Family, work and elektron

I love elektron, and I love making music
But…

expecting a second child within 2 months,
so much time to spend on my work
no connection between my work, and my music…

I have the feeling it will be good for me to sell it all… and spend my time more useful

people recognise this?

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I don’t work but my partner does and we have 3 kids under 5. Music has slowly gone from ‘most hours of most days’ to ‘as and when’… Gotta cram it in now and normally the only available time is when I just want to sleep…

Don’t sell up tho (as long as you have the space/don’t need the $), best advice I have is just embrace having more kids, it’s a huge blessing as you already know :slight_smile: Let music fit in around everything else without feeling like you should force some time for it. Otherwise you’ll end up hating it and start to resent/blame other things :wink:

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Yup. I’m 49. Wife, 2 kids, day-job and mortgage. Elderly in-laws pretty-much next-door.

I was running monthly gigs for 15 years, where I was DJing and often playing live, but these days all I want to do when I get home, is crash.

…but what I’ve realised is - I need to have gigs lined up, to give me the impetus to get things moving. Nothing focusses the mind like a deadline I find. :slight_smile:

So, the remaining crew members I was working with are looking to start doing smaller-scale gigs, for the fun of it - where we don’t book big acts and don’t have to worry about taking enough money to break even.

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Don’t sell your gear. You will need your own headspace and routines to keep you happy. Don’t try to define ‘useful’. Your wife will do that for you. You can clean the house only so many times. :loopy:

Ps. Two kids under five here.

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Absolutely… although no kids but a dog that needs his attention, love and exercise.
Oh yes and my wife( see above).

Hahaha

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Kids and everything that you need to do for family comes first. Part of that obligation is to be a happy parent, part of that may be the necessity to express yourself or calm yourself or stimulate yourself and so on; if it’s in you, you have to find a way to satiate that. I can’t imagine an existence without making or listening to music, but being a parent is the best privilege you can possibly have. The trick is to combine the two :wink: my son has quite an inheritance to look forward to, though he’ll have to wait quite a while to get the best stuff.

If you can, try to keep some of the passion/chops alive (and some kit obviously) so you can pick it up if and when you do have more time … quite what you’d want to have to fulfil your musical needs is something only you would know … i suppose the good thing about Elektron stuff is that it’s stand alone, portable and can be picked up again quite easily, whereas if you were unable to practice your Sax licks the chops would atrophy

On the flip side, if something isn’t going to get enough attention, then that’s a lot of value sitting in a box; i think it’s easier to part with a black box than it is to say goodbye to a guitar you bought as a teenager or whatever, you’ll know what to do :thup:

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I’ve gone through something similar reasonably recently. My job at the time was taking up hours upon hours and I’ve always aimed to keep the family first so I ended up with several grands worth of gear that suddenly wasn’t used. I tried to let that slide for a few months but after 6 or 7 months it just got me down and feeling guilty so I flogged the lot.

Thing is, circumstances changed almost immediately and I then found myself in a better paid job with less demanding hours! So the sellers remorse settled in quickly!

I’ve now got a balance of making 1 night a week free for music (2 if lucky and the missus is out with friends) and the rest of the time being a combination of chilling, kids, hanging out with the lady. Working well so far and harware wise I’m down to Push 2, FS1R, AK and AR (possibly AH down the line…). It’s working so far. I’m not super productive like I was a few years back but I feel in a good place.

All I’m getting at is give it time. You’ll find an equilibrium that works if you want it to. Family first of course but just let yourself “reset” in terms of music. Maybe you wont have time to do anything other than muck about making patches up (for example) or making some beats but at least its time spent on the hobby.

But even then, its not like anything you own will be irreplaceable down the line. I sold my FS1R to help fund baby gear 8 years ago. Yeah I regretted it but my son comes first. Thanks to some wheeling and dealing I got myself a FS1R again a month or so back.

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If it goes without saying that a parent serves as THE model for a child, then it’s absolutely crucial you show them a happy human being. If you need to produce music to satisfy your being, then don’t sell. Keep a couple to make a happy, whole parent.

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Don’t sell. Reserve at least 2hrs each week for yourself. Play music, stay sane. Show your kid how it is done, let them see that parents can have fun.

(3 Kids here… they understand)

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Also, if it gets to a point where you’re beyond slammed with family stuff/work/fatigue…Op-1 :wink:

A lot of the time it’s just designing patches/sampling weird shit from YouTube on my phone/mucking around on it with my kids but a ton of those little half hour sessions have resulted in sounds/ideas/patterns I’ve used on tracks later when I’ve found some proper time to work on stuff/other gear. They should give em out at hospitals after births to every musical parent :wink:

I tried ipad first for this kind of thing but as soon as the kids suss out it has drawing apps/games/YouTube/camera fx etc you’re screwed…

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Same here, 2 young kids, but they both go to school. Monday is my day off and my other half is off to work on monday, the time the kids are at school is for my music. Other than that its occasionally an evening, sometimes once a week sometimes once a month. Luckily i’ve got mondays…

Recently I moved to the smallest room (had no choice), so sold some gear, now slimmed down to AR, MnM, OT, OP-1 and recent bought a Heat and TB-03.

Dont sell all, keep the things where you’re the most pruductive on. That is what I did…

117% SCREWED

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As some people have said above, don’t give up your hobby. It’s important to have something else for you outside the daily routine. Just for your well-being. Maybe you’ll have a period without much time to make music but you’ll come back to it later.

I’m 38, one daughter 2 years old, awaiting a second child in 4 months, with a job where I’m away from home half of the year, making works in my house to enlarge it (that includes a new room for the baby also) during my vacation and spare time. I feel like my life is a race, I have the feeling to be running all the time, but under no circumstance I’m thinking about giving up music.

So far I’m doing something similar to J0n35y, I try to keep one evening/week dedicated to making music when I’m at home. I consider it like practicing a sport.

It’s all about finding a balance in your life, if you sacrifice everything to something you’ll end up frustrated and your children will feel it.
Think also your kids might like to see their dad making music when they grow up and you can have some fun moments with them around that, even if your wife don’t enjoy music particularly.
I had a really cool moment with my daughter last week, we went to my brother’s for dinner and she wanted to play drums. I played the kick and hats with the feet and she played the snare, toms and ride with the sticks on my knees. We had a blast! Now she wants to see all the time the video we did! :smiley: It’s also something I will be very happy to show her when she is older.

Being a parent is the best thing in life and my love of music (making and listening) is something I would like to transmit to my children.

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I chose a job that is 15mn of bike from my home especially to be able to play music.
I pay attention not to stay too late at work to have enough family life (2 kids here) and be able to play music.
But still, it’s not enough.
So I intent to work less and exchange money for more time :smiley:

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I +1 what everyone wrote. I’m in similar situation - two kids, we built our house this year and my job is consuming every last second of my time (and it’s not music related).

Sometimes I want to sell all my gear and forget about making music, but my lovely wife always smacks me in the head and calls me an idiot and that she don’t want to be married to a guy that can that easily let go of his dreams and passion.

So - do not sell your gear. I sold some behind my wife’s back :wink: and I’m regretting it to this day.

I’m in the middle of getting back to music again - I’ve just bought Analog Four, a new Hackintosh and in our new home I have a little home studio. And the kids love to bang on my keyboards (which I hated years ago and feared for my gear, but now I love it) or we play singing black-metal vocals with the microphone and big reverb with my 1,5 year old daughter :joy:.

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im the kinda guy that has too many interests and hobbies already…

no wife or kids (yet?) - that would probably dominate my world, tho…

I already dont feel like I spend nearly enough time with music and sound, and I have paying clients for it

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i dont have kids, my girlfriend does not want some :cry: i dreamt about having wife, kids, big house and stuff already. whenever i see a man with his girl and the kids i envy this guy, telling to myself: he has what one needs. im 35 already.

i can imagine that life must be a very busy one when you have a family - but - being all alone a lot of times - i can assure you that it might be far more worthy than being all time single and having all the time in the world. i would not sell your stuff. take all the ups and downs your family life brings with it - and incorporate that into your music! digest the ups and downs in your music. i guess there are a lot. far more than the straight line you follow as a single without kids where inspiration can sometimes go a long way and where you even sometimes ask yourself: for what do i do all this?!

dont give up on music. you have what a lot of guys dont have - but desperately want! cherish that and let it work for your music. sometimes having 2 hours to create something can be more fruitful than having 2 days for that.

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Don’t sell anything unless you are certain, certain for 3 months minimum.
Resenting others because you made a mistake will do far more damage to your relationships than the guilt of having a gear stash you don’t utilise frequently.

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Just because you don’t have time now doesn’t mean you won’t have time tomorrow. I have been married for 22 years, have a 20 year-old-son and have only amassed more gear as the years ticked on. My work and my family life take up far more of my time than my art, but my family supports my creativity and vice-versa and because of that, my wife and I have both ended up working in the arts (I write about music production for a living and my wife manages a performing arts school). I don’t think we’d have ended up doing what we love if we had put it aside when our family grew. As a result, my son has grown up surrounded by music and art - and though he doesn’t want to be a musician or artist himself, he has a well-honed imagination and deep understanding of abstract concepts that has served him well in his more practical pursuits.

Family comes first, but part of one’s responsibility to family is to support every family member’s pursuits, including yours. My wife and I have little interest in each other’s chosen art forms, but because those artistic pursuits make each of us happy, we support and encourage them.

You’re life is about to change. You are understandably anxious and questioning an uncertain future. However, don’t let your doubts make you do something you’ll regret. Keep the gear (unless you really need the money, of course) and wait it out.

(as an aside, the immediacy of the Elektron stuff is what drew me to it. I can fire it up and have a bit of fun when life offers little time to engage in a lengthy studio session)

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