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I can echo this sentiment exactly. I started as a kid with a Yamaha PSR-500 with a built in multi-track sequencer. I wrote SO many songs on that thing. In my te

I can echo this sentiment exactly. I started as a kid with a Yamaha PSR-500 with a built in multi-track sequencer. I wrote SO many songs on that thing. In my teenage years, I added a Boss DR550 Mk2 drum machine synced via MIDI and my song crafting went through the roof! Then I added a Korg M3R sound module and my productivity went down. I added a Yamaha DX7, Korg DW8000 and an Akai AX73 and I was barely doing anything other than noodling around. Even today with all the money I've spent on Arturia VSTs and an M-Audio controller.... a really beefed up computer just for recording. And I've written nothing. It's not for lack of creativity. It's just become such a pain to set everything up and get it going. By the time I've got sound in the headphones, I've just lost interest.

ryandrake 6y ago
I wonder if it's the technology or if it's just getting older. Not a musician, but I used to do all sorts of creative stuff as a bored 13 year old. Programming, painting, coming up with board games, experimenting in the basement. Now that I'm an adult, I blow 1/2 my waking hours at work, then there's the family that wants to go hiking next weekend, and a kid to play with, and paying bills, and doing taxes, and cleaning the house, and mowing the lawn, and fixing the leaking sink, and being on boards and committees in the community, and on and on. I can maybe carve out an hour a week to do something creative, and by that time I just want to down a six pack and catch up on sleep.
- rajansaini 6y ago
  I think today's technology does stifle creativity as well, though. Music was meant to be spontaneous and improvised, which is very easy to do with older synths and acoustic instruments. Production in a modern DAW is anything but that, and it's way less tactile.
reportingsjr 6y ago
Have you tried any of the pocket operators? They seem to be a nice mix of lots of knobs to twiddle combined with older synth/drum machine.

ryandrake 6y ago

I wonder if it's the technology or if it's just getting older. Not a musician, but I used to do all sorts of creative stuff as a bored 13 year old. Programming, painting, coming up with board games, experimenting in the basement. Now that I'm an adult, I blow 1/2 my waking hours at work, then there's the family that wants to go hiking next weekend, and a kid to play with, and paying bills, and doing taxes, and cleaning the house, and mowing the lawn, and fixing the leaking sink, and being on boards and committees in the community, and on and on. I can maybe carve out an hour a week to do something creative, and by that time I just want to down a six pack and catch up on sleep.

rajansaini 6y ago
I think today's technology does stifle creativity as well, though. Music was meant to be spontaneous and improvised, which is very easy to do with older synths and acoustic instruments. Production in a modern DAW is anything but that, and it's way less tactile.

reportingsjr 6y ago

Have you tried any of the pocket operators? They seem to be a nice mix of lots of knobs to twiddle combined with older synth/drum machine.