How long have you been making music? How long have you been using DAWs and gear?
I ask because, I’ve been at it for almost 20 years now, and I have had year long stretches here and there where I’ve been frustrated and made next to nothing.
These days though, my dry spells aren’t longer than a couple months.
I know from the Drambo and iOS threads that you’ve got pretty deep into Drambo and surely know its step sequencer is pretty fully featured, in some respects (with a number of caveats) it’s more powerful than Elektron sequencers. Why not spend some time using just Drambo together with Ableton? Multitrack record into Ableton (use it as clock source for Drambo) and do final arrangement in Live (always better on a large screen), add some extra fx and whatnot, a bit of master compression.
It took me years and years to learn this lesson…why fight your gear every time you sit down to work when it is easy enough to walk into a session knowing you’ll be trouble shooting instead of creating? I definitely wish someone would have pushed me in that direction years ago!
Now I’ve got everything in a nice flight-case with rack mounted drawers. Everything fits in there but my laptop and SP-16–mixer, Monostation, M:S, power strip, LED strip light and it is all pre-routed.
I can relate to this and the only thing that really worked in my case was to try and better understand why I was putting so much expectation on creativity and music in my life.
Any creative activity, hell, any extracurricular activity in our lives has the power to take on an importance all it’s own for seemingly no other reason than we think it’s super important. Couple that with money spent to get into it, looming feelings of possibility(if I was only inspired!!! Gahhh!!), fomo, etc, and you’re doomed. You just have to let it go. Maybe you need silence instead of noise right now?
Sorry to sound like a trained professional here but, why does this really bother you?
This is great advice … silence. I can just tell that this works for me, but I’ve never done this on purpose. Was a gut feeling only. Just sit in a quiet corner or in nature, and let the thoughts flow … sometimes I think about my instruments, how to combine them, what I could try and never did before … and then, back in the studio, messing around with some gear … inspiration strikes … I let it flow, and flow, and flow … and at the end, there is something new recorded and I had a lot of fun 
Lot of good advice in this thread already. You absolutely can’t force inspiration. You can, however, create an environment that encourages play.
Something I’d suggest is to get a white board and write down your goals. Like, your actual goals, not your dream goals. ie my goal is to write a six minute track that prominently features x piece of gear, sounds like this, has these elements. Then, when you get into the studio, try to treat those as your own personal mission statements / challenges. Sometimes just seeing things written down, in list form, helps tremendously.
All of us go through this at certain point in time. Good luck!
I just buy new gear - that always works for me.
You 
The positive outcome of a session might well be ‘I have some synth presets / samples I can use in something else, another time’.
I hope it works for you, for me a great way to spend every moment of an otherwise productive day watching videos about “mind hacks” and productivity and not being productive 
Exactly! It’s very rare that I leave a session without something, even if that something isn’t the thing that I had in mind.
For me, that something is a broken heart, feelings of inadequacy, mental strife, angst and depression. Occasionally a good banger though, so it be worth it and sh!t.
Stuff is just stuff. You should just play music and don’t overthink it.
“Don’t overthink things” is a truism that is completely useless to a brain tuned to over-analyze as the default mode of operation.
It’s incredibly useful in some areas of life and creativity/tech, but useless with generic advice. If we could snap it off on a moment’s notice it wouldn’t be a problem!
And there is usually a great deal of self-awareness around it as well, this idea is not particularly new to many of us.
Yeah I’d echo others here who are saying to step away. But don’t just take a break - put that time towards some other new thing. I always feel refreshed after traveling or just living differently for a bit. Maybe try some totally other musical pursuit, especially a social one like joining some kind of casual ensemble. Had a friend who learned some mandolin folk music and would play rounds in a circle with other musicians, was relatively low investment but super stimulating for him. I did brazilian samba drums for like 4 months and then made a couple of my favorite tracks right after that. It’s easy to roll your eyes when someone gives this type of advice but it does work. When you’re stuck, it feels like there’s no way out, so you need to get away from those feelings of stuckness. Best way to do that is to go around the issue rather than through it, IMO.
1.pack EVERYTHING on shelf
2.clean/swipe your desk ,so it is empty ,clean and smells nice
3.hover under the desk,swipe floor under the desk
4.water your plants
5.feed your animals
6.feed your self
7.finish your house dutys
8.spend time with your loved ones
9.get together with your lads ,maybe get shitfaced if your adult
10.listen new music,watch movie,dig some interesting for you subject in art,science,philosophy or history
11.collect ideas and new samples
repeat point 4 to 11 until it comes back by itself,which it will ,don’t you worry,is just your underconciousness giving you a sign ,use it,and sooner then you think you will be at it ,you just need to discharge …easy 
I like this idea. I also like that I can use Drambo anywhere, too. I have been dicking around trying to find a hardware controller for it, but I should just forget that part, or use the OP-1 if I need a keyboard.
I don’t like having a desk full of gear, and I have to write (my job) at the same desk. This means only a few items live on it full-time. I also don’t use more than a couple of devices together.
I like the idea of picking just one device, which may as well be Drambo. And maybe pick a project, like some of you have suggested. I’m also into the idea of just doing things, and recording them. I actually have a bunch of old loops and samples I made in the past, which I then used years later.
Another option would be to go deep on the guitar. But with that, while I’m pretty good, and it’s fun to learn and play other people’s songs, what I really want to do is to come up with my own weird glitchy sound. Actually, maybe that could be a fun project.
Thanks again for all these great suggestions. I’m reading them all and it’s really given me something to think deeply about.
Now I’ve caught up on the posts about letting it go for a while, and that’s not a bad idea. I make music because I like it, I think I’m pretty good at it, and if I’m not doing some kind of creative thing I go nuts.
I recognize some natural creative rhythms over time. I might drift away from music into a photo project, and I wrote a (terrible) novel once, and some short stories. But this time, none of those are appealing. Add to that the fact that I’m getting older, and I guess I feel some pressure to actually make something to share with the world, instead of, as I temd to see it, flitting between disciplines and never getting deep.
I’d like to find other musicians to play with, but at my age that’s not so easy any more! If there are any Elektronauts in Barcelona, let me know
I think the first thing to do is to clear the desk, pack up everything except for my computer and a MIDI keyboard, and go from there.
Or just buy a Digitakt 
Just something to ponder: IF you wanted to use two instruments together, once you get them to place nice, disconnecting the power and MIDI cables theoretically shouldn’t change that. They should play nice the next time you connect them if you don’t change anything.
I had the same problems for years. What really helped me finish my album was a good concept. Maybe that will work for you, too.
Think about a topic that interests you. Then try to explain that topic musically, like a soundtrack. What does “your movie” sound like? Is it a light theme or a dark theme, or both? Is it about nature, a futuristic world or your childhood? Or is it about a book, a painting or a person you love? Does it need an ambient soundtrack or dramatic music? The concept can also guide you in form. Limitation is good. You can use only samples or focus on one machine. Maybe just a guitar and some pedals? Or just heavily processed field recordings of your environment? Take notes and try to express what you feel.