That’s awesome that the M8 has helped you focus and make music. I feel like these types of portable devices are so important for folks who want to make a tune but may not have all the time in the world.
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The Rytm is fun… it’s just a programming centric kind of fun. I was merely contrasting that to the Tempest because for me it is a very clear and concise difference relative to the topic at hand in this discussion.
Turning encoders while live recording… yes, of course. I know this machine well. But as a drummer, I’m typically thinking about and playing 2 to 3 parts on live input. Many times, the nuance I want for each part lives on different knobs, and at times different pages. So, to use live recording on the knobs, I typically need to come back for another pass and find the control I’m looking for out of the many pages of parameters at hand. This starts to feel programmatic because it is centered around the original sound design rather than intuitive live input.
On the Rytm, the 2 items that are immediately at hand to record are 1) Velocity and 2) Trig Length. I maximize those on each sound to get the type of live recorded expressivity I’m looking for. I would like more. I have tried using the Control Inputs, but their action is not recorded. They merely offset the parameters they are assigned to, whether those are played live or by the sequencer. A useful tool, but not exactly what I’m after. I am on a mission to solve this and I’m pretty sure it’s going to revolve around highly customizable external MIDI control of various parameters.
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I see your point a bit better.
You could use Performance macros as well, but they are not recorded either.
But yes, I can see the attraction for the hands on approach when time is limited.
In this regard, Strega and possibly (something that is more than) a looping device is fun 
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I hear you. Sell it all, but keep the cash stashed as your gear fund.
If you have any expensive vintage stuff you are uncertain about, maybe hold on to your fave. Getting it again may not happen. But, starting anew can be good too.
But hold that gear cash stash for when you might wanna get back in. Should that not happen, get something nice for your kid
If I recall… with the Rytm “we’re not talking about a simple looping device”. 
Don’t sell it all cause you’ll buy it all back. Box em up and take a break. Come back to it.
But you also mentioned you don’t know where to go next with your music.
YouTube obviously has a ton of music making tutorials.
343 Labs offers courses
Some of the YouTubers offer tutoring and private lessons.
Also, AudioTent has some good templates for you to learn from
ProducerTech and FaderPro offer some good follow alongs as well
Finally, not knowing the kind of music you make, ProMusicProducers has some really easy and clear tutorials to follow along to
Rather than trying to produce, take the time to learn…
good luck
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“If you only applied yourself you’d find life easy!”
I’ve skated on for forty odd years on masking and trying to shoehorn my neurotype into conventional employment to varying degrees of success, trying to find locals that are spicy-brained isn’t quite “easy” in Seattle but more inevitable than persons into making music that also think like me.
It’s like dating sites in a way, challenging for someone with rejection sensitivity to put themselves out there when you’re quite a bit weirder than the sea of conventional rockers who connect to each other.
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The problem with external courses and books is that if you’re overwhelmed, you can substitute one overwhelming bit for another 
I’m working on writing up my own “lessons” in OneNote, to “teach” myself the kit I already own and force myself to go through the more difficult aspects of wrapping my head around live performance.
The things I love about jamming are really hard to do solo, the fun and improvisational elements. Solo I often take things too seriously and it cuts into my ability to let loose.
Ideally the best tactic is to turn on the recorder and jam at length, but I have a “be good” switch in my brain that gets flipped when I know the machines are watching
It’s possible to get past that, and I do sometimes to good effect. But your average day I’m not always in the headspace to relax when I know I need to expend mental energy on creating something from nothing.
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Totally get you!
Four years ago i was spending alot of time with the OT, AR and A4, making tracks from scratch, dialing in sounds, ect. Took a lot of time but was fun. Now two kids later i just had the same problem. It frustrated me so much. Not enough time to make the setup shine, could’n finish songs (which was and still is one of my goals). Also an Elektron fanboy as well.
What changed it for me was getting a Polyend Tracker. Limited compared to Elektron, yet a different workflow with the spreadsheet. So now i sit down in the couch with the Tracker and a power bank for maybe half an hour, starting out just noodling: chopping up beats, sampling, having fun with the granular synth. And before i know it i have a sketch to a whole song. I dont know what it is (probably it’s very easy song mode), but I always end up with having a good time and actually making music. I havn’t tried that with another instrument.
Still looking forward to have the time to pair it with the elektrons maybe in a couple of years hah.
Just to say, hope you find your device, the one that fits with your life as it is now and meets your goals about making music 
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If all else fails become a Poet.
I hear you on this. I have a 2 kids (2 & 6 yrs. Old) and We started a family business 6 yrs ago… it’s been crazy hectic and it’s super difficult to find time to make any music at all.
I’ve found a couple of things helpful:
1.) couch jams with a single groove box or synth and some headphones are a great thing. I love spending a little time with my digitakt after the kids have gone to sleep to jot down a pattern or three and mangle some sounds. Something about the comfort of the couch makes it a much more relaxing affair. Also, if I jot down 2 or 3 related Rythms one night, it makes it seamless to be able to add upon that a week or two later when I want to tool around on a synth or a guitar or a bass or a piano (or any other instrument). I can make music successfully this way sometimes—starting with rhythms one week, and then riffing over it later.
2.) There is no shame in using your syntakt as a suuuuuper bare bones drum machine (for now). Get a simple but good sounding rhythm going fast, and leave it. Then you can Jam on top of it with your subharmonicon or DN for example and keep it real loose. I literally use my digitakt as a metronome sometimes haha. Sometimes you just need a backbeat to make noise and sounds over.
3.) perhaps switch up your view of these machines to “sound therapy vehicles” as opposed to instruments or groove machines.
I purchase a moog grandmother last November, and I view it is a “therapy session” when I sit down with it. Granted, it is a very “immediate” synth, but i don’t really set out to make music with it about half of the time—I just want to make sounds that please me (maybe this is a vote for going down the semi-mod route, although I think the DN and the syntakt could fill this roll if you switch up your expectation?).
Anyway, there is no wrong decision. just whatever you feel Best works for you. I know I get a lot of relaxation just tooling around and making music or just noise—personally I wish I got to do it a lot more.
Lately I have found myself wanting an acoustic guitar as the ultimate couch friendly pick-up-and-play noise maker. This is what I’ve been yearning for lately, so maybe I’m in a similar boat as you. Sometimes its a little daunting walking into my music barn with synths, drum machines, electric guitar and bass, lots of pedals and a laptop with a DAW on it (we are very, very lucky and fortunate). Sometimes not though—a lot of times it’s straight up amazing.
If you have a baby at home, there will come a time when the evenings will become a bit more restful when they started sleeping through the night 
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I don’t have kids so my views might not mean much but my work and my other interests take up most of my time.
For me to make music I employ the following… if I don’t do this then I can go ages with out making stuff… in summary I remove all barriers that may prevent me wanting to make music - I find the depression of this comes from when you don’t make music, feel guilty, think you’ll pack it in etc so I make sure that doesn’t happen.
1.) only have gear that doesn’t impose on the room they are in - room still looks neat n tidy and can still be used for other things/hobbies/interests (so you keep coming back into the room often for various reasons, not just for music, doing so it keeps you looking at your instruments - lost time how many times I’ve gone into studio for something else and then just decided to make music)
2.) keep everything wired up. If I was to put anything away or not have it setup up with just power switch needed to make it work, it would then need even more time, more effort, more desire to set it all up. Therefore if stuff was boxed up or packed away I’d go months never playing them, too long you get rusty, being rusty makes you even less likely to pick the gear up as you know you’ll be longing to be as good as you used to be.
3.) when I do go to play, whether it’s my guitars or groveboxes, I always give myself an hour. I set a timer. 30mins to make up a track or riffs of song on a looper. Then I use 30mins to do various takes of the performance, I never program much just mute/unmute throw in effects as n when etc, then I just save the best take. Upload track. Delete recordings, never return. You end up with hundreds n thousands of tracks over the years, I always enjoy listening to them and it keeps making you want to do it again.
4.) I almost always never start from scratch, just always take last set of sounds and tweak them from there. I’ll only start from scratch if I know I’ve a whole day to myself. If I start from scratch I find inspiration harder to come by, if I take my last set of sounds, I’ll get new idea nearly straight away and then start tweaking then I’m sucked in.
I’ve done the above since the day I first picked up a guitar 24years ago and I’ve nearly a recording saved for every single week since. The only times I’ve ever put music down for periods and been down on it has been when I’ve moved house, gear packed away, need lots of free time to get it all setup, get your touch back etc so you keep putting it off n off n off etc.
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This is great advice, I do a lot of this. It’s totally key to make your activity easy and ongoing, even if it’s only a slice every day, that keeps it all fresh and ready to go in your mind. Put stuff away and set it up only on the weekends and you have to ramp up a lot.
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Query- how do you “keep everything wired up” without overcomplicating further?
I sometimes think that’ll help, but then I find myself rewiring everything
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Cause of step 1…… as much as I’d love a room packed wall to wall with gear, I don’t, it’s all pretty simple. If it needed lots of wiring I just wouldn’t bother. Can’t rule out that in reality that’s my wallet speaking……
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I have way too much gear. But I have a patchbay and a large mixer, so setup is made easy and I don’t need to change the wiring often, even if I have different people coming home to play ^^
“Keep everything wired up” is, IMO, a very serious advice. A power switch and bang, I’m ready to go!
If I can’t come up with something decent, I switch off and come back later, but I hate it when I feel the urge to play and have to spend even 5 minutes wiring things up.
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Was same for me, OP-1 little breaks during Dadlife. To Jottwehh’s point, the immediate generation of pleasing sounds (e.g. subharmonicon) is a nice starting point which I feel OP-1 does well with their funky little drummer/keyboard dudes and non-super-programmatic sequencing (tombola, etc…).
The blank canvas is a tricky space for everyone for sure! Whether it’s that DAW void staring back at you or only a [ 1 ] amongst the [ 16 ]! 
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Whenever you want to do sound design it always take some time programming the sound if you want instant fun maybe some kind of hardware with presets or so and you can twist them and you will get easily good sounds
This is probably the best advice. We all buy gear as a way to compensate the lack of rewards we get from actually making music and chasing this dream of making better music with other/more gear.
I’m definitely going through some deep introspection stuff about that problem. Thanks.
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It will be more complicated at first.
I have audio patchbays with enough connections for all of my gear. Wire them up how you think you’ll use stuff the most. The other stuff can be wired to patch bank points that aren’t hooked up. Label them all.
I also have iConnectivity boxes (MIOXL, 4+ etc…) so that all of my MIDI connections can be available. I even made a MIDI patchbay from a TRS patchbay with TRS to MIDI cables for extra things.
If you use a DAW, label all of your inputs/outputs and/or make a template.
Once all of this was done, I just turn stuff that I want to play on. I can be playing and recording any of the gear I own in a matter of a minute or two. Changing routings is a patch cable away.
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