Gigantic DAW interface discussion

[jabe]

One of my first was Cubase VST 5 (before they started renumbering). Didn't like it at all. Far too cluttered. The endless menus were horrible. Like looking for the proverbial needle. I've always looked at DAW GUIs in the same way as I look at animated cartoons. The best were Warner Bros ones, like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck etc. Look at the backgrounds; minimal, simple, unobtrusive. Towards the back end of the 1970s, TV animations began to get horribly cluttered. The backgrounds were given more detail. Pointless, stupid and - worse - distracting. When you look at a photograph, much of it is often not in focus; only the subject is in focus.

I'm a big fan of context menus. If it's Windows, give me a menu via right-click, and let it tell me what I can do to whatever I clicked on.

So it's Tracktion/Waveform for now.

[tooneba]

That's not called efficient. If simplest thing were efficient, all professional software should be like MS paint.

I just don't believe that

It's not believing. It's just fact. You have to learn complex 3d Cad software if you want to do architectural design. You can't do it in ms paint. Why Cad software isn't as simple as ms paint? Because it's inefficient. If you want to do that kind of designing you need efficiency like 3D Cad software is offering. If you want to draw some kindergarten influenced picture ms paint is efficient.

I don't understand the people who keep trying to dismiss the reason of existing forma and re-invent wheel while smearing the base idea of them and inverting semantic 90 degree. Tools are specialized to be efficient when used properly. You can't just describe MS paint is efficient because of its simplicity. Probably this sort of motivation is one of harmful influences created by dumb marketing phrases

[DrFolder]

For me, Ableton Live gets out of the way and lets me make music more efficiently than other DAWs I've used. I use Live about 70% of the time, Logic/Reason the other 30% which is why I harp on them below.

Here's why:
- Scalable - including text - Logic/Reason don't
- A variety of attractive, quickly adjustable color scheme settings
- It's literally the only program of any sort I've used that fully overcomes OSX' crappy window-handling defaults. What do I mean by this? Being able to use Tab and/or arrow keys to navigate in pop-up selection windows (Save, confirm delete, etc.) WITHOUT mouse/trackpad. Logic is wretched in this area
- Sane plugin window management settings in terms of setting single vs. multiple windows, and changing with track selection - IME Live is the best and Logic is the worst in this regard
- Detailed, comprehensive switchable pop-up help that can be extended to Max for Live devices, and doesn't obscure the mouse pointer area like Logic
- Supports all popular consumer MIDI controllers (including transport control!) out of the box - a huge Logic weakness
- Doesn't have huge frequent updates or try to do everything a DAW could possibly do - thereby having a more focused featured set I can master in a reasonable amount of time. Some may see this as a negative, I prefer software that aspires to the solidity of hardware.
- Certainly not least - if you come from an analog recording background, Live lets you quickly record output of master/arbitrary channels & busses in real time (not just render/bounce) - so you can capture what you're monitoring at all times if desired without complicated buss routing/plugins/external audiostream capture software. So Live is one big meta-sampler - take the clips you recorded in realtime, stick 'em in a Simpler or slice to a new track and you're good to go, and resample on the fly if you want. It's not exclusive to Live (also trivially simple in AudioMulch & Reaper) but I'm surprised this isn't a standard feature in all DAWs (Logic, Tracktion, Reason).

Live for me is ok in the interface department. I just don't know why Ableton, bitwig and Renoise restrict most of the editing down to the bottom 15 - 20% of the screen. I find it so restrictive especially when working with a laptop bending down to edit vsts, racks and fx. It would be great to have the ability to move it to the top or float it or even move it to the side. With 4k screens you could even optimize it further to fit on each track. Interface design is a tricky art, I haven't found a daw that is perfect for me yet.

[pdxindy]

Live for me is ok in the interface department. I just don't know why Ableton, bitwig and Renoise restrict most of the editing down to the bottom 15 - 20% of the screen. I find it so restrictive especially when working with a laptop bending down to edit vsts, racks and fx. It would be great to have the ability to move it to the top or float it or even move it to the side. With 4k screens you could even optimize it further to fit on each track. Interface design is a tricky art, I haven't found a daw that is perfect for me yet.

With a key command, you can switch Bitwig to the full screen editor.

[DrFolder]

Live for me is ok in the interface department. I just don't know why Ableton, bitwig and Renoise restrict most of the editing down to the bottom 15 - 20% of the screen. I find it so restrictive especially when working with a laptop bending down to edit vsts, racks and fx. It would be great to have the ability to move it to the top or float it or even move it to the side. With 4k screens you could even optimize it further to fit on each track. Interface design is a tricky art, I haven't found a daw that is perfect for me yet.

With a key command, you can switch Bitwig to the full screen editor.

I was meaning the band/rack thing down the bottom where you edit drum racks, effects etc, not just the audio editor.

[pdxindy]

Live for me is ok in the interface department. I just don't know why Ableton, bitwig and Renoise restrict most of the editing down to the bottom 15 - 20% of the screen. I find it so restrictive especially when working with a laptop bending down to edit vsts, racks and fx. It would be great to have the ability to move it to the top or float it or even move it to the side. With 4k screens you could even optimize it further to fit on each track. Interface design is a tricky art, I haven't found a daw that is perfect for me yet.

With a key command, you can switch Bitwig to the full screen editor.

I was meaning the band/rack thing down the bottom where you edit drum racks, effects etc, not just the audio editor.

Oh, yeah that is fixed...

[DrFolder]

Live for me is ok in the interface department. I just don't know why Ableton, bitwig and Renoise restrict most of the editing down to the bottom 15 - 20% of the screen. I find it so restrictive especially when working with a laptop bending down to edit vsts, racks and fx. It would be great to have the ability to move it to the top or float it or even move it to the side. With 4k screens you could even optimize it further to fit on each track. Interface design is a tricky art, I haven't found a daw that is perfect for me yet.

With a key command, you can switch Bitwig to the full screen editor.

I was meaning the band/rack thing down the bottom where you edit drum racks, effects etc, not just the audio editor.

IMG_20171225_125125.jpg

[DrFolder]

Live for me is ok in the interface department. I just don't know why Ableton, bitwig and Renoise restrict most of the editing down to the bottom 15 - 20% of the screen. I find it so restrictive especially when working with a laptop bending down to edit vsts, racks and fx. It would be great to have the ability to move it to the top or float it or even move it to the side. With 4k screens you could even optimize it further to fit on each track. Interface design is a tricky art, I haven't found a daw that is perfect for me yet.

With a key command, you can switch Bitwig to the full screen editor.

I was meaning the band/rack thing down the bottom where you edit drum racks, effects etc, not just the audio editor.

Oh, yeah that is fixed...

When working on a laptop out and about I just end up stooped down towards the keyboard to see what I'm doing. Along the top would improve this.

[pdxindy]

When working on a laptop out and about I just end up stooped down towards the keyboard to see what I'm doing. Along the top would improve this.

Yeah, a user option to swap the track and device panel

[tooneba]

When working on a laptop out and about I just end up stooped down towards the keyboard to see what I'm doing. Along the top would improve this.

lol I can't agree more. In addition to this, Live uses one of the most smallest font among daws.

[pekbro]

Not that its particularly important to this discussion, but you "CAN" draft for architecture or anything else involving illustration with MS Paint or any other paint program for that matter, perfectly well. Just because "you" or someone you know cant, doesn't mean its not useful for that. It's completely about the user. Software can be helpful if its designed to do something, but its rarely mandatory. There are always those with skills that will defy all of your expectations and limitations.

If you find a particular style of interface design helpful, thats f*kin great! Most of us, need all the help we can get.

-Cheers

[pdxindy]

Not that its particularly important to this discussion, but you "CAN" draft for architecture or anything else involving illustration with MS Paint or any other paint program for that matter, perfectly well. Just because "you" or someone you know cant, doesn't mean its not useful for that. It's completely about the user. Software can be helpful if its designed to do something, but its rarely mandatory. There are always those with skills that will defy all of your expectations and limitations.

If you find a particular style of interface design helpful, thats f*kin great! Most of us, need all the help we can get.

-Cheers

And of course comparing MS Paint to CAD software is a far greater difference than comparing any of the common and modern DAW's

[SparkySpark]

Building an interface is like telling a story, a work of art.. or at least should be.

Hear, hear!

This is something that has always interested me, growing up with hardware sequencers and then Steinberg Pro24 in the late 1980’s. One DAW I’d like to mention is Digital Orchestrator Plus (DOP), which I used in circa 1997. Instead of parts, anything could be selected and copied on a per-bar basis.

Like another poster, I used Energy XT before, and really enjoyed the workflow and also the creative way of working that comes with a modular DAW. Today I use MuLab, which is rather similar (but more mature in every way). I think no DAW can compete with MuLab when it comes to workflow for traditional sequencing, and that’s what I am doing (i.e., I don’t do live sessions and not loop-based music).

For me, creating music is a creative process, meaning that one wouldn’t want the DAW to be in the way when creativity strikes, and as I said, this is where MuLab shines. When reading up on Sonar over the last few weeks, I read that it took ten mouse-clicks to set up a new track and a part. In MuLab, I either hit a plus sign or do a right-click, scroll down to the instrument I want from a popup list, and that’s it; I now get a track for that instrument and also a rack for it. If I right-click in the rack, I get to the same list and can add an effect or send. Really simple and just how it should be.

As MuLab is modular, it’s easy to set up one’s own instruments and effects. I did exactly that in order to create a multi-effect that would maximize the sound sculpting possibilities from just one window. You see the result below. What’s interesting for this thread is that with my multi-effect, I could immediately try adding any kind of (normal) effect for any track. Thus, I soon came up with rather spooky things, like putting a phaser on a three-voice layered bass. As I said, to me, it’s all about workflow. (Well, actually I also think that the environment I work in should look good. It might sound dumb or irrelevant, but to me, it’s all part of the creativity/workflow thing.)

MuT8_v1_small.png

Since I teach interface, interaction, and user experience design at the university, I hope to create a research project out of UI in DAWs/VSTi’s. It’s interesting to see how we in the music software industry continue pushing the boundaries. For example, Adobe Premiere Pro has a lot to learn from us.

Finally, I’d like to mention a great example of good UI design: Soundspot’s Nebula. Soundspot was rather heavily criticized for this VST plugin, mainly having to do with the ridiculous price tag, but it looks great and it’s the first time I’ve seen what the different effects really do. Truly great and inspiring work!

[Regnas]

FL the fastest.... Bitwig the cutest....

[THE INTRANCER]

Building an interface is like telling a story, a work of art.. or at least should be.

Hear, hear!

This is something that has always interested me, growing up with hardware sequencers and then Steinberg Pro24 in the late 1980’s. One DAW I’d like to mention is Digital Orchestrator Plus (DOP), which I used in circa 1997. Instead of parts, anything could be selected and copied on a per-bar basis.

Like another poster, I used Energy XT before, and really enjoyed the workflow and also the creative way of working that comes with a modular DAW. Today I use MuLab, which is rather similar (but more mature in every way). I think no DAW can compete with MuLab when it comes to workflow for traditional sequencing, and that’s what I am doing (i.e., I don’t do live sessions and not loop-based music).

For me, creating music is a creative process, meaning that one wouldn’t want the DAW to be in the way when creativity strikes, and as I said, this is where MuLab shines. When reading up on Sonar over the last few weeks, I read that it took ten mouse-clicks to set up a new track and a part. In MuLab, I either hit a plus sign or do a right-click, scroll down to the instrument I want from a popup list, and that’s it; I now get a track for that instrument and also a rack for it. If I right-click in the rack, I get to the same list and can add an effect or send. Really simple and just how it should be.

As MuLab is modular, it’s easy to set up one’s own instruments and effects. I did exactly that in order to create a multi-effect that would maximize the sound sculpting possibilities from just one window. You see the result below. What’s interesting for this thread is that with my multi-effect, I could immediately try adding any kind of (normal) effect for any track. Thus, I soon came up with rather spooky things, like putting a phaser on a three-voice layered bass. As I said, to me, it’s all about workflow. (Well, actually I also think that the environment I work in should look good. It might sound dumb or irrelevant, but to me, it’s all part of the creativity/workflow thing.)

Since I teach interface, interaction, and user experience design at the university, I hope to create a research project out of UI in DAWs/VSTi’s. It’s interesting to see how we in the music software industry continue pushing the boundaries. For example, Adobe Premiere Pro has a lot to learn from us.

Finally, I’d like to mention a great example of good UI design: Soundspot’s Nebula. Soundspot was rather heavily criticized for this VST plugin, mainly having to do with the ridiculous price tag, but it looks great and it’s the first time I’ve seen what the different effects really do. Truly great and inspiring work!

In the mid 80's, I desired the opportunity to own an Atari ST or even an Amiga in later years of the 80's..but it wasn't till the early 1990's where I eventually acquired those types of machines. Atari Mega ST, Amiga 500 and later the Amiga 1200.. The seed was planted in 1986, when my brother spent about a week programming a music program in basic and I think assembly too, several thousand of lines of code.

It was pretty amazing at the time, and it had to be said that, once he programmed it..he tried a few times and left it. It was myself that spent more time on the Atari 800 XL he programmed it on, it was pretty basic, but even at the age of 8/9 I could get my head around it.

It was around the same time I acquired the Casio SK1, I think that was what prompted him to program what would be my first daw. My dad was really the musical one in my family though, he could play 5 different instruments. My sister plays the piano as does my niece and also brother years ago with the electric guitar.

In the 90's, learning different daws on the Amiga and ST was definitely interesting, Bar & Pipes, Pro Tracker, Sound Tracker, Octamed Sound Studio, Dr T's Tiger Cub, Aural Illusion Sound Editor. Traditional midi editors like Notor I think it was on the Mega ST.


It's been about 3 years since tried out Mulab, I did consider getting it as I was transitioning away from Reason after 13 years but there were some big limitations from what I recall with it, but having downloaded it and been playing with it for the last couple of hours. It's definitely stepped itself up a few notches and yeah the interface is well thought out, well designed, and with simplicity. If it supported thumbnail images like Studio One does, I think that would add a lot to that department. I do think Mulab needs another layer of features to bring it up technically to similar daws.

One of the main reason's I moved from Reason besides VST support at the time in 2014 was because of it's limited wave editing features on the time line. Mulab doesn't appear to support that specifically from what I've tested of it. It's a very accessible program with some great features, nice sounding instruments and patches and flexibility to expand VST instrument support ect, but kinda falls short of my needs, in it's current form as a stand-alone daw itself. Currently I'm pretty happy with Studio One 3.5 atm.