Traveling back in time to 2017, I obtained my first Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). It was a ripped version of Logic Pro X and I had no idea how to use it. Similar to most musicians that try to learn using a DAW alone for the first time, I closed the program and did not open it for a few months. Three years passed and I discovered the world of electronic music. Programs like Logic, Ableton, MAX, SuperCollider, and Bitwig came across my computer screen. Although each of their capabilities were great, they had a long way before I can call them the perfect DAW.
[cue Avatar theme song]
The difficulty that comes with finding the right DAW starts with realizing what they were built for. Most are made to record and edit tracks, but what’s the fun in something that can be incredibly flexible and only use it for one thing?
Let’s clarify why I have such a hard time finding the “perfect DAW”. I’m picky. There’s always going to be something I wish a program had. When I open a DAW, the first thing I think of is, “How can I make this setup fully optimized for what I need to do?” This is about my journey of finding a DAW that works for my composition style and workflow.
Normally I’m not recording instruments or voice and just adjusting the levels, I want to see how far I can take a sample (a recording uploaded to the computer) through filters, granular synthesis, or whatever I can throw at it. As this process progresses, the DAW isn’t just a workstation to organize the song, I want to push it and really make it an instrument. DAWs like Logic and Ableton (most musicians’ first encounters) are the typical setups. Logic is more “in the studio feel” and Ableton Live still has the studio feel, but they take a more performative approach. With those reduced generalized summarizations of complex programs, you would probably think, “Oh he wants a DAW that performs like an instrument, so Ableton is probably the right choice.” Well… no. Both DAWs are great and I do turn to them regularly, but they’re missing something (again remember, picky).
Logic doesn’t have a great performative aspect, but I do enjoy the easy user interface. Ableton Live has a great performer forward build, but I don’t love the interface and how beat oriented it is. Can we mash the two together?
Now things are going to get complicated. SuperCollider and MAX. Love them both. Hate them both. SuperCollider and MAX are coding/visual programming softwares for multimedia purposes, and they are extremely flexible. If you want to do something that requires you to jump through hoops in traditional DAWs, it can be done in one of these. The only thing is, both require a steep learning curve. SuperCollider has its own coding language and MAX, though visually easier, has an abundance of rules to make it go smoothly. Paired with a traditional DAW, these would come close to making the “perfect DAW” ,which is why Ableton and MAX made MAX for Live. Let’s take it a step further and add to the pile of requests, can we just have one program that does both?
Here comes a new discovery in the journey of DAW, Bitwig. It allows the freedom and flexibility of MAX in their “grid”, and the easy user interface of a traditional DAW. I can create some fun generative music and then edit and add things to it without having to export and import 35 audio files! Doesn’t it sound like the best thing in the world? Probably, depends who you ask. It is an amazing system, but it is fairly new. There are some odd functions that you learn to turn off, but it’s there to make it “easier”. The interface, though easy to use, is slightly cluttered. It is a step in the “perfect” direction.
In the journey of finding a DAW, it’s important to remember these programs are catered to different musical specialties and they cannot possibly make everyone happy. There are times when you’ll probably need to bounce back and forth between programs, and let’s not forget these programs are expensive. When making music there’s always a way to create something with the tools you have, even if you have to bend and twist a program to do something it wasn’t built to do.
Maybe finding the perfect DAW isn’t the answer. Should I step out of the “box”? Perhaps revisit some old DAW friends, or start a new journey through hardware modular synthesis? A journey that will never end.
by Kyle Morrow - January 27, 2021
posted via Pitch & Tonic