My primary instrument is the drum kit. Having worked for other artists, bands and producers for way too long I was looking for a big change. Four or five months ago I came across the Enjoy The Silence Depeche Mode Concert film on Youtube and got reacquainted with them as one of my old faves from back in the day. After getting back into them I got into another old fave Kraftwerk. Then followed the bread crumbs and discovered the current state of electronic music and the renaissance in synthesizer technology. It really blew my mind. Electronic music, modular synthesizers and desktop synths were subjects that never came up with my keyboardist friends and the others that I worked with on gigs. There weren’t any calls for that kind if music and therefore we were focused on other genres and areas of music. They all played the big keyboard synths like Rolands, Yamahas and Korgs. Really cool synths for sure but also really expensive and primarily exclusive to pro keyboardists who needed them for gigging. Producers were the ones doing the sampling, programming and cutting and I was rarely behind the desk except to go over my drum tracks. Seeing the democratization of the genre due to the availability of lower cost synthesizers that could do things only more exclusive high end keys could in the past got me hooked. I’m getting into IDM right now with future plans to produce my own music and find some venues to play in. I have that old feeling I had when I first sat down at the drums as a kid or on the rare occasion i hooked up with other musicians to do our own thing and it was magic. No money but a lot of magic! Now I’m hooked and not looking back. I’m overwhelmed too. I bought a Minifreak to get familiar with oscillators and filters. Then I bought a Digitakt II and a Dreadbox Artemus. i don’t know what the hell I’m doing but I’m having a lot of fun and feeling really inspired. The Digitakt II is tough though. It’s been really difficult trying to learn it. I don’t know if I went in to too deep with it. I’m not sure if I should have gotten the Polyend Tracker+ or Akai MPC Live II instead.