Too much plugins, softwares will not only take your hard drive space but it will also create huge mental clutter. At some point you will find yourself stuck choosing which plugin to use, This is happening because you have given yourself too many options. Limit your options so you don’t have to worry about anything else besides creating great music. Yes you can have countless pieces of gear, but sometimes that amount of gear becomes a problem.
There are two main areas to declutter.
- Software Plugins/tools: keep one or two plugins to serve the one purpose e.g. One plugin for compressor, one or two for EQ, and so on for the reverb, delay and other inserts. Don’t waste time to go through every tool every time, you would never get any work done. Try this, pretend you have hardware console, you can’t change new effects every time. Use this idea in your DAW, if you have console you will not go and buy new hardware effects for every new project. Treat your DAW as console. You install countless tools just because you can, is pointless. Keep few but best tools.
- Hardware stuff: Same thing goes for your physical stuff like your instruments. Keep your signal chain simple. Too many stuff is too much hassle. Limit your instruments, effect pedals, amps, cables. This will also help your studio look more clutter free. Use less but use it fully. Use one hardware tool and tweak every possible combination to create a tone rather than having 10 and never touched any button on them. With simple signal chain you’ll make decisions faster.
Minimal mind-set: Minimalism is lifestyle. It helps us focus on what’s important. If you take a close look in your system and your studio you will find that we unknowingly own things that we’ll likely never use. Strive for a minimal setup and you feel light because now you don’t carry so much junk, you don’t own so much junk and you can focus on what’s really important to you. By keeping your choices limited you can use all your energy for the most important thing, “creativity”.
NotesAlive 