Anyone jumped ship / switched DAW this year?
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- KVRAF
- 3879 posts since 28 Jun, 2009 from Wherever I lay my hat
Here's a story about a change of heart:
I've been working with Ableton for years now. I can improvise pretty well, and the workflow enabled me to come up with memorable tracks in record time. My tracks sounded complete, polished, well done, without having to expend a lot of effort on them.
But, on reflection (and close listening), I found there was something missing. Maybe it was a certain vitality, too much looping and not enough "human error". I'd recorded and mixed hundreds of tracks over the past 8 years, but, if anyone came along and asked me to play some of these on piano, well, I couldn't. I'd created these things impulsively, spontaneously, and it felt great at the time. They were improvised, but never composed, I never had to practice and rehearse to get these tracks done. I created chord progressions, percussion and melodies on the fly, and improvised, and then forgot about them.
Thing is, I can still play some of my older songs on the guitar/piano, songs that I haven't played in years/decades. Muscle memory is there, and I might be missing a progression here and there, but I can easily reconstruct it, because these songs have become a part of me through the playing. With all of my songs done in Ableton, this isn't the case. I'd have a bitch of a time if I'd ever have to do any of these live. It'd be like: what did I do there? Let me write that down... how did I think of that? What the hell is THAT chord?
Ableton is great. And Ableton turned me into a lazy ass. This year, I thought of the time that I had my Yamaha 4-track, a cheap keyboard and a guitar. How painful, and yet how rewarding the process was. Because, boys and girls, I had to have my parts down pat, memorized and in time. No metronome, no quantizing. Just me and my innate/learned sense of timing. It worked. It sounded awful, due to the cheap equipment, but it had heart.
So I double-clicked Reaper instead of Ableton. I went back to linear recording. And guess what? My timing was awful. I couldn't hold a beat over four bars, and that really scared me. I realized how much I had come to depend on saving, total recall, quantizing, what have you. It was... humiliating, to tell the truth. So I sat my ass down and practised. I picked up the guitar, for the first time in what felt like ages. Now, piano is my first instrument, and I'm just a hack at the guitar, but my skills are serviceable. I did some runs, arpeggios, composed a ton of new melodies, and then set them to harmonies afterwards. In short, I did what composers have been doing for centuries. During my summer vacation, I played the classical guitar at least 4 hours a day. I did what I used to do, before technology made things so e-zy. And it felt great. It made me use my head again. And the result, an instrumental piece with 4 parts spanning over 40 minutes featuring 80% live instrumentation (piano, electric/acoustic guitar, percussion, bass) is, to me, the best thing I've done in ages. I did it without a metronome, and without quantization.
The moral? I "jumped ship" on Ableton because it made things too convenient and easy. I know I can do all that I did in Reaper in Ableton, but it would take a lot of restraint. I'm also not knocking the tracks I did in Ableton - there's a sense of exhilaration in being able to complete something so quickly. But the DAW suggests a certain workflow, and it would be wise, in my experience, to be conscious of that.
I've been working with Ableton for years now. I can improvise pretty well, and the workflow enabled me to come up with memorable tracks in record time. My tracks sounded complete, polished, well done, without having to expend a lot of effort on them.
But, on reflection (and close listening), I found there was something missing. Maybe it was a certain vitality, too much looping and not enough "human error". I'd recorded and mixed hundreds of tracks over the past 8 years, but, if anyone came along and asked me to play some of these on piano, well, I couldn't. I'd created these things impulsively, spontaneously, and it felt great at the time. They were improvised, but never composed, I never had to practice and rehearse to get these tracks done. I created chord progressions, percussion and melodies on the fly, and improvised, and then forgot about them.
Thing is, I can still play some of my older songs on the guitar/piano, songs that I haven't played in years/decades. Muscle memory is there, and I might be missing a progression here and there, but I can easily reconstruct it, because these songs have become a part of me through the playing. With all of my songs done in Ableton, this isn't the case. I'd have a bitch of a time if I'd ever have to do any of these live. It'd be like: what did I do there? Let me write that down... how did I think of that? What the hell is THAT chord?
Ableton is great. And Ableton turned me into a lazy ass. This year, I thought of the time that I had my Yamaha 4-track, a cheap keyboard and a guitar. How painful, and yet how rewarding the process was. Because, boys and girls, I had to have my parts down pat, memorized and in time. No metronome, no quantizing. Just me and my innate/learned sense of timing. It worked. It sounded awful, due to the cheap equipment, but it had heart.
So I double-clicked Reaper instead of Ableton. I went back to linear recording. And guess what? My timing was awful. I couldn't hold a beat over four bars, and that really scared me. I realized how much I had come to depend on saving, total recall, quantizing, what have you. It was... humiliating, to tell the truth. So I sat my ass down and practised. I picked up the guitar, for the first time in what felt like ages. Now, piano is my first instrument, and I'm just a hack at the guitar, but my skills are serviceable. I did some runs, arpeggios, composed a ton of new melodies, and then set them to harmonies afterwards. In short, I did what composers have been doing for centuries. During my summer vacation, I played the classical guitar at least 4 hours a day. I did what I used to do, before technology made things so e-zy. And it felt great. It made me use my head again. And the result, an instrumental piece with 4 parts spanning over 40 minutes featuring 80% live instrumentation (piano, electric/acoustic guitar, percussion, bass) is, to me, the best thing I've done in ages. I did it without a metronome, and without quantization.
The moral? I "jumped ship" on Ableton because it made things too convenient and easy. I know I can do all that I did in Reaper in Ableton, but it would take a lot of restraint. I'm also not knocking the tracks I did in Ableton - there's a sense of exhilaration in being able to complete something so quickly. But the DAW suggests a certain workflow, and it would be wise, in my experience, to be conscious of that.
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- KVRAF
- 5810 posts since 27 Jul, 2001 from Tarpon Springs, Florida, USA
and thisZexila wrote:Remembered this one, maybe it will helpDewdman42 wrote:I have contemplated this for years. can you elaborate on what the advanced midi functionality is in Cubase?ontracktuts wrote:I jumped from Logic to Cubase. I'm still between both. But I want to try move completely over to Cubase because of its advanced MIDI functionality
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=445626
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=85811
and
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=442232
Pretty much Cubase is midi King. Too bad it lacks ARA and a few other small
features that are important to me or certainly Cubase would be my main DAW
and possible my one and only DAW.
edit
added
The reason I say CUbase is king is that it has
Cakewalk MFX,
Proprietary MFX,
ST 3.5 midi note editing (forgot what ii is called)
Easy to get to midi editing tools
Logical editor
Transformer
Input Transformer
Piano roll editing
List editor
I know I have missed something.
My Studio: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7760&p=7777146#p7777146
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- Banned
- 11467 posts since 4 Jan, 2017 from Warsaw, Poland
Yes, I did: Jan '17 Live 9 -> Jun '17 Bitwig 2 -> Nov '17 Live 10? NOPE*!! -> Nov '17 Bitwig 2 (+ Reason 10)
* for those wondering, Live 10 addressed most of my feature requests and I was incredibly happy, until I saw automation being moved to separate mode; the way it's implemented kills a workflow for someone that has 5+ automation lanes per track and works on a single small screen usually with the QWERTY keyboard
* for those wondering, Live 10 addressed most of my feature requests and I was incredibly happy, until I saw automation being moved to separate mode; the way it's implemented kills a workflow for someone that has 5+ automation lanes per track and works on a single small screen usually with the QWERTY keyboard
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- KVRian
- 569 posts since 9 Jan, 2012 from Dona Ana, New Mexiico in the US of A
I can relate to your epiphany. I too decided that music is more important than production. When it comes down to it the DAW should be more a tool than a luxury and real fulfillment comes from your talent than what loops you manipulate. I always wonder what would happen if the grid get's unplugged what would all these looper's do to make their musical ideas a reality.ariston wrote:Here's a story about a change of heart:
I've been working with Ableton for years now. I can improvise pretty well, and the workflow enabled me to come up with memorable tracks in record time. My tracks sounded complete, polished, well done, without having to expend a lot of effort on them.
But, on reflection (and close listening), I found there was something missing. Maybe it was a certain vitality, too much looping and not enough "human error". I'd recorded and mixed hundreds of tracks over the past 8 years, but, if anyone came along and asked me to play some of these on piano, well, I couldn't. I'd created these things impulsively, spontaneously, and it felt great at the time. They were improvised, but never composed, I never had to practice and rehearse to get these tracks done. I created chord progressions, percussion and melodies on the fly, and improvised, and then forgot about them.
Thing is, I can still play some of my older songs on the guitar/piano, songs that I haven't played in years/decades. Muscle memory is there, and I might be missing a progression here and there, but I can easily reconstruct it, because these songs have become a part of me through the playing. With all of my songs done in Ableton, this isn't the case. I'd have a bitch of a time if I'd ever have to do any of these live. It'd be like: what did I do there? Let me write that down... how did I think of that? What the hell is THAT chord?
Ableton is great. And Ableton turned me into a lazy ass. This year, I thought of the time that I had my Yamaha 4-track, a cheap keyboard and a guitar. How painful, and yet how rewarding the process was. Because, boys and girls, I had to have my parts down pat, memorized and in time. No metronome, no quantizing. Just me and my innate/learned sense of timing. It worked. It sounded awful, due to the cheap equipment, but it had heart.
So I double-clicked Reaper instead of Ableton. I went back to linear recording. And guess what? My timing was awful. I couldn't hold a beat over four bars, and that really scared me. I realized how much I had come to depend on saving, total recall, quantizing, what have you. It was... humiliating, to tell the truth. So I sat my ass down and practised. I picked up the guitar, for the first time in what felt like ages. Now, piano is my first instrument, and I'm just a hack at the guitar, but my skills are serviceable. I did some runs, arpeggios, composed a ton of new melodies, and then set them to harmonies afterwards. In short, I did what composers have been doing for centuries. During my summer vacation, I played the classical guitar at least 4 hours a day. I did what I used to do, before technology made things so e-zy. And it felt great. It made me use my head again. And the result, an instrumental piece with 4 parts spanning over 40 minutes featuring 80% live instrumentation (piano, electric/acoustic guitar, percussion, bass) is, to me, the best thing I've done in ages. I did it without a metronome, and without quantization.
The moral? I "jumped ship" on Ableton because it made things too convenient and easy. I know I can do all that I did in Reaper in Ableton, but it would take a lot of restraint. I'm also not knocking the tracks I did in Ableton - there's a sense of exhilaration in being able to complete something so quickly. But the DAW suggests a certain workflow, and it would be wise, in my experience, to be conscious of that.
Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of great music be made today thank's to DAW's like Ableton Live so that should acknowledged and given it's kudos.
One thing I have learned is that being a Performer first and a Producer second keeps me on my toes and my sessions are more gratifying though not as more Experimental with the amazing tools at my disposal.
+1 and good to read about a story such as yours.
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- KVRAF
- 2110 posts since 5 Oct, 2015 from Swedish / Living in Hong Kong
FL Studio is still my main DAW because that's the one I know the best, but I recently got Studio One 3 and Propellerhead Reason 10. Time will tell if I will like these new DAWs better. I have Bitwig since before but I didn't use it much
Win 10 -64bit, CPU i7-7700K, 32Gb, Focusrite 2i2, FL-studio 20, Studio One 4, Reason 10
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- KVRAF
- 2415 posts since 28 Mar, 2007
Great post.ariston wrote:Here's a story about a change of heart:
I've been working with Ableton for years now. I can improvise pretty well, and the workflow enabled me to come up with memorable tracks in record time. My tracks sounded complete, polished, well done, without having to expend a lot of effort on them.
But, on reflection (and close listening), I found there was something missing. Maybe it was a certain vitality, too much looping and not enough "human error". I'd recorded and mixed hundreds of tracks over the past 8 years, but, if anyone came along and asked me to play some of these on piano, well, I couldn't. I'd created these things impulsively, spontaneously, and it felt great at the time. They were improvised, but never composed, I never had to practice and rehearse to get these tracks done. I created chord progressions, percussion and melodies on the fly, and improvised, and then forgot about them.
Thing is, I can still play some of my older songs on the guitar/piano, songs that I haven't played in years/decades. Muscle memory is there, and I might be missing a progression here and there, but I can easily reconstruct it, because these songs have become a part of me through the playing. With all of my songs done in Ableton, this isn't the case. I'd have a bitch of a time if I'd ever have to do any of these live. It'd be like: what did I do there? Let me write that down... how did I think of that? What the hell is THAT chord?
Ableton is great. And Ableton turned me into a lazy ass. This year, I thought of the time that I had my Yamaha 4-track, a cheap keyboard and a guitar. How painful, and yet how rewarding the process was. Because, boys and girls, I had to have my parts down pat, memorized and in time. No metronome, no quantizing. Just me and my innate/learned sense of timing. It worked. It sounded awful, due to the cheap equipment, but it had heart.
So I double-clicked Reaper instead of Ableton. I went back to linear recording. And guess what? My timing was awful. I couldn't hold a beat over four bars, and that really scared me. I realized how much I had come to depend on saving, total recall, quantizing, what have you. It was... humiliating, to tell the truth. So I sat my ass down and practised. I picked up the guitar, for the first time in what felt like ages. Now, piano is my first instrument, and I'm just a hack at the guitar, but my skills are serviceable. I did some runs, arpeggios, composed a ton of new melodies, and then set them to harmonies afterwards. In short, I did what composers have been doing for centuries. During my summer vacation, I played the classical guitar at least 4 hours a day. I did what I used to do, before technology made things so e-zy. And it felt great. It made me use my head again. And the result, an instrumental piece with 4 parts spanning over 40 minutes featuring 80% live instrumentation (piano, electric/acoustic guitar, percussion, bass) is, to me, the best thing I've done in ages. I did it without a metronome, and without quantization.
The moral? I "jumped ship" on Ableton because it made things too convenient and easy. I know I can do all that I did in Reaper in Ableton, but it would take a lot of restraint. I'm also not knocking the tracks I did in Ableton - there's a sense of exhilaration in being able to complete something so quickly. But the DAW suggests a certain workflow, and it would be wise, in my experience, to be conscious of that.
There is nothing like the feel good high that comes from putting in the boring practice of learning a real musical instrument and making solid progress. I have played the guitar and piano for decades,but only up to a "make do" level. A few months ago I started to learn the violin,and nearly gave up at first,but I am sticking to my daily practice routine and making good headway.
I have Ableton lite,and have been thinking of upgrading to the full version,but after reading your post, I am thinking of just carrying on using the 8 tracks for notepad and ideas duties,and Reaper for the real composition.
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- KVRAF
- 2301 posts since 11 Jan, 2009 from Portland, OR, USA
Right now I'm using Bitwig 2 instead of my usual Ableton....I'm hoping I'll stick with it but you know how 'temporary' these things can be, we'll see!
Basically I feel Live hasn't grown in the ways I wanted it to, despite being a long-time, die-hard user. The direction Bitwig has taken since day one seems much more in line with where I wanted Live to go. The perfect example of this is the ability to see both the clip matrix and the arrangement, side-by-side, on one screen: I've been wanting this for SO LONG in Ableton, and clearly they just aren't interested in such a thing, because here we have Live 10, and still not even a peep of a hint of this ever happening....whereas Bitwig showed up on day one saying "hey look, both sequencers on one screen, easy!". They are simply more in sync with my interests, it's pretty much as simple as that. The approach to Modulation in Version 2 bitwig, versus the weak-ass approach in Live 10 of improving-but-not-expanding the situation by integrating M4L -- again, Bitwig wins here, easily. Live 10 plays catchup by adding multi-clip editing, ok, cool. But in Bitwig I can put multiple audio files into a single audio clip, using it as a container in which I can move / edit the files, but still just have one clip in the matrix for all that information. Live -- hahahaha, nope. Been wanting this, again for YEARS and it's absolutely nowhere in sight.....I'll keep going: Bounce In Place. In bitwig from day one. Live 10 shows up, and there's still no freaking good rendering options, just the old, lame-ass "freeze+flatten" garbage from years back. Every other DAW has bounce in place now, except Ableton. It's so annoying.
Trust me, there's more. But that's the gist of it. I'm exactly the user-type Bitwig was looking for: someone who used Live for years, and loves it, but has specific needs / desires that simply aren't being addressed, and BWS shows up and says: Oh hello, you say you wanted....??
Basically I feel Live hasn't grown in the ways I wanted it to, despite being a long-time, die-hard user. The direction Bitwig has taken since day one seems much more in line with where I wanted Live to go. The perfect example of this is the ability to see both the clip matrix and the arrangement, side-by-side, on one screen: I've been wanting this for SO LONG in Ableton, and clearly they just aren't interested in such a thing, because here we have Live 10, and still not even a peep of a hint of this ever happening....whereas Bitwig showed up on day one saying "hey look, both sequencers on one screen, easy!". They are simply more in sync with my interests, it's pretty much as simple as that. The approach to Modulation in Version 2 bitwig, versus the weak-ass approach in Live 10 of improving-but-not-expanding the situation by integrating M4L -- again, Bitwig wins here, easily. Live 10 plays catchup by adding multi-clip editing, ok, cool. But in Bitwig I can put multiple audio files into a single audio clip, using it as a container in which I can move / edit the files, but still just have one clip in the matrix for all that information. Live -- hahahaha, nope. Been wanting this, again for YEARS and it's absolutely nowhere in sight.....I'll keep going: Bounce In Place. In bitwig from day one. Live 10 shows up, and there's still no freaking good rendering options, just the old, lame-ass "freeze+flatten" garbage from years back. Every other DAW has bounce in place now, except Ableton. It's so annoying.
Trust me, there's more. But that's the gist of it. I'm exactly the user-type Bitwig was looking for: someone who used Live for years, and loves it, but has specific needs / desires that simply aren't being addressed, and BWS shows up and says: Oh hello, you say you wanted....??
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heavymetalmixer heavymetalmixer https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=391539
- KVRian
- 692 posts since 8 Jan, 2017
I've use Ardour, Pro Tools, FL Studio and Reaper, and to be honest I don't wanna use anything besides Reaper anymore.
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SpecialSpecimen SpecialSpecimen https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=168686
- KVRist
- 175 posts since 20 Dec, 2007
Just switched to Reaper from Ableton and Cubase 5.
It's blowing my mind.
It's blowing my mind.
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- KVRAF
- 3186 posts since 18 Mar, 2008
You don't switch to Sonar, Sonar switch from you...Jafo wrote:Well, I was considering switching to Sonar...
Last edited by Zexila on Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
This entire forum is wading through predictions, opinions, barely formed thoughts, drama, and whining. If you don't enjoy that, why are you here? 
ShawnG
ShawnG-
- KVRAF
- 15517 posts since 13 Oct, 2009
LOL, this thread is going to be chock full of switchers RSN!Jafo wrote:Well, I was considering switching to Sonar...
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- KVRAF
- 3186 posts since 18 Mar, 2008
Happy switching everybody.
This entire forum is wading through predictions, opinions, barely formed thoughts, drama, and whining. If you don't enjoy that, why are you here? ShawnG
ShawnG
