I play music at home, sometimes recording it. I have zero interest in monetizing it. The most I’d like to do is collaborate and make music with others.
I also ran a YouTube channel for a few years. Made about twenty cents from that.
Apart from the YouTube stuff, I’m similar. Writing, arranging, recording, mixing, etc. Simply because I enjoy it.
It’s been a while, though. First came kids and other life-related things to take up most of my time. Plus I migrated to linux fully (as opposed to dual booting) in 2014 or thereabouts. But I recently found a DAW that I like, which also works great on linux, so as soon as I find a decent drum and piano synth I’m back in (not doing) business.
Does your DAW not have those built in or are you after hardware?
There are built in ones, but I want something realistic sounding to go with my (real) guitars and bass.
EDIT: Not sure why you deleted your response, as you made some valid comments, so I’ll just write my response here: Free synths are usually OKish if used properly. But I’m not looking for OKish, I need something that sounds as good as the real thing, and for that I am willing to pay.
Last time around I used pirated stuff. Cakewalk Sonar (although I didn’t like the newer versions), Drumkit From Hell, and misc Edirol stuff mostly focusing on piano and orchestra. After really enjoying a trial version of Bitwig, I’ve decided to go for the full version as the foundation, so now I just need to find modern equivalents to the rest so I can buy them.
Most modern DAWs will have plenty of realistic sounds, it’s getting them to play realistically that’s difficult.
Edit: forgot you use Linux.
I used to write Wikipedia articles and blog posts about music if that counts.
I cook for the family. It’s not the cooking that’s creativity for me, most of the time, it’s the menu planning that is the hardest to think through.
Omg! I complain about this all the time! Deciding what to make is by fast the hardest part!
Creating memes…
I crochet little animals for friends and family.
Unasked, most of the time :)Knit, crochet, cannabis edibles.
People want to pay me for my knitting. Too bad for them that the amount they want to pay me is laughable and also there’s no way in hell I’d take the time to knit someone I barely know a sweater.
People have offered to pay me for stuff but i feel i can’t produce the quality that it would require. Like someone else here shared, i mostly make and give things that people don’t ask for- baby sweaters, blankets, scarves, shawls, dog sweaters. I keep a stash of hats and scarves in my car to give away to people on the corners in the winter. I’m a good starter but a terrible finisher. I mostly see a cool pattern, struggle to figure it out, and then when i get the hang of it I wander away and find another cool pattern.
Totally get that. I used to be that way; somewhere along the line I decided that I would not allow myself more than three WIPs at a time, and I’ve mostly been pretty disciplined about that, and it’s helped. I make a lot of sweaters for myself so when people learn that I knit, they know to ask me if I made what I’m wearing, and the answer is often “yes.” The ones who are also crafters just admire the work, but the ones who aren’t start telling me I should sell (big lol) or that they’d pay me to make them one. If I charged an hourly rate, it’d probably mean upwards of a thousand bucks for a single sweater, but they have no concept of that.
Anyway, I hear you on the learning new stitch patterns and then getting bored. I mostly knit while in meetings or watching TV these days, because it got easy. I had to learn something new (sewing) to stretch my brain because knitting wasn’t doing it anymore.
Most people wouldn’t be willing to even cover the cost of the yarn. Good yarn can be crazy expensive!
DM/GM from time to time.
Do you have a game of choice? I’ve just finished running a Dresden files accelerated game which was a lot of fun.
D&D and Pathfinder are the main ones, and Genesys sometimes when I can convince my players to give it a try. Currently trying to maybe get something going with Cyberpunk Red.
Decorating my house
Making small games
Writing poetry
Cooking
I do other creative things, but I’ve been paid for most of them at one point or another.
I’m so bad at decorating!! I’ve lived in my house for 20 years and it’s mostly a collection of “i guess i don’t hate that.” I actually hired someone once to help me choose paint colors. Ended up with three different shades of tan.
I do calligraphy!
This is visually beautiful but makes me long for a few days ago when the weekend was ahead of me.
Tabletop roleplaying
Sigh, I wish I could get paid for it. I absolutely love building a compelling story, but I’m far too nervous with strangers.
Make skirts!
Cool. Want to share a pic?
Music. I’ve played guitar for 30 years, can play drums, bass, piano, etc… never earned a dime. Played shows but I’m still in the hole as far as acquired shit.
I thought I didn’t have much to tell, but turns out, I could have said the same. I did earn a tiny bit at one point when playing local venues and recording demos for local bands back then, but it was basically just gas money for the band most of the time lol
I try to make electronic music, mostly with a laptop but I also have some equipment. It’s really just to scratch my engineering itch.
Photography. I mostly use my phone but I have a proper camera which is for my very specific use case.
I’ve been doing both of these most of my life, my father gave me my first camera around 10yo and I got into electronic music at about the same age.
My son is using my old camera a lot now, and he’s making music on his PC. Which is very pleasing to me.
My brother is really into making electronic music too. Last Christmas, he said he really wanted a Stylophone. I got him one, but first had him open a gag gift that was a child’s toy Xylophone and was like “I heard you really wanted one of these”
Admining a Lemmy instance isn’t especially creative but at least I don’t get paid for it.
Make Gameboy games. Make music. Cook
Do you make Gameboy music though? I used to really be into LSDJ. I know nothing about programming actual games though
I made a track for my game, yeah, but using UGEtracker which is built into GB Studio. It’s not the easiest to use tbh so it wasn’t that fun.
LSDJ sounds very cool, have you checked out the DirtyWave M8? I ran the cheap version (Anbernic console with a dongle) but I couldn’t get over the learning curve. Now I have a Polyend Tracker Mini which I really like
BTW I’m not really a programmer either, GB Studio simplifies things a lot and it’s free if you want to check it out
I haven’t kept up with anything chiptune related in prob 10 years or so, so no I am not too familar with any new tools for the GB. I did enjoy making music on it though. It fun to work creatively when there are a bunch of limitations!
