I am thinking about buying some music gear. It's not easy because there are several possible avenues. I'm not super strapped for cash but I don't want to buy everything only to have it sit in a pile unused. I want to make each new piece of gear deliberate.

Right now I have an electric guitar, a full size digital piano, midi keyboard + computer and audio interface and a mic.

I have made both idm/dnb/breakcore things as well as ambient stuff and also slowcore and shoegaze music. In Renoise and Ableton.

Part of the reason I want to buy something new is because the chance came up to play music together with some other people. What kind of music we will play is still up in the air, but I have a feeling that I will have to have a kind of leading role for us to succeed.

Ideally I would bring a laptop with a DAW to brainstorm things together, but I don't have a strong laptop like that and I feel like it would be a waste to buy one just for this.

I have a feeling that some groovebox type thing could work nicely for this situation, but all the options are overwhelming. Elektron Digitone/Digitakt look cool and they would also be giggable in the future, but just a bit more money gets a Synthstrom Deluge that looks far more capable overall, especially on the composing side.

Another wildly different idea I have is to get a bass guitar. I think studying bass could make my stuff more groovy, and it's very different to play bass lines on strings than inputting with keys. The downside is that it's a big instrument that wouldn't combine so well with my guitar or piano in a solo live act (I would need to be putting down and picking up the bass constantly or playing it laid out on the table). I feel like it would level up my songwriting though, and in the group play environment I could facilitate playing nicely if I could lay down nice grooves on the fly.

I feel like I am in a bit of a rut and maybe spicing things up with something new could help me get motivated again.