Benn Jordan says “more than half” of music gear owners “aren’t really making music on it”
“‘Oh, you know what? Actually, I do like collecting synthesizers, and I have no intention of using them in music, and that’s fine.’”
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Musician Benn Jordan has estimated that “more than half” of music gear owners don’t use their equipment, but says there’s “no shame in it at all”.
He made the statement during the latest episode of My Forever Studio, a podcast that invites musicians and producers to dream up their fantasy forever music-making space.
In this episode, Benn Jordan – The Flashbulb musician, music tech journalist, and scientist – tells listeners about a fantasy brutalist, forest-based studio and the high-end gear within it. He also touches upon synth collecting, telling a story about Herbie Hancock and talks about an unusual sound-checking method.
“The people who buy music gear and are keeping the companies afloat, I would say more than half of them are not really making music on it,” he says. “They’re just collecting it and playing with it.
“Even DAWs and software. They just buy the software, they play with the knobs, they listen to it for a second, and there’s no shame in it at all. Everybody pretends they’re making music, but there are a lot of people who just like collecting synths and collecting DAWs and learning. Because they’re not producing music that people are listening to, for some reason they’re not as validated. I think that’s nonsense because it is a hobby one way or another.”
Jordan goes on to further defend collecting music gear for the sake of collecting rather than using it make and publish music: “Collecting synthesizers is a way cooler hobby than, like, a lot of other hobbies that people have. I mean, people have crazy hobbies. People play pickleball. They do all sorts of things that, like… fly fishing. People stand in rivers all day. There are tons of hobbies that are kind of absurd. I think that collecting synthesizers…is one of the less absurd hobbies.
“I wish that that was a little bit less of a secret… ‘Oh, you know what? Actually, I do like collecting synthesizers, and I have no intention of using them in music, and that’s fine.’”
The My Forever Studio podcast is a weekly podcast, created in patnserhip with Audient and now in its sixth season, that challenges music makers to build their dream fantasy forever studio anywhere they want in the universe – or even further afield. The catch? They’re only allowed to name six dream items. There will be drool-worthy gear. There will be juicy stories. There will be… NO BUNDLES!
Find all episodes on MusicTech.
