DAW with a "human" workflow?

[fluffy_little_something]

Hehe, I don't know Reason, and given its price I never will It would be too professional for me...

[fluffy_little_something]

Another cool feature would be beat detection. I often play around with a Rhodes sound and I have no clue what timing I use. I have the metronome turned off so it doesn't confuse me. I record what sounds nice to me, like on a tape recorder. But sooner or later of course I have to know/set the beat for instance in order to put the melody into clips, which I can then copy and paste etc., or to add drums, which of course should be much more precise than my free-style melodies.
So, despite the muted metronome, I do have some bpm set in the background, and usually the wrong one. So it would be nice to be able to tap in the right timing after having recorded a melody or whatever, without changing the tempo of my recording.

[incubus]

I often said that if I could get a machine that simply took what I heard in my head and made music out of it, it would be epic (even rappers would like it )

But alas, you have to work at it, so it's a no-go

[EnGee]

There is an audio tempo detection in Cubase Pro (but not in Artist) :



Personally, I just use my foot or/and adjusting the metronome by ears. (There are free tap utilities online might help as well as some DAWs has built in tap tempo like S1 and FL Studio).

[fluffy_little_something]

But when I already have my melody at the right speed and change the bpm in hindsight, I change the speed of my recording, which I don't want, of course.

[EnGee]

So what exactly do you want? Playing and recording your midi then press a button and make the DAW guess the tempo for you?

But that doesn't make sense! If your rhythm is not good, then the guess would be not good. If your rhythm is so good, why you need a metronome or a tempo guess in the first place?

What I suggest is to have a better experience and training in order to know how to develope your inner rhythm and how to play at different speeds and how to use the metronome to help you in all that. After some time, you'll be able to choose the tempo that suits your melody before recording it.

[fluffy_little_something]

My rhythm is fine. But for creativity's sake I record live, without the distracting metronome sound. So the bpm set in the background (I don't know any DAW where one can simply turn the tempo off) hardly ever matches the timing I used when recording. Basically I don't care what timing I used, but when building a song from my patterns, I do have to use timing.

So, basically I just want to record my shit and when I am finished, I want to tap along to my recording, which yields the right tempo and sets it for that project.

[chk071]

My rhythm is fine.

I always thought so too. The amount of correcting i have to do after playing something in "live" convinced me that my rhythm is not fine at all...

What's wrong with the metronome though?

[EnGee]

Then don't use the tempo tools and disable the grid in your DAW.

[fluffy_little_something]

My rhythm is fine.

I always thought so too. The amount of correcting i have to do after playing something in "live" convinced me that my rhythm is not fine at all...

What's wrong with the metronome though?

It just distracts me. I never start with the rhythm, so I add drums pretty much at the end, if at all. I am more like a solo Rhodes pianist, who plays freestyle so to speak.
Not to mention the sound of the metronome as such, it is perfect, but I don't feel a rhythm to play along to.

[CTStump]

Don't want offend you with this question but for the sake of your original post:

Are you looking for a solution or just chatting?

Most hosts offer groove templating. You can record a basic rhythm track and then extract tempo info from that and apply that to all the other tracks when finished. You can also tap your tempo in. These are really basic to a majority of the hosts already suggested to you.

Do you use proprietary loops? If you do they require timing to correctly follow what you record. If you play your own drums and don't use loops then you don't need to worry about tempo at all.

I think what happens to us with all these options available only creates alot of confusion with the hosts we already have making us think there is a better solution in another host. If we can't take the time to learn what we have how can we drop one host for another expecting more simplicity when with that comes in most cases more complexity. The 4 track tape recorder is still there if you want a more "human" solution in its simplest form if you want to use a DAW you have to go deeper under the hood to get the results you want.

Sorry for the phylsophical interlude but I feel that is where your thread going given what has been offered and your replies suggest.

Once again no offence intended.

[inkwarp]

waiting to hear from a user of reason who hates the GUI, intractable as it is, pretty much all across the board rejection of any sensible user requests on that since version 1.
reason can still be useful as a rewire instrument and it's also fair to say that it is pretty stable and doesn't take a huge amount of resources to run. personally it is a nice sketchpad, not much more. i hardly use my copy any more...

ps. i am still waiting for someone to define what is meant by 'human workflow'...

[fluffy_little_something]

Basically, what I mean by human is less pattern-oriented, more old-skool and analog, which would ideally be reflected in the music made. I do think the invention of the DAW is largely responsible for the way modern electronic music sounds.

And of course humans implies intuitive, efficient operation, and maybe an appealing user interface.

But of course just like with synth comparisons, different people find different stuff ideal. So, indeed, this thread will not really yield an objective result

[inkwarp]

Basically, what I mean by human is less pattern-oriented, more old-skool and analog, which would ideally be reflected in the music made. I do think the invention of the DAW is largely responsible for the way modern electronic music sounds.

And of course humans implies intuitive, efficient operation, and maybe an appealing user interface.

But of course just like with synth comparisons, different people find different stuff ideal. So, indeed, this thread will not really yield an objective result :hihi:

the daw is arguably part of methods of music involving computers etc. but only structurally. the advent of electronic music goes back to the late 1940s with the creation of musique concrète, even further if you look at he dada-ists and mainetti's art of noise etc. the seeds of the future sounds in there for sure.
i also don't think it's 'non-human' to talk about patterns, patterns are the basis of so much in our perception.
computer and electronic music is often seen as a pale imitation of an analog reality, and maybe it is in some respects, but it is also a medium of it's own with it's own fads and character and with it's context ( electronic dance music in a club is a very human thing).
seems to me you just should chuck the computer and go back to good old reel to reel.

[liquidsound]

chuck the computer and go back to good old reel to reel.

That would solve the Right Click dilemma.