“Hello, my name is Michiel and I have G.A.S.” The room replies with the depleted enthusiasm that comes with saying a line for the hundredth time: “Hello Michiel…” Guestblogger Michiel Buisman talks openly about a well-known affliction within the music community: the compulsion to keep buying new gear and musical instruments that you don’t really need. This compulsion has a name: Gear Acquisition Syndrome. So what exactly is it, why does it happen and what kind of forms can it take?

An extensive hardware-based set-up versus a laptop-and-DAW rig: what’s better when it comes producing tracks? It’s an endless discussion and guest-blogger Michiel Buisman knows that he couldn’t possibly settle it once and for all here. But, like he says, he’s smug enough to think he has something to add to the debate. Here goes.

Busy making music on a computer in your living room or bedroom simply because there’s nowhere else you can do it? Why not make something that’s more in keeping with the interior design and build yourself a stylish production studio? Here, Guestblogger Michiel Buisman takes an old and battered upright acoustic piano, empties it out and adds some extreme mods to turn it into a fully equipped studio workstation.