Step 1: ditch the DAW and learn a real instrument
Step 2: find a local jam group or community band/orchestra
Step 3: have fun playing music with friends
Step 2: find a local jam group or community band/orchestra
Step 3: have fun playing music with friends
For one, acquiring an instrument is expensive - even secondhand, most instruments cost a significant amount of money. Learning it properly is even more important and expensive - fixing something in a DAW is easy, unlearning muscle memory is much harder.
Keeping up said muscle memory also isn't easy. Sure, if you got a free-standing house, no one will care much about a drum set, trumpet or whatever. But most people don't have that luxury in urban sets any more, and typical residential building quality makes even some electronic instruments (e.g. kicks still cause some amount of noise passing through floors) a challenge. Building noise ordnances / HOA rules are a bitch on top of that - most allow only a limited time window in the afternoon, useless for working-class people.
Local community groups... if your community has one, and they have some studio space where noise doesn't matter, great! Most, unfortunately, don't - space in urban environments is already rare and at a hefty premium, space that accepts noise and has adequate resources (in practice: a usable toilet is the most important) is even rarer.
I definitely agree it is much harder to learn a instrument than it is to learn a DAW. Believe me, I've done both.
There are lots of reasons to forego picking up an instrument, but living in an apartment or a modest budget are certainly not good reasons.
Depends on the instrument. You can get a completely new Harley Benton electric guitar for sub-$200.
> Sure, if you got a free-standing house
Sure, trumpets and classical instruments are a challenge, but all the guitars and all the keys can be practiced on headphones with near-zero noise. It's not an excuse.
This isn't true at all. You can get a brand new Squier Strat for < $200 and a second hand one for less than half that. You can pick up used acoustic guitars for next to nothing if you look hard enough. You can get a used digital piano for < $200 too.