Nu-Trix The Synth Guy: Five Brutally Honest Tips to Smash Gear Hype in 2025

Nu-Trix The Synth Guy kicks off his year-end sermon by tossing the usual gear worship out the window. Instead of drooling over the latest synth drop, he’s all about wringing every ounce of creativity from what’s already gathering dust in your studio. The message is clear: you don’t need a mountain of shiny boxes—just the ones you’ll actually use. If you’re sitting on a graveyard of unused gear, maybe it’s time to ask yourself why you bought it in the first place.

He’s not here to guilt-trip you for having GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), but he does call out the trap of endless collecting. The real flex? Learning your kit inside out, updating firmware, and figuring out what actually sparks joy. If a groovebox makes you want to throw it out the window, maybe it’s time to sell it and get something that slaps. The fun dies when you’re not vibing with your setup—so keep it lean, mean, and inspiring.

Nu-Trix gets surgical about workflow, sharing how he ditched gear that just wasn’t earning its keep. Out went the MC 707 and TR-8S—not because they’re rubbish, but because they weren’t pulling their weight in his tracks. If a bit of kit is just collecting dust, flog it and let someone else give it a proper rinse. The cash can go towards something that actually fits your flow.

He’s all about rethinking how you start and finish tracks. Sometimes that means flipping your process—maybe starting on hardware instead of the iPad, or letting the Elektron Syntakt run the show. The point is to make the process instant and fun, not a slog through endless menus. Change up your starting point, swap the order of melody and drums, or just move stuff around until inspiration smacks you in the face. The best workflow is the one that keeps you coming back for more.

Nu-Trix drops a truth bomb: your unfinished tracks and ancient demos are a goldmine, not a graveyard. He’s got projects going back 30 years—some never released, some just a cassette demo. When he digs them out, he finds killer intros, riffs, and ideas begging for a second life. Remixing your own back catalogue is like sampling yourself—no copyright headaches, just pure inspiration.

The trick is to keep your archives accessible. Export your projects as standard MIDI or audio files, not just in whatever DAW you’re using this week. That way, you can raid your own vaults years down the line, even if the original gear is long gone. Sometimes all you need is a dusty riff or a half-finished beat to spark a whole new track. Burn it to DVD, stash it on a hard drive—just don’t let your old work vanish into the digital abyss.

The final tip is pure Nu-Trix: get inspired by your own history. Sample your old tracks, remix your forgotten jams, or even do a loose cover of someone else’s tune just to learn the ropes. Sometimes, building a new track around a borrowed loop or a self-sampled riff is all it takes to break the creative drought. Once you’ve got the bones, swap out the borrowed bits and make it your own.

Nu-Trix also shows how digging into old samples and exploring what your current gear can do—like using the MicroFreak for sample playback or resurrecting the Roland VP-9000—can open up wild new workflows. If you want to see how he wires it all together, you’ll have to watch the video. Trust me, the real magic is in the bunker jams and hands-on hacks.