I think the idea that everything needs to generate revenue to be valuable is fucking absurd.
Money you’ve spent on wanking vs money you’ve earned from wanking
Money you’ve spent on watching movies vs money you’ve made from watching movies
Money you’ve spent on your children vs money you’ve made from your children
Hustle culture needs to die already. It’s so toxic.
P.S. This isn’t an attack on OP; just a rant into the void.
What’s this got to do with the price of fish though??
I agree with you, value isn’t equated to generating revenue, especially in creative pursuits… but that’s not been said.
This thread has ventured way more into a hobbyist outlook than I expected it to, which is fine, and that’s presumably a more accurate representation of Elektronaut members (or at least contributors to this thread).
As I said a few posts up, personally I have a ‘can I justify this?’ mentality to buying gear, which in itself is a bit of a hindrance, but I can’t help it.
The thread itself was spawned from a mate of mine taking the piss that I’d bought a Push 3… so it’s that self-reflection that I found funny afterwards. (Afterwards=post the initial rage of being confronted by an unwelcome truth 
).
it’s hard indeed, I love this video that demonstrates how a true master makes soba noodles from scratch, I’ve watched it many times and I wish I had a fraction of the willpower to learn a skill to that level.
btw sample worthy sounds there 
In the ramen/soba book im reading its recommended to mix the buchwheat with regular wheat to make it easier to work with. Never tried soba. Just made alot of ramennoodles. I think its very satisfying.
I do pasta a lot, it’s very easy actually, didn’t try soba noodles as well, good idea to mix in regular flour, should be easy enough to try…
^
I personally don’t have any hobbies. I have things that other people might think are hobbies, but to me they are far more significant than that. Also, some of the most innovative and interesting art is made by people who are broke as shit and making no money from it. I don’t consider them to be hobbyists.
I share the thing of ‘how can I justify this purchase?’ when buying gear, but usually it boils down to two things:
Sometimes point 2 gets disregarded… Well, maybe quite a lot of the time. That said, if I don’t use something for a while I just sell it. I’m not precious about gear.
As a teenager I used to love making music and working with computers/programming as a hobby. I’ve decided to get a job in software development, so I can keep making music that I want the way I want it, without having to worry for it being profitable. You know, so I can keep it underground 
I probably spent 100x times more than I earned from it, but that’s fine, because I enjoy every minute of it. Sometimes I do wonder, what my life would be, if I decided the other way around…
I’ve been playing in bands since the mid-90s, I work part-time, I have 18U of eurorack, some pedals and guitars and a Digitone Keys. I don’t play heaps of shows but played out regularly until our drummer died 3 years ago.
I once worked out that I’ve made about $2000 over more than 25 years of playing gigs and selling albums, which isn’t too bad – until you factor in that I got paid $500 twice for two gigs in 1998, and $500 for another gig in 2015. Most of the rest of the time has been for free/for beer/for pocket change/for record swaps.
But like the rest of you, I love the $#!+ out of playing music, even though these days it’s entirely in my own headphones.
its not about the money man… It’s about all the friends we made along the way…
I use my gear to make music for my students and my instructional website. The music is free for anyone to use. I earn a salary from my teaching job. So, indirectly I am earning money from my gear.
…call me a lucky bastard…
…since i’m one of those, who was able to actually make a profession out my silly teenage dream, to become a truu recording and performing artist one day…
and has to invest money in some new gear every year, otherwise it would just get eaten up by taxes for nothing eversince…
Yeah, I’ve actually made a lot more than I’ve spent.
However, wasted nearly all of it on unwise pursuits.
I wish I had spent more of it on actual music gear!
I guess it was the price of learning wisdom. It wasn’t cheap!
When I started music production around 1995, I had a bike mechanics job which paid £1 an hour. I worked for a couple of years to save up and invest in an Akai S20 sampler.
I went to art college to study animation and bought an iBook and got by with a crack of Reason and Ableton.
Around 2010 I was making music and sound design professionally and started to buy more gear, a little at a time, but if only ever spend what I’d make money from.
At first it was pretty much what comes in goes on gear, but once I had a hardware synth and interface and mic I actually did a lot of work with very little compared to what I have now.
It started as a hobby but grew into a profession. If I needed certain gear, I’d borrow or rent it for a day for a project.
Fast forward to now, and I just did the maths and I probably spend 20% of the money I get from making music on gear, and I feel like I’ve got some really lovely stuff and probably too much in fact. I feel like I’m living the dream.
I wanted to write this because there are a lot of hobbyists/enthusiasts reading this forum. If anyone is inspiring to make money from music, I did not achieve that by buying or having access to gear and equipment. Honestly I could prob still do my career with a very small amount of kit like a laptop and good set of monitors. So as I’ve matured, the gear I buy now feels more luxurious and as an enthusiast it keeps me engaged and excited about what I do, but yeah even now I don’t think it necessarily equates to bringing the income in.
True!
Same for me, I only had Cubase and cheap VSTs.
I only started buying hardware once I started making money from it, first upgraded all licenses etc to give some back to the software companies that enabled me to earn.
Then came hardware and a different way of doing things, more fun etc. Which actually complicated my life more than I thought possible 
ha, yeah, carbon bottle holders are really “just have one less biscuit a week” busines.
i’m helping the economy 
I would say over 10k spent. Received £2 from Bandcamp in total 
i did my open water diver 
which costed 1/3 of the price of an Analog4 mk1 back in the days.
Still enjoying both.
Are synths always worth its price (for me)? Maybe. Not so sure about eurorack modules.
Going scuba diving into another world … its worth more than money can describe. Monthly spotify pay-out brings me down to earth…
My last scuba trip was 10 days and probably about the same cost as my 4 Elektron boxes.
