I've been getting (back) into making electronic music over the past year or so, and one of the interesting areas to explore is how much to lean on hardware versus software for musicmaking.
There's a whole subreddit, reddit.com/r/musicBattlestations/ where people show off their music setups with lots of expensive hardware. And there is something really cool about being able to occupy a physical space that inspires you and reminds you of what you are. We are physical creatures and it's much easier for us to play a role if we're in the right set with the right props and don't have to imagine it all in our heads. (This is also why working from home for an extended period of time can be hard.)
At the same time, hardware is expensive, takes up a lot of space, can be hard to reconfigure and can easily get mentally overwhelming. It's hard to switch between working on two different songs when each one requires you to unplug a bunch of wires and move boxes around. At the same time, it's maybe easier to finish that first song if you know you can't start the second one without unplugging everything...
Choosing the right space and workflow to be a productive musician is this weird sort of meta-creative process that's surprisingly hard and not talked about much (beyond fetishizing giant studios and expensive gear, or fetishizing minimalism).
I picked up a Polyend Tracker last year and the artificial limitation has made me significantly more productive. I'll hook it up to a couple other bits of kit to sample from but then I'm on my way and working from anywhere.
I prefer reddit.com/r/synthesizercirclejerk, where people post pictures of succulents, talk about how much the next gear purchase will make them happy, and share their live ambient drone albums.
There's a whole subreddit, reddit.com/r/musicBattlestations/ where people show off their music setups with lots of expensive hardware. And there is something really cool about being able to occupy a physical space that inspires you and reminds you of what you are. We are physical creatures and it's much easier for us to play a role if we're in the right set with the right props and don't have to imagine it all in our heads. (This is also why working from home for an extended period of time can be hard.)
At the same time, hardware is expensive, takes up a lot of space, can be hard to reconfigure and can easily get mentally overwhelming. It's hard to switch between working on two different songs when each one requires you to unplug a bunch of wires and move boxes around. At the same time, it's maybe easier to finish that first song if you know you can't start the second one without unplugging everything...
Choosing the right space and workflow to be a productive musician is this weird sort of meta-creative process that's surprisingly hard and not talked about much (beyond fetishizing giant studios and expensive gear, or fetishizing minimalism).