GAS

It’s time for a guest post!

Hi everyone, it’s Adam, Laura’s partner! I thought I would give blogging a try this week. 

I’m here to talk about how I’ve suffered from bad GAS for most of my life, but probably not the GAS you’re thinking of. GAS, at least in a musical sense, is an acronym for Gear Acquisition Syndrome which is used to describe the obsession with the gear they use and the constant desire to obtain more pieces or upgrade their existing equipment. I’ve seen the term used for other hobbies and activities as well, but I’ll be focusing on how it impacts me as a musician.

Let’s face it, for many of us, new things are fun! Even when our current stuff is great, there’s that rush of excitement that comes with getting something new starting with the research phase to finally holding it in your hands. For me, even making a list of all the gear I want (emphasis on want) can be a lot of fun, however, I’ve only recently seen the impact of this on my well-being and am only now trying to correct it. 

As a guitarist primarily, I’m always interested in the next new thing to improve my sound. Like any industry, companies pour millions into making you aware of all the gear that is available to you and when you’re on several social media platforms, it makes it easier for your recommended ads to start to get very specific to your desire to get something new in the hopes of making you a better player. This is the trap I fell into. 

With DOB becoming a serious endeavor for us, I wanted to up the “production value” of our sound and so instead of focusing on my playing, I started looking for new gear to help get me there. There’s an entire blog post in that on its own, but that mentality caused me to start making an inventory of what I had and jumping on YouTube to find what I was missing. What I found was all kinds of rig rundowns and reviews by guitarists that I respected, and it turned into a hunt for the holy grail of gear. Realization hit that I wouldn’t be able to afford my dream gear but that didn’t stop me from building a list of perfect “dream gear” and learning all about it (which took A LOT of hours scouring videos and forums). From there, I started looking for more reasonable gear to get but that turned into even more wasted hours learning about the best this or the coolest that for the money and going back and forth on what I actually really needed. The good news was I started questioning whether I needed to have all that stuff, the problem was I was still in a loop of finding the “right” minimal gear for me, all the while, never playing any of it and not spending anytime playing which would have had a more immediate impact on my skill and sound. This felt like a treadmill I couldn’t get off and it started taking over my life.

So, how did I break the habit? The answer is I didn’t, I still have it, but I had a few experiences that put things into perspective so I could shift the narrative about new/more expensive gear being the solution to better performance. 

The first was buying a new acoustic guitar that had everything I was looking for (smaller body, electronics for playing live, and a solid wood top). I went into the store and tried several guitars worth thousands but found one that was in my original budget, from a brand I trusted, and it suited me so perfectly that I kept coming back to it. I loved playing that guitar for months and it motivated me to play more and get better, but I started to notice a few quality control issues (all cosmetic that don’t impact the sound or feel) and it made me question my choice, at least, until I played a perfect Taylor 814 worth several thousand which should have made me finally appreciate a “perfect” guitar but to me, it wasn’t right and it made me appreciate my guitar all the more. All this to say, I’m sure there are other guitars out there which may be a better than mine and perhaps someday I’ll find one, and hopefully, be able to afford it, but I don’t need to sit in the hypothetical when I could be playing a guitar I love in the present.

My second experience was recording our EP and realizing that all these notions I’d had about recording gear were completely skewed by Instagram posts and YouTube videos of dream home studios that people had built. When we started working with a producer, they didn’t have racks of outboard gear or interfaces, preamps, mics worth tens of thousands of dollars, but had instead curated pieces during their career that worked well and embraced the utility that comes with working in a digital workspace. After our first session, I was blown away by the results and realized that it wasn’t coming from the gear, but from the producer who’d spent 20 years knowing what to listen for and buying the necessary gear to get them there. 

At the end of the day, there will always be new and shiny things I want to get and I think that’s okay, but I’m starting to appreciate more that I get more out of the music itself, and if I need new gear to get me to that next level, I have experiences that will, hopefully, allow me to be more thoughtful about my requirements. 

As a final thought, I should mention that renting gear is always a wonderful option if you need it and we’ve done it several times to get projects done or test gear before buying.

I hope you enjoyed my first post and I look forward to writing some more in the future!