i went into rehab, kicked the habit, found heroin easier to come off ;p

Yeah I usually have a thirst for new toys, and spent who knows how much of my life hunting for good free plug-ins and debating which commercial plugs I should purchase, but lately I decided to make a custom layout for my effects and instruments. My default layout was getting a bit hectic. And for cause: I have a fully decked out list of minimum 10 plug-ins in each of my 15 fx categories and 3 instrument categories. All very good stuff, no junk. This has allowed me to put things in perspective and made it really easy to tell myself "do I really need that? no I don't I have a whole bunch of that already" and my need for new plugins is really under control now and, incidentally, I have been making more music than ever recently.
 
Samples envy is a whole other ordeal though. In this era of counting disk space in terabytes, there is very little to stop that.

LOL Nice posts. Glad I am not the only one... 

yeah, know it. been there ... but it's gotten better lately ...
 
what helped the most was getting back to the roots i.e. more music with fewer toys ;-) real musicians are way more inspiring than the nicest looking GUI or the coolest new preset. while i certainly agree that a new plug usually results in a new song, i see a multitude of that when getting together with inspiring people ...
 
 

Here's what I have discovered.
 
Cake comes with a variety of synths, most notably the Cakewalk Sound Center. Cake includes quite a few sounds and then sells additional sound packs for $20 each. They also include some additional synths in some of the new versions of Sonar and Cake products......bass, drums, etc....
 
These all have a very reasonable sound, quite useable for 95% of the applications I would use them in. 
 
If you buy some of the 3rd party synths and samplers, pianos, bass guitar, guitar, etc..... most the the ones in the "affordable" price range are the same quality as the ones Cake gives you for free or in the packs for $20.
 
Next step up: Native instruments also has some very nice and superb sounding sample libraries. I consider them a step above the Cakewalk $20 sound packs and really not that much of a step up IMHO. Worth the price since the Komplete Collection is definitely a "must have" for anyone using synths and samples.
 
To Infinity and beyond:  Once you step out and spend the upper  3 digit range and into the 4 digit range $1000+....NOW you're getting into the sounds that will knock your proverbial socks off. These tend to be the samples that even a player can't tell the difference .... is is a synth sample or is it a real string section?...... However, unless scoring film is your livelihood, and it provides a regular paycheck to you, using those libraries is generally not in the interest or financial reach of the average hobbyist.
 
I had the typical case of GAS for a time..... I have a bunch of VST's & FX that I rarely use as a result. Some free, some not.
 
Just my random thoughts on this topic of G.A.S.

I went to a Store this weekend - brick and mortar, a real store and was looking at the used gear - real physical gear.
 
They had a nice Vox amp with built-in effects and I started getting googely eyes - then I thought - wait I just picked up IK Amplitube Slash and haven't played with that, and Orange and Metal are on sale - I could for $60 buy those.  yea.....
 
walked around and found a Line6 POD HD used really great price so I asked the guy if it came with the software reg'd or not - he didn't know.  Gewd knows I couldn't just have the POD, had to have the software.
 
Then I saw a Proteus 2000 oh my gewd I saved up for one of those way back in the day and never got it.....I could.....wait....Digital Sound Factory has all the Proteus line for $99 - why buy this one box when I could have them ALL!!......
 
Then the Roland Fantom eyed me and I thought....hmmmm naaaa I really need to go to Groove3.com and watch that Omnisphere tutorial and real that before buying another keyboard.  plus where would I put it on my desk - I could go buy another virtual.......
 
I didn't buy anything.  Got home and looked things over.  I had/had 12 products I have not registered and installed.  YIKES!!!!
 
The grass is not greener, the grass is not greener (rinse repeat). 
 
Yeah I don't know anything about what you people are talking about.

I suffer from it too.
 
Check out the Variety of sound ThrillseekerVBL Vintage Broadcast Limiter.
Won't help you with your sickness but it is a very good free plug.
 
http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/
 
 
 

MachineClaw
I went to a Store this weekend - brick and mortar, a real store and was looking at the used gear - real physical gear.
 
They had a nice Vox amp with built-in effects and I started getting googely eyes - then I thought - wait I just picked up IK Amplitube Slash and haven't played with that, and Orange and Metal are on sale - I could for $60 buy those.  yea.....
 
walked around and found a Line6 POD HD used really great price so I asked the guy if it came with the software reg'd or not - he didn't know.  Gewd knows I couldn't just have the POD, had to have the software.
 
Then I saw a Proteus 2000 oh my gewd I saved up for one of those way back in the day and never got it.....I could.....wait....Digital Sound Factory has all the Proteus line for $99 - why buy this one box when I could have them ALL!!......
 
Then the Roland Fantom eyed me and I thought....hmmmm naaaa I really need to go to Groove3.com and watch that Omnisphere tutorial and real that before buying another keyboard.  plus where would I put it on my desk - I could go buy another virtual.......
 
I didn't buy anything.  Got home and looked things over.  I had/had 12 products I have not registered and installed.  YIKES!!!!
 
The grass is not greener, the grass is not greener (rinse repeat). 
 
Yeah I don't know anything about what you people are talking about.

I have a HD500. What software were you worried about? HD edit is free, you can download it right now if you want.

Last year I really got a lot of new plugs and expansion pacs. Some stuff I still haven't touched. And I said that I would hold off this year. And so far I have been able to stay off the hard stuff.

What I did instead is something that I haven't done in a very long time. I bought three real guitar pedals. A Boss Rotary pedal, a Mesa Tone Burst, and a Mesa Flux Drive. I even broke out my old Danelectro Cool Cat pedal. Been playing guitar almost everyday for the last two months. And enjoying the hell outta myself.

So I got off the hard stuff and went back to where I came from. I wouldn't say it's better, just different!

And yes, I wrote some new songs. Just finished the first demo today. And I used my new pedals, and the new Platinum Samples kit for SD3. I also used a FXC preset for bass on it too!

If I have a problem, I just don't see it. And don't ask my wife anything about this either!!

you have a wife AND your a musician AND can afford plugins n' audio toys??!!!!
 
I am in complete awe of your sir.