My Journey with Synths and Drum Machines

For most of my life, my work has meant sitting in front of a computer most of the day. That routine is exactly why I never felt attracted to making music “in the box.” After spending all day on a screen, the last thing I wanted was to make music with one too.

So, from the very beginning, I decided to take the harder and expensive path: making electronic music using only synthesizers and drum machines. No laptop, no DAW, just hardware.

The gear I’ve collected isn’t huge, but it’s enough to keep me inspired. Every knob, every button, every piece of cable feels like part of a living instrument. Still, working this way is full of challenges. My sound is limited to the machines I own. Setting up means dealing with power supplies, batteries, MIDI adapters, and endless troubleshooting of cables and clock syncs. Sometimes it feels like I will never get it working smoothly.

And yet, when it all comes together, when the groove locks in, the feeling's just right, and the effects create that perfect space, it feels magical. Those moments are fleeting, almost impossible to reproduce since there are no presets to save. But maybe that’s the beauty of it: the music exists in that moment and nowhere else.

After more than 10 years of doing this, I still feel like I know nothing. Every session humbles me. But it also teaches me something new—about patience, about sound, about flow. It reminds me why I fell in love with electronic music in the first place.

This journey isn’t about perfection or convenience. It’s about discovery, limitations, and chasing those rare, unrepeatable moments that make all the frustration worth it.