It is true Bud, Kontakt, for instance, it's a problem now, I'm stack at version 6.6.1, the last compatible version for Win 7, many new libraries will no longer be compatible for me. Nevertheless, I use some very old software and some VERY old libraries that sound great , and there you are. I have, literally, millions of possible combinations. It is such a richness of sonic realms and possibilities that I could spend years and years experimenting and creating new presets. I don't feel I need more that that right now.
Even Kontakt libraries I think, in a way, have already been covered very well and very efficiently, let's say, with violins for example, violins will always be violins, if you have it covered for different violin dynamics, basic articulations and speeds, a good violin ensemble and then a good solo violin instrument, then you have it all and you could, if you wanted, forget about violins for the rest of your life.
There are also, many free libraries that should not be free so good they are, that cover so much sonic ground that it is unbelievable. There are tones of free, very good software for natural drums, drum machines, synths, pianos, percussion, bases, you name it...
What is the difference you get from, let's say, Arturia V collection 8 vs 9? It is nice to have the latest synths added and all for sure, but you don't loose nothing "essential" to keep making music. If there is a sound you would like to have that is not accessible through such or such synth, you sure can create it with something else.
Let's face something that is behind all this marketing thing, the NEDD we all feel for new things, the "desire" for something new. It is a compelling feeling, it is so exiting and great to get something new, it is
, but you may possibly not need it at all, but the feeling of getting something new is so ingrained in moderns society that we want to buy, not because you need anything, but because you want to FEEL this pleasure of the new. We want to bye...
because, we want to buy... Yeah, that happens all the time.
For instance, Steve Lukather gathered more than 130 high end guitars, but he plays only two of them most of the time, and the black pearled one is the one he plays almost always. His friend Larry Carlton jokes about it telling the story sometimes. We are like this, we love "having".
Sometimes I go through what I already have, so to get to know it better and better so when I am composing I know exactly what I want and where I can find it, and IT IS A MUSICIAN'S DREAM what I have at home, it is a plethora of powerful tools at every level, in every stage of the production, including the mastering one. Why should I want more? If I try to answer this question with all honesty, I will have to say this: I want more because I love new staff, I love the sensation of buying new toys, and because I don't want to be judged by others musicians saying I'm a dinosaur stack in the past.
The market has created the perception (for us), that NEW IS BETTER THAN OLD, and this is not true, or not necessarily true. If you like and instrument, that's it, you like it, and time has nothing to do with it.
But the real story behind it, IS MUSIC, and I don't want to forget MUSIC, that is: what I feel, strong emotions, storytelling, cathartic psychological experiences that comes through it, love, pain, suffering, joy, happiness, compassion, war, stress, anguish, religion, mystical raptures, things like that. With so so so much technology, we could forget the MEANING of what we are, that is, musicians, composers, artists.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that many new plugins are "cosmetically different", smarter in workflow sometimes, but they seem to do exactly the same you have always done in this o that way. Then I'm older,
I get tired faster than before, so I want to concentrate absolutely in creating music. I know that, one day, it's going to be too late.
The paradox is that everybody is interested in creating and using everything "vintage", so we use the new to go back in time
and this going back is considered to be in the trend of "right now", to be fashionable among the young bumbum composers, hehe, crazy.
Well, after saying all this, if I was a rich man, with lots and lots of money, I would build a tremendously huge, super big ultra powerful computer, that is true
two terabytes of ram, accepted, everything with the fastest SSD in the market, with the most powerful CPU, etc., no doubt, but even this, would not be "essential" for what I do as a musician, fortunately