Sega Genesis slap so hard even to this day? The composters for these games had primitive hardware, but due to those restrictions, they were forced to innovate and came out with memorable soundtracks. Learn from them and take note of that.

Better Quality Samples Saves YOU TIME

It pains me when I see producers/musicians with great composition skills, but their songs are being held by god-awful/cheap-sounding instruments. Now don’t get it twisted: you can still make cheaper stuff work if you know what you are doing. However, that wastes time/energy that can be better spent just flowing in your creative stuff if you know your way around basic music theory. So, to these people, I recommend just saving yourself the headache of trying to jerry-rig stuff and saving up to buy higher quality samples/vsts/instruments.

This will save time, energy, and strain that can otherwise eat-up your muse and focus when our energy/time as humans is limited. So, for me, I’d rather buy stuff that just works and allow myself more time in flow than trying to make something that’s lower quality sound good.

Personally for me? I’d just buy splice since they have affordable samples/vsts that you can also rent to own. Check em out here with my referral code:

https://splice.com/vip/TheFrostt

And, as a side note, this does not invalidate what I previously stated about limiting yourself. I say that because it forces you to only work with a limited number of high-quality instruments/software/hardware. Furthermore, if you can’t afford them, that still gives you time to master the fundamentals so you can actually transition into using more complex/better quality equipment and actually know what you are doing instead of buying stuff to be buying stuff and hoping it will make you better.

You Support The Industry You Are Part Of

Look: we all gotta eat. So, with that said, you will get higher quality products in the future that will make your own workflow enhanced if you give the people who create the tools for us creatives to actually make our songs. Hence, you are helping to sustain the music economy by actually buying your software and ensuring that people in the future will have the resources to create even if they have physical limitations and cannot play instruments. So keep that in mind when you do buy your software.

You Avoid Legal Problems

One of the most important things about this mindset is that you avoid legal trouble. For instance: if you pirate a sample pack and they aren’t royalty-free and someone finds out, you can potentially face legal issues or have your pay taken away. I don’t want that, and neither do you. So, by taking the time to invest in your software, you can avoid this stress altogether when you release your tracks on services like Spotify/youtube etc when you are trying to make money.

Conclcusion

I’m not gonna keep you here all day, but the take away from this is that investing in your equipment makes you more efficient, knowledgeable and less stressed, and legally protected because of how you consider these as investments to bringing out the most in your creative arsenal to build your musical dreams and make them come true. I hope this helped, and if so, leave a comment. Cheers.