A discussion of the DAW as a compositional tool

abreaktor · Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 2:33 am Post subject:

in which ways do these DAWs influence the kind of music thats published today?

i ask that, because i see an immense variety of totally strange and neophile music everywhere i look. well, i look for it, so that might be the diference. if you DONT look and just perceive whats played in the radio, then you might get the idea that EVERYBODY is making the same shit and uses the same loops/vocals/chords. otoh, if i listen to the vast amount of producers who do soundscapes with a gigantic hardware array... well, there are subtle differences, but i detect a lot of similarities, which, from my laymans approcah, can best be described as "love for the machine". hell, it aint sooo difficult to emanate calm and peace via soundspheres... a lot of those prods just sound like an 80ies digital synth pad with some modulations. granted, in rather high quality, ill give you that Razz

so you might have a point in saying that equipment influences your approach on composition; still unclear about how modern day DAWS do this.

i think that any daw is an immensely mighty tool if and if only you immediately leave the path this daw points out for you. i cannot imagine that any hardware studio allows such a degree of modulation and interactivity between modules than an average DAW with some funky VST (unless you have a lot of time and 300 km cable at hand).

what makes daws so powerful is the speed, i guess, in which you can add everything you like. i know that you can work very fast with hardware step sequencers. but for a musician like me who does everything based on trial and error (well, mostly error, tbh) i am very fond of quick acces to a broad variety of effects and instruments AND I LOVE the undo button.

seraph · Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 2:59 am Post subject:

abreaktor · Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 3:55 am Post subject:

i dont need analogies! how about an explanation of some kind? ^^nah, ill google it myself. but i was hoping you could break that down into some sentences.

seraph · Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 4:35 am Post subject:

Oskar · Joined: Jul 29, 2004 Posts: 1751 Location: Norway

As far as I'm concerned, I'd say you've spotted the main thing yourself - UNDO! The UNDO button is one of the major boons working with DAWs.

Acoustic Interloper · Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 10:39 am Post subject:

KTlin · Joined: Nov 28, 2008 Posts: 1 Location: Romania

Great topic, great people, great forum!! I'm so glad i found this.
So here goes my first post on this board.

I've been looking for some time for a DAW that is geared more toward songwriting/performance/improvisation and less toward recording/producing. So far, beside Ableton Live (seems nice and powerful, but i can't stand that cold ugly cartoonish look of the GUI) and Cakewalk Project5 (pretty much resembles Live, but it doesn't have a mixing console and it seems to be discontinued), i also came across these four (not very popular) programs:
- Music Prototyping Studio http://www.cognitone.com/products/mps/intro/page.stml
- SongFrame http://www.tanageraudioworks.com/Products/SongFrame
- Temper http://www.angryredplanet.com/temper/
- Palette Melody Composing Tool http://www.palette-mct.com/overview_musical_palette.html

Albeit these four cannot be called DAWs (especially the last one), i think they could be extremely useful as compositional tools.

seraph · Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 1:08 am Post subject:

Hi KTlin
welcome to electro-music.com Very Happy

Octahedra · Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 1:34 pm Post subject:

Using a DAW hasn't really changed my composition techniques, only my sound. I spent so long working with a tracker (MED Soundstudio and previous versions of same) and hardware synths, that when I got Sonar I didn't do any composing in it for well over a year. It was just for recording my tracker work, adding extra sound effects and mastering.

Being conscious of how the limitations of step sequencing had shaped my own composing style (and the fact that I'm a non-realtime music programmer at heart anyway) I decided to carry on writing step-based music in Sonar even though I'm no longer forced to.

Having said that, the main reason I use Sonar for nearly everything now is the obvious reason that as far as I can tell led to DAWs being invented in the first place - the convenience of having everything (midi & audio) on one single timeline. More or less everything remains editable right to the end. The old days of being forced to commit each stage before working on the next were fine for professional studios with a trained engineer at every stage, but not for a single person trying to do everything on their own with maybe a book or two for help! I used to sample a lot of synthesised and found sounds, which works really well in a tracker, but now that I'm getting started with acoustic instruments I often need the DAW for its audio tracks.

People on this forum have complained that because of how they're designed, using them for realtime work and improvisation can be frustrating, especially when the computer is working too hard to keep up - latency etc. But I find the opposite problem - they are inefficient for programming. Sonar for me is too much like a tape recorder. If you've got a chord sequence and want to add texture by reassigning some of the notes to different midi instrument parts, you can't just change that as a property of the note - you have to cut it and paste into another track, which takes all sorts of care to be sure no other notes got ruined by accident. Also if you have notes and midi controller envelopes on the same track, moving a clip full of notes to a different point in time will almost certainly move/destroy any envelopes that overlap it. It refuses to let you edit the two things manually as separate data unless you keep them on different tracks. So annoying.

Sorry for word count there - rant finished! Wink

Gordon

Doni · Joined: Jul 11, 2007 Posts: 64 Location: Canada

well, I'm in a band and I make my own completely different music using a DAW (ableton, I dont use the "live" function at all though) and I can say that both processes work (traditional jamming out and sitting down and conceiving something)

Jamming out with my band and conceiving something do both share something in common for me though. They both get started with an idea.

So when I get together with my band, somebody will have a lick, or some lyrics and we'll build off that. When I'm creating my own music, I'll have an idea in my head, have found a sweet sample, or have some lyrics. Then I jsut fiddle about and out plops a track

but honestly, with music, aren't there like 10,000 different means to an end? I don't think it matters how you get to the end of the road as long as you get there

GaryRea · Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 10:20 pm Post subject:

What would you guys say is the difference between a DAW and a software sequencer, other than the fact one is hardware and the other software? I've only used software sequencers, myself. I've thought about getting a Tascam 2488Neo or something like that, but, every time I consider it I wind up rejecting the idea because, well, I can already record and compose music on my computer, using Mixcraft. So, what do I need with a piece of hardware that costs over 12 times what I paid for Mixcraft? Bah! Humbug!

Gary

Uncle Krunkus · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 1:02 am Post subject:

Hey Gordon,
Did you ever use Cakewalk? (I'm still using Cakewalk Pro Audio now)
I know it's a bit of a dinosaur these days, but it had it's own programming language called CAL. That was (is) really great for us algorithmic, step type composers. You can write your own little programs for manipulating midi data based on just about anything you can imagine.
Say,
"Select all C4 in range"
"Reverse last half of each measure"
etc.
You get the idea.

I see a hardware DAW and a PC based composition application as almost the same thing these days. Most hardware DAWs are a collection of PC components running a specialised sequencing application anyway. I think it's easier to manipulate midi with a PC, but I don't really know from recent experience, so it could be completely different now.
Both become obsolete faster than the price justifies, for different reasons. And they are both still able to do what they were designed for after the current technology leaves them behind (as long as you don't mind maintaining an aging OS on the PC)

Antimon · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 3:44 am Post subject:

GaryRea · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 6:13 am Post subject:

GaryRea · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 6:30 am Post subject:

Acoustic Interloper · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 7:28 am Post subject:

Uncle Krunkus · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 8:24 am Post subject:

It is true, I often call Cakewalk my DAW. I kind of see DAW as defining what the tool does rather than what it is.
There was a time when the only DAWs were completely proprietory and closed, like the Roland D20 and I think the Korg M1 would have come under the same banner.
Now, a specific and purposely limited software application like FruityLoops couldn't be called a DAW (IMHO) as it isn't a complete Workstation. But I'd call Cakewalk, Cubase, Sonar, Ableton etc. DAWs, as they contain everything you need to do a multitimbral composition including midi implementation and digital audio (something the D20 and M1 could only dream of being)

Acoustic Interloper · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 9:17 am Post subject:

GaryRea · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:20 am Post subject:

Octahedra · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 12:45 pm Post subject:

Antimon · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 6:31 pm Post subject:

My first experience of any kind of sound sequencing at all was with the first Soundtracker program (by Karsten Obarski - mm.. that Crystal Hammer soundtrack) at the end of the 80s, than onwards via Noisetracker and protracker... Once I first tried Bars and Pipes along with a FB01 I knew that this was what I had wanted all along. I'm a piano roll guy through and through Smile

I used a tracker for drums (for songs where nothing else was automated) vith my portastudio for a while, but once I ditched my Amiga for a PC, it was piano roll DAWs for me.

I can appreciate that people use trackers (obviously, there are loads of people doing that), it's just not for me.

/Stefan

Acoustic Interloper · Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 7:15 am Post subject:

Being a fundamentally acoustic composer, I typically generate first sounds on acoustic instruments, household appliances, or other physical objects, and then use electronics+software to modify, arrange, and improvise a physical sound. (One reason for getting into sound processing was so that I could stop buying banjos for their distinct sonics!) There are both pre-performance and performance-time aspects to the processing. Some of it uses conventional DAWs, some a language like ChucK or Max/MSP, and some uses custom software. So, I guess I never sit down and strictly "compose" with a DAW. Most of my composition occurs while I sleep or when I am not thinking about it, anyway. By the time I capture a composition in some medium, the core of it is in my head and hands.

The human body as a compositional tool. dasz

Octahedra · Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 8:36 am Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 8:46 am Post subject:

Acoustic Interloper · Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 9:18 am Post subject: