Hey from Down Under,
I haven’t written anything in 15 years or more. I want to get motivated to start making music again. Not that mine was any good or that I did anything with it - it was just fun. I still have an MC505 (I sold my RM1X). I would love to know if most people nowadays use hardware or software more…
I would love to find some more artists to fall in love with their music.
Currently I love Easily Embarrassed but I have played every track from them over and over so many times that I need to find something else.
I also really love ANgR. MgMT. especially Apocalypse E.L.E.
Other artists I love:
Aphex Twin
Orbital
Black Lung
Union Jack
Cut Chemist
DJ Shadow
Leftfield
Hunz
Itch-E & Scratch-E
The Orb
The Future Sound of London
Power Glove
Utah Saints
Daft Punk
I would love to find interesting music and also start creating
Welcome!
Do peruse the site - you’ll find all kinds of threads and electronic music/bands being discussed or linked to.
I also recommend checking Bandcamp to listen to indie bands and support them if you can.
I’ve found a lot of cool stuff in the “what are you listening to?” thread over the years. I have a whole youtube playlist of my finds from that thread.
Just a heads up that I think there’s like 2 electronic songs on here. Most of it is punk and not all of it is from the thread (some of it was recommendations based on the stuff that was). And I think one or two of these are just songs I liked from the Listening Booth section of the forums (that’s members tracks up for feedback, ideas, etc.).
As far as hardware vs software…in the last 15 years software has caught up to the point where you can go all software and get nearly the same results as using all top notch hardware.
Hardware is having a bit of a renaissance at the moment. A lot of the obsession is over new analog synths or remakes or clones. Though there is a lot of cool digital stuff coming out now too. When I got started making my own music (had been DJing for a good while) I went all software. Then I slowly got interested in hardware and I’ve landed on a setup that uses both. I’m also working on integrating a sampler in my DJ sets.
It is a great time to be alive and making electronic music, especially if you have a healthy checking account lol.
Oh I completely missed the HW/SW question. I think both are really awesome right now. Seriously, that’s my non-answer. I’ve spent money on both this black friday.
Software really is almost as good (and I mean 99%) at getting the hardware sound these days, and it can now do some really cool stuff that no hardware does, whether that be AI-driven organization of your sample library, real time 300 band dynamic EQ based on a quantum model of what music sounds like, or just having a pultec EQ on as many channels as you want and not spending 5 figures per instance.
Most of the hardware designers know what makes hardware sound good and fun to use, and they lean into their specialties. Whether that’s analog or digital or hybrid is up to you. There’s stuff in all camps that I’m personally interested in. It’s been mostly analog the last decade or so, but digital hardware synths are making a resurgence.
There is also a lot of cool integration between hardware and computers–Look at what Native Instruments is doing with Maschine and they keyboard controllers (forget the line’s name) or what Elektron is doing with some of their newer gear and what they call Overbridge.
DJing is in a similar state with technology.
The only thing holding people back now are potentially money (though if you already own a decent computer and some headphones you can get started practically for free), talent, drive and time.
Hell, a decent iPad and a couple hundred bucks to spend on apps would get someone well started.
Hell yeah, Hunz. I used to listen to this really terrible band he was in called Beanbag when I was a kid and I’m glad he ditched that shit and did something way better with his life / time.
Also welcome and I hope you find the inspiration to get started again
your artist list is good. stick around to discover some really deep genres i do believe you will truly love. the internet is a (can we still say that word here?) vast array of audio shells splintered throughout. enjoy your stay & HMU for some of the more crazy experimental tunes. i got (we ALL got) LOADZ of cheese sauce to dump on your crusty nachos 
–0xy<3