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What Is the Future of the DAW?

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Re: What Is the Future of the DAW?

#21

Post by luwatobil »

thegagne wrote: post #9
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #5

TFA starts down an important path - identifying different categories of users - but doesn't really get this quite right IMO. There are (at least) four categories of DAW users: 1. Professionals who are being paid to make music, and for whom time is essentially money. Tools that speed up the production of that music are both financially valuable to them, and also make their overall lives easier (if done right). 2. Musi…

Any recommendations for #3? Particularly with low barrier of entry for kids? Something you can use a midi keyboard and a mic with?

I always find GarageBand to be an easy-to-pick-up app that can be used to generate fun sonic blurbs in a short amount of time. It has its own limitations, but the lack of complexity contributes to its ease of use.

Re: What Is the Future of the DAW?

#22

Post by robenkleene »

The umbrella topic to this is one of my favorite topics in all of software and one where strangely we as an industry don't seem to have internalized its lessons: That the right approach to building a software program (like a DAW, NLE, bitmap/vector editor) emerges early.

This is why these applications have lifespans measured in decades, and it's extremely rare for a new player to be able offer anything new, different, and valuable because the design space has already been solved for the problems these applications are solving.

I wrote a piece on this subject, e.g., why, how, when software transitions do happen for these kinds of apps: https://blog.robenkleene.com/2023/06/19/software-transitions...

Re: What Is the Future of the DAW?

#23

Post by GoofballJones »

thegagne wrote: post #9
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #5

TFA starts down an important path - identifying different categories of users - but doesn't really get this quite right IMO. There are (at least) four categories of DAW users: 1. Professionals who are being paid to make music, and for whom time is essentially money. Tools that speed up the production of that music are both financially valuable to them, and also make their overall lives easier (if done right). 2. Musi…

Any recommendations for #3? Particularly with low barrier of entry for kids? Something you can use a midi keyboard and a mic with?

Absolutely, REAPER. While it may be a little obtuse to learn, it is absolutely as powerful as the big guys in music production such as ProTools. Plus it works on both Windows and Mac, unlike Logic.

There is a big community around REAPER also, and tons of YouTube videos around it. Plus, you can download it and work with it for free, but after a while, it will want you to pay for it, which is only $60...but you can keep using it if you don't (though I would encourage you to pay for it if you like it).

Re: What Is the Future of the DAW?

#24

Post by dleeftink »

thegagne wrote: post #9
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #5

TFA starts down an important path - identifying different categories of users - but doesn't really get this quite right IMO. There are (at least) four categories of DAW users: 1. Professionals who are being paid to make music, and for whom time is essentially money. Tools that speed up the production of that music are both financially valuable to them, and also make their overall lives easier (if done right). 2. Musi…

Any recommendations for #3? Particularly with low barrier of entry for kids? Something you can use a midi keyboard and a mic with?

Some cool (albeit pricey) devices to toy with are the AIRA compact series by Roland[0].

In the same vein, the Novation Grooveboxes[1] offer some expanded capabilities that don't require a computer. Second-hand pricing is quite reasonable for both.

[0]: https://www.roland.com/au/categories/aira/aira_compact/

[1]: https://novationmusic.com/categories/samplers-grooveboxes

Re: What Is the Future of the DAW?

#25

Post by throw_m239339 »

thegagne wrote: post #9
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #5

TFA starts down an important path - identifying different categories of users - but doesn't really get this quite right IMO. There are (at least) four categories of DAW users: 1. Professionals who are being paid to make music, and for whom time is essentially money. Tools that speed up the production of that music are both financially valuable to them, and also make their overall lives easier (if done right). 2. Musi…

Any recommendations for #3? Particularly with low barrier of entry for kids? Something you can use a midi keyboard and a mic with?

Anything "free", Cakewalk, Garageband, Waveform, MPC Beats, or whatever license that comes with your midi keyboard. All these are already crazy powerful for a hobbyist.

Re: What Is the Future of the DAW?

#26

Post by cauthon »

taywrobel wrote: post #2

If anyone else is as frustrated as I was with the article mentioning “the DAW” 73 times without defining once what the actual acronym stands for, it’s “Digital Audio Workstation”.

In the same way I don’t expect a biologist writing for biologists to explain “DNA” stands for “deoxyribonucleic acid”, it’s probably not necessary for a music producer writing for producers and engineers to define “DAW”.

Users here probably feel the same way about HTML, FIFO, DAG, etc

Re: What Is the Future of the DAW?

#27

Post by kid64 »

roblh wrote: post #10

DAW version control is one of my dreams. If I could have a really tight git equivalent for reaper projects, it’d be so cool. Plugins are, as usual, the biggest barrier there. Doesn’t seem like there will ever be a good way to deal with different people having completely different plugin collections. Unless someone makes “Netflix but for plugins” or something. The other thing I saw the other day that I thought was coo…

Sounds like you're talking about both version control and project portability, which are different concerns. But with respect to version control, many systems like Cubase use XML project files. As long as you don't physically delete any audio from your disk, basic version control on your machine using git should be possible.

Re: What Is the Future of the DAW?

#28

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

robenkleene wrote: post #22

The umbrella topic to this is one of my favorite topics in all of software and one where strangely we as an industry don't seem to have internalized its lessons: That the right approach to building a software program (like a DAW, NLE, bitmap/vector editor) emerges early. This is why these applications have lifespans measured in decades, and it's extremely rare for a new player to be able offer anything new, different…

I don't think this is true at all. For several different reasons:

First, "the right approach" to building a software program is wildly unspecified: it could refer to the UI/UX aspects and/or the internal design, and these both have dramatic impacts on long term evolution.

Second: the "right approach" for "making music" in the early days covered things as distinct as MIDI sequencers, trackers and early ProTools. It was far from obvious whether all 3 would continue to exist or some hybrid would become dominant (that's actually what happened - early ProTools did not do MIDI; the eventually archetype for DAWs turned out to be a blend of ProTools and MIDI sequencers, and trackers were discarded).

Third: As I alluded to in my comment here about user groups, the right approach is going to differ for different workflows and use cases. FL Studio is not used by many audio mastering engineers; ProTools is not the choice of beat producers.

Fourth: the goalposts keep moving with increasing compute power. The current idea of infinitely elastic audio that has become common among the most popular DAWs would have been unachievable in the early 2000s. Network bandwidth may have a similar impact.

Fifth: the right approach (especially visible today) for some people who are generally "in DAW space" isn't a DAW at all, but hardware designs that bypass most of the functionality associated with traditional DAW design. The Elektron and similar h/w sequencers of the last 5 years are in some senses closer to plugins than they are to DAWs.

Sixth: plugins - the ones associated with compositional elements (you could say sequencers but it goes beyond that) - have long been where the innovation has been taking place. These have evolved quite differently and more diversely than the DAWs that host them. For many users, plugins are the real workhorses and the DAWs are just the scaffolding around that. It would be hard to take a look at compositional plugins and conclude that the "right approach" emerged early.

Re: What Is the Future of the DAW?

#29

Post by te_chris »

How can you write this article only interviewing a bunch of startups? Tim Exile is a very interesting and visionary dude, but without serious contributions from Ableton or Apple on the DAW side this article feels a bit listless - none of these others are real players in the space.

Re: What Is the Future of the DAW?

#30

Post by freedomben »

GoofballJones wrote: post #23
thegagne wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations for #3? Particularly with low barrier of entry for kids? Something you can use a midi keyboard and a mic with?

Absolutely, REAPER. While it may be a little obtuse to learn, it is absolutely as powerful as the big guys in music production such as ProTools. Plus it works on both Windows and Mac, unlike Logic. There is a big community around REAPER also, and tons of YouTube videos around it. Plus, you can download it and work with it for free, but after a while, it will want you to pay for it, which is only $60...but you can kee…

Works on Linux too! https://www.reaper.fm/download.php
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