It could be argued there's never been a better time to be creative.

We have access to tools that a few decades ago were out of reach. Some forget, and many weren't even born when we first saw a 4 track cassette based studio in the mid 1980s. I had a Tascam 244 Portastudio, which for me, was a dream.

Until this moment in recording history, regarded by many as the start of the home recording revolution, you had three options. One, you were enormously rich, often from the spoils of chart success, and had your own fully equipped studio with an analogue mixing desk, 24 track tape machine and hardware outboard, plus staff to run it. Two, you had been given a large advance from a record or publishing label and could build your own studio at home around perhaps a 1/2" 16 track and mixer. Three, you went to a local studio to get your ideas down. A costly exercise if you just wanted to try some ideas out. For many of us, we resorted to using a stereo cassette recorder to try out our ideas.

So when Portastudios came along everything changed. We soon caught the home recording bug, and then we compiled a shopping list of things to buy over the coming weeks, months, or years. A reverb unit normally costing around several hundred pounds. Compressors and gates were another thing costing hundreds of pounds. We needed a mic, headphones, monitors and something to mix down our songs with. In the early days, this was a cassette recorder by a known brand like Aiwa or Sony, again costing several hundred pounds.

• Home Studio Setup Costs Compared - 1980s And Now

4 tracks, one reverb unit (often mono), one compressor, one gate, a mic, headphones and a cassette recorder. That was it.

Then along came MIDI, computers, samplers, synths, multi-timbral expanders and SMPTE boxes. This took many of our recordings to another level again.

We had no YouTube, no blogs, no social media or forums to constantly feed our desire for more information. We had magazines like Sound on Sound, which became the bible and our lifeline to learning. This is perhaps why Sound on Sound, now in its 36th year, has such affection in the hearts of many of us who grew up in that era. It was our trusted source of knowledge and advice as we tried to get the best from what we had invested thousands of pounds. I was on the phone with Ian Gilby, Chairman of SOS, just yesterday reminiscing about the ‘good old days.’

However amazing those early days of home recording seemed, none of what I've listed above comes close to the power and flexibility of what we can get in the average DAW and plugins. That's even before we've started adding third-party plugins and synths.

An abundance of riches

So why is it that we have so much more gear and access to information, but many of us fail to complete songs to share with the world?

I'd like to suggest a couple of reasons.

The first is that the excess is the problem. An abundance of riches and access to endless online content takes away the one thing that creativity thrives in… time.

I was on a call to a client and friend this week, we were discussing some creative ideas for a new project. We were several minutes in and throwing around ideas, like paint splashes on a canvas. I suddenly said to him, "I miss doing this, having the time to come up with a good idea." He agreed. Often our calls are filled with the business, and we don't have the time and space to let an idea be conceived, grow and be birthed. We are too busy rushing from one thing to the next to allow the snow in the globe to settle to see the picture in detail.

Creative ideas take time. Like dough, they need stretching and pulling, then they need to rest and rise. It's not enough to think the first few minutes of preparation of coming up with ingredients and mixing them are enough. If you've ever made bread, then you'll know that the most important part is allowing time to take its course, ignore either the kneading or the proving, and you don't get bread full of life; you get a brick!

The problem is, I've been here before and still not learnt the lesson. What it's challenged me to consider is doing something that seems incredibility indulgent, and that is booking time in my week to have space to be creative. That might mean an entire morning just sitting down to sketch out ideas in a notebook, sit at the piano or grab my guitar and noodle. The thought of carving out that time makes me come out in a cold sweat; I have so much to do… I never have the time.

And this is the first problem. We forget that creativity isn't so much a moment of inspiration, and it isn't something that flows naturally. Coming up with great ideas is hard work; it requires discipline and exercise so that the creative muscles can get stronger and work to their full potential.

It's too easy to allow the creative part of our work to be seen as an extravagance, but if this is how we make our living, then it's anything but that; it's a necessity.

Secondly, we are too distracted.

Try being bored

This week my 6yr old daughter was off school for a couple of days with a nasty cold. In the last year, she's become immersed in the game Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch. It's a cute game that encourages the creation of worlds, so it has its merits compared to blow the shit or punch the crap out of people games. When I say immersed, I mean it. Rarely does a day go by where she's not telling me about some character or feature that she's found. It's easy to forget we've all been here at some point in our lives, so I don't mind as I know this will all soon be forgotten, and she will have moved on to something else.

However, my wife and I have put strict boundaries on when she can use it and how long. If we allowed her, she would be glued to it all day, every day.

As she was home ill, we said she could not play on her Switch. She understood this and went to watch TV in her playroom.

Then something happened during the day. All the creative toys she has were pulled out from the cupboards, and she started to play, and when I say play, she spent hours immersed in play. So much so that she wouldn't allow us into her room, or should I say the world.

Boredom set in, and at that point, she decided to explore creatively to alleviate it.

We often think that boredom is bad, so we try and fill the space with other stuff. We use social media, TV, boxed sets, computer games. None of these things is bad, but what we can end up doing is filling our minds that there's no space for the creative juices to flow.

It makes me wonder if the copious riches of equipment and information we now have in music production are making the task of creativity harder, not easier. We've talked before about how a set of limited options can improve productivity.

However, I think it goes a lot further than that. If we don't have the time to sit and are constantly distracted, that must reduce our capacity for creativity. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Perhaps boredom is the mother of creativity?

Perhaps is not more stuff we need but more time?

Discuss.

Photo by wilfried Vowoto on Unsplash