Who else is enjoying thinning-out their music software?

I just spent more time reading this thread than it took to decide which LA2A to use.

Yes sir. Much of that is due to my converting to a largely analog/500 series setup. I was able to score Neve pre, Pultec, etc.

but even before then I was thinning the herd. I just knew what I liked. A lot of UAD stuff. Eventide and NI for reverbs and crazy sounds. NI and Strezov for VIs. Really had to be something impossible to find anywhere else before I’d buy. (FWIW, I do doom metal stuff so I doubt my needs are excessive as most other posters. It’s all variations in a basic sort of sound, and I know what works for me.)

(this means of course I’m not using any Non-NI plugin that came in membership downloads. And I’ve never been able to wrap my head around ozone, etc.)

It's interesting that NI sent out an email, highlighting this discussion about "thinning out" music software—yet, there's *no way* to uninstall them from Native Access (or even to just hide them), which is something some of us have been asking for for YEARS.

If you delete a library from your drive, Native Access will display those yellow-orange alerts, indicating that something is wrong. And there's NO way to tell it, "I've deleted this library intentionally. I don't want it anymore. Stop showing me alerts. Stop showing me this library, all together."

Instead of building an uninstallation feature into Native Access, we're expected to dig through no less than thirteen folders (on a Mac) and manually search for related files for manual deletion: https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/210291865-How-to-Uninstall-Native-Instruments-Software-from-a-Mac-Computer

Is this really the best you can do, Native Instruments? Does this very discussion reveal no irony to you?

I'd stopped using software for music as of about 8 months ago except for on-the-road with the laptop.

The software wasn't the problem, really (though I do have too much of it). The hundreds to thousands of presets leading to option-paralysis was. Well, that and managing OS security updates alongside dozens of plugin updates per month and their license managers and incompatibilities that comes from sharing a music machine with an internet-enabled, general purpose machine.

I came back to the computer a few days ago with a strong willingness to 'purge,' unused or 'maybe-one-day' bits, as well as things I find under-supported. I'm keeping all the licenses for now, just in case I decide down the road to come back to anything.

Live is gone since I just didn't use it much in 15 years. Only Kontakt and Battery are still around from NI, and only on the Intel machine (tbd on whether those stay or I migrate off of them). No more A.I.R. stuff, or Izotope stuff but Ozone. No more Waves. Anything IK that can't live in SampleTank is gone (but I LOVE Mixbox). An unbelievable amount of sound packs and sample libraries are gone. Anything with annoying/intrusive license protection is gone, with the exception of SoundToys and the iLock requirement for using it on two machines, which I might stop doing.

It's lovely. Not enough to bring me back into the 'in-the-box' world on new projects, but definitely more usable.

Bought a new Mac. Instead of migrating I manually copied over my projects and a few other files, everything else was installed from scratch.

I put some thought into what I was going to install. Largely it was the key applications like Logic and RX. I gave the plugins some thought and installed the main ones I most commonly use, also knowing that if I needed any of the other ones they were just a download away.

I like to keep my system as lean as I can, while still having some diversity.

I had Studio One, Magix, LMMS and Cakewalk.

I removed all of them except for Cakewalk.

I am glad I made that decision.