2025 for you as musician/artist

The Lounge General Discussion
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We already have the “your best music of 2025” and “gear purchases 2025” threads. But I’ve noticed some of us are using these threads to take stock of where they’re at as a musician/artist in 2025, but are held back by the format of these threads. So here’s the place to go deep if you want. I’ll share my personal thoughts once I find the time.

Questions you could think about:

  • any special moments?
  • which of my goals gave I achieved this year?
  • have you tried new things, discovered new approaches?
  • what’s different this year than 2024 or previous years? How have you and your art changed?
  • how has the gear influenced your art or how have you maybe changed or not changed your gear because of different directions?
  • what’s the outlook on 2026 that follows?
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This was the year that I finally accepted that my life doesn’t involve having a bunch of bands anymore and that I just gotta make music on my own that I find interesting and started really looking past “tracking instruments into a daw one at a time” as a way to achieve that.

As a result I went from only having and using synths to learning a lot about grooveboxes and sequencing and learning what workflows really work for me there and started producing recordings I was really happy with for the first time in years and finding something of a sound as a solo artist mostly focused on electronic music.

all that led to a lot of gear cycling but I have learned a lot about production and what workflows and synthesis/sampling sounds I like to work with best and am hoping to spend the next year getting better at the gear I’ve settled on as I learn the advanced functionality more and more.

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For me, it’s the opposite. I’m learning on my first synth, the DN2, after having made my music exclusively with samplers from the very beginning.

Learning to master synthesis and sampling really opens up enormous possibilities :+1:

I saw that you have the Typhon. What’s its role in your setup, and how does it stand out from the rest? I’m very interested in this synth.

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Thanks for sharing! How cool you’re both learning completely new things!

I’d appreciate it if this thread doesn’t become a discussion mainly about specific synths / gear in general. I think we already have enough of these threads. I’d like this thread to be a bit more about us as artists and our art rather than the gear. We can mention gear of course, but please no “how do you like XYZ” discussions.

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Cool thread idea, I’m game!

So 2025 has been both a year of distractions and firsts for me.

Artistically I’ve worked on music, and have some music to release upon the world as a collab, but I’ve also got a few promising concepts that I’m working on bringing across the line. But it’s really been about firsts and distractions, the big thing this year:

I’ve laid the foundation for a long time dream and have released 3 synth plugins for hardware, I have a few more in active development, one or two will be out soon. I love the Drumlogue, and that became a natural first for this due to the engine having the most parameters available for tinkering :slight_smile:

This had me actually putting videos out on youtube, something I’ve been giving myself plenty of excuses to not do :joy: while not full performances and being mostly aimed at ”this is what this thing can do” it’s a vehicle of pushing the comfort zone and getting some music out. The community feedback has been great, more to come! <3

2026 will be about balancing the plugin dev with putting actual finished music out! Onwards and upwards!!

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Special moments?-
Releasing the Trust the Golden Circle Album. Which I consider to be the best work I have ever done in my 3 decades of writing music.

Goals achieved this year?
Completing that fucking album… I came so close to destroying it.

Have I tried new things/approaches?
Yeah, modular synths. More of that. And slightly different mixer set up.

Has me and my art changed this year compared to other years?
I couldn’t say, maybe others could.

Has gear influenced my art?
Not really.

But it will in years to come due to more fluency with modular and getting hold of a soma Ornament 8.

Outlook for 2026?
Same as always, keep writing new tunes, keep learning new stuff.

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Yes, I understand. Sorry, I’m still new to forum etiquette, but I’ll get the hang of it :sweat_smile:

So, getting back to the topic, this year has been about returning to music for me.
I made the best impulse buy of my life with the DT2 at the end of 2024, and I received the DN2 as a birthday gift a few months ago.

I decided to use it in dawless mode because, like many people, I spend a lot of time looking at the screen at work.

These machines made me realize how much I need limitations to be productive.

This year has been mainly dedicated to thoroughly studying the elektron workflow, my ambition being to master the technique as much as possible in order to create more sophisticated music later on.
With the DN2 and sound synthesis, 2026 is going to be another year of learning, I think.

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I would say this year was very productive for me.
One was getting into elektron boxes, especially digitakt 2 that helped me having a better focus and because of great sequencer having fun with creating beats.
One of goals was to just create more music, second was to drop an album, still have time until end of the year, but even if i spill into next i don’t mind.
Happy where i am at right now.

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This year I stopped romanticising my idea of doing everything dawless.
I was trying so hard to compose and arrange everything on the digitakt/tone songmode and record just the mix out.
But I have to say that I learned a lot this way about those devices.

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2025 wasn’t a good year for me musically. When my son was born a year ago, I got rid of most of my equipment (except for Bitwig). I assumed that I wouldn’t have any time for myself for years to come :smiley:
Fortunately, that’s not the case. Accordingly, I’m currently working on integrating my new music production workflow into my everyday life.

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Had a pretty good year I think.

  • Released a bunch of tunes and EPs
  • Got back into Reaktor and made some halfway decent Moog clones.
  • ‘Rebooted’ my Youtube channel doing Syntakt videos which people seem to like
  • Started making and actually selling sound packs

Gear wise I’d say investing in an M4 Max in January was the great enabler for a lot of these things because I could go back into the box with reckless abandon, get back into Blender for 3d/motion graphics, easily do video editing etc. without being hindered by any performance caps.

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  • any special moments?
    Playing at the Scratch Barbecue is always special and that was the highlight in terms of live performance.

  • which of my goals gave I achieved this year?
    I feel that I made significant progress towards breaking my music - both live and recorded - away from the “on-rails” feeling that has alway bothered me. I’m not at the end point yet but every step closer is an achievement

  • have you tried new things, discovered new approaches?
    Cementing the mixing desk performance as part of the process has been huge for me. Previously I’ve used MIDI controllers but remained in the box. Sending things out to physical gear and receiving only 2 channel stereo mixes at the end of it has helped me break free from a lot of the endless tweaking that can so often result in me amassing piles of started tracks but few finished ones

  • what’s different this year than 2024 or previous years? How have you and your art changed?
    I guess I covered that in the previous question, but refining the process to have a shorter run up and more to do in the air has been a joy. By this I mean: building out sequences that can be moulded and sculpted live in the moment rather than chaining things to a timeline.

  • how has the gear influenced your art or how have you maybe changed or not changed your gear because of different directions?
    Having a desk with 3 sends and more channels has been really exciting. Realising that the be-all and end-all delay wasn’t really for me and that I actually just need something simpler

  • what’s the outlook on 2026 that follows?
    I feel as though 26 might finally be the time for a depth year. All the gear is in place, now it’s just a case of living inside it and finding the quirks. NGNY? Definitely contemplating it

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Special moments-

Moving my studio and daily PC setup into a dedicated office upstairs rather than being in the corner of the living room, and having a headphone and small monitors setup so that it can be used at all times of the day.

Goals achieved-

I wanted to be fairly prolific this year, and I wanted to increase my familiarity and fluency with my setup. I ended up releasing a long album based on my Jamuary output, a drone album, and a beat based EP, all of which I am quite proud of, and I feel like the consistency level is higher than my work last year.

I failed to make any progress towards learning Max for Live, but that will come in time so I won’t beat myself up about it. I have had several projects that are in the conceptual stage that have gone nowhere because I can’t seem to get the results that I want, but I don’t see that as a failure, more as an indication that I need to keep working.

New things-

Yes, lots of new processes, lots of familiarisation work, lots of experiments that gave me interesting results. I have enough threads to pull now to keep me busy for quite some time, I hope.

2024 vs 2025-

2024 was my first year working on and releasing electronic music under my main name. I think this year has been much more focused on work, and less on gear, and I am much surer now about what I like and what I don’t like, which is massively helpful.

Gear stuff-

The swapped a Quadrantid Swarm for a DN1, which has been a great utilitarian bass and chords synth, with a million other roles. I can turn it on and build something that fits what I want in that moment very quickly most of the time, and it has become central to how I work. I added a Vermona DRM1 MK3 which I am undecided about long term, but which I have got some great stuff from. Need to work with it a lot more.

2026-

More work, work, work. Maybe some Max learning if I am feeling uncreative in traditional ways. I see my main work on a techno-dub-drone continuum, and I want to push more into the inbetween spaces this year.

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  • Special Moment: I designed a short game for live-jamming on the Dirtywave M8. That experience pushed me to leave room to experiment during recording rather than locking everything down ahead of time
  • Goals Achieved: I’ve submitted to 13 out of 16 of an ongoing musical challenge, which is better than I did last year
  • What’s Different from 2024: The Good is that missing a goal doesn’t throw me into a tailspin like it did last year. The Bad is that I feel like I’ve fallen behind on multiple fronts compared to last year. Probably not helped by a cascade of life stuff since January, but outside of a handful of exceptions, I think my songs and sound design are not as interesting as last year, I’ve fallen behind on giving other musicians feedback like I promised, and I’ve totally fallen off the Hip Hop battles here
  • New things: A bit more (bedroom) live performance, dabbled in a few more genres I haven’t touched before. I taught myself to write a round and am slowly learning to EQ
  • Effects of Gear: I continued to stick mostly to my M8 + guitar. That’s been nice for getting more comfortable with my instruments, and I’ve learned that I really like mixing a live sample with my detailed sequencing. Plus, with pedals + onboard effects, I’ve been digging into how much the right effect can make a sample unrecognizable
  • Goals for December: 1) Finish giving promised feedback, and 2) Polish and put out this album I’ve been sitting on
  • Goals for 2026: 1) Submit music for every single m8 community jam, 2) Try WeeklyBeats, 3) Use every instrument I own at least once in a song, and 4) Try to start doing the Hip Hop battles here again
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Cool topic, and thanks to others for sharing reflections.

I was realizing just the other day, looking at the date stamps on my tiny YouTube channel, that I completed 3 EP-length short projects in 2025, one each on Syntakt (garage), DT2 (DnB), DN2 (melodic ambient). Two more than I would have expected to want to finish…

It’s been my 3rd year making electronic music, and listening back to the set from January, I know for certain that I’m still learning, improving, gaining confidence as I go.

2026 will be starting at an in-between spot, with experiments that might lead to the next developed project…

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I had taken a year off of performing live after Hurricane Helene fucked up everything. Before that I had created an OT & DN set that was very simple and very fun. I had started doing that during covid and had a lot more success than I had imagined i would. A year ago I bought Ableton Suite and fully committed myself to learning it inside and out. The only GAS i had this year was for a Push 2 and at this point I consider a M1 Macbook air with a Push 2 to basically be as hardware as anything else. Also that combo with Suite is still less than a new Digi box. And you have M4L to play with.

Well I’m not a “producer” and I don’t enjoy the internet for social interaction so as the summer went on I was looking to get a new gig to keep me happy musically and socially. I wanted to integrate guitar more into a set and as cool as using the OT for this is, it never felt right. So I ended up getting a RC-600 and now I’m in loop heaven. I play a 2 hour set every week at a local pub and I don’t prepare a thing, just show up and improvise. At first I brought all my shit and stressed myself out trying to plug it all in and get it synced up. But at this point, its just the guitar (and 2 amps because you can do that with the 600!)

In the next year I hope to bring the beats back into my set and collaborate with my friend who is a professional cellist. I would love to be part of a duo/trio again. Its been a looong time (kids and covid)

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This is a great topic idea.

One of my goals this year was to actually finish some music. In a past life, I was pretty productive as a composer. But kids and career have taken a lot of that energy for the last 10 years or so. I work on synthesizer firmware for my day job, so I was still connected to music, but was missing the creative side of things. Anyway, I ended up finishing two releases this year (recording, mixing, mastering) and put the first on Spotify/Bandcamp/Etc.

I think the key thing I did in getting productive again was ditching software design and general-purpose computers more generally as part of the creative process. It’s been very liberating to record “live” to stereo tracks and embrace the serendipity as well as the warts. Hoping 2026 has more of the same!

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Gonna read the earlier posts later. Sorry all.

This year sucked for my artistic life. I lost my job at start of the year. Although I found another one fairly quickly, the process of hunting and settling in put back my musical plans nine months or more. I’m still not back to regular practice/jams/sessions. I think eveything I do is shit, and am doubting the time and financial investment fairly often.

However, a rehearsal of my drone project and two nights out clubbing have reinvigorated me to get going again. Hopefully next year will be betterz

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It’s been a pretty artistically deflating year for me. My band broke up 2 weeks after I turned down another ongoing gig.

But it’s ok, I’m putting my energy into getting a live electronic project off the ground and I’ve made good strides there and made a lot of material on my syntakt .Gotta keep moving forward.

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2025 = zzz

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