What's the one feature your DAW has, found in no other, that you wouldn't want to live without?

[jonljacobi]

I actually started this in the hope that I can find out about features that I'm not even aware of, as well as discover if things that I think are unique, really aren't. If it's a methodology, please make sure it's truly a one-off or particular stroke of genius.

Starting things off, I'm going with Logic and its Drummer's ability to "follow" other tracks and play something that's actually relevant. I've never seen anything else do this, which, as I said, just means it's unique in my experience.

[jancivil]

Time Warp in Cubendo

1) I want the tempo to be established by my music, so I'm in linear mode and use the regular Time Warp, now I determine where the barlines are hence the tempi. And beats inside the bar.
2) Then, in bars 'n beats all tracks in musical mode can be adjusted to create ebb and flow of tempo via Time Warp (Musical Events Follow). I mean here that changing one node does this for the time between that and the next node.
Method here is go to Tempo Track, select the node or nodes and change the tempo. Very specific control.

Additionally I wouldn't want to go back to versions before they provided the Project Logical Editor preset 'Toggle Time Domain'.

[Yorrrrrr]

Live’s capture MIDI (though I think FL Studio also has it and maybe other DAWs)

[jancivil]

technically the concept I described is not 'found in no other' but the workflow may be. One of the others is windows-only, another is bloody reaper and it's an extension.

[jeffb01]

Bitwig: being able to add LFO's and envelopes to anything. Like I can take Nemesis for the osc, wow2 for the filter, and any effect I want and make it into one synth with a unified modulation system. Also if I have a synth and I wish it had another envelope or LFO - well it does now.

[macmuse]

RE the Time Warp/Jan's post: Not to go off track here but in the vein of "finding out about features that I'm not even aware of" as the OP stated:

If a MIDI track is recorded freestyle without metronome in Cubase, and you later want to line the notes up properly with bars and beats the way you intended them to be if you had been using a metronome (not creating multiple tempos), is there a feature that can do that, or would you have to move them yourself?

Now for a feature: In Cubase you can drag a MIDI region out of the project and directly to a folder on your hard drive. The DAW that came closest to that was S1 but you had to drag it to S1's browser window > your file hierarchy.

[jancivil]

RE the Time Warp/Jan's post: Not to go off track here but in the vein of "finding out about features that I'm not even aware of" as the OP stated:

If a MIDI track is recorded freestyle without metronome in Cubase, and you later want to line the notes up properly with bars and beats the way you intended them to be if you had been using a metronome (not creating multiple tempos), is there a feature that can do that, or would you have to move them yourself? Here everything is already well-established but I'm adjusting the timeline a little more precisely (actually there was no node there but it was close enuff for rock 'n roll).

First you consider where 1 is for a barline in the material, audio or MIDI and you drag the timeline to that point and a 'BPM' is created. Not the notes, that's the point.



The way I intend them, the metronome follows, I don't choose metronome/BPMs abstractly, or guess. I'm not terribly good at the guessing. Studio One 4 has this type in the project window where the tracks remain but you've changed timeline, I can't speak to it usage-wise.

[jancivil]

It's an eye-opener, take any steady beat rock track (the tutorial I saw back in the day was a Pretenders song) and get the lines as on top of the beats as you can and you tend to find several BPMs in a single bar. Living, breathing music does not do clockwork.

actual tempo.jpg

there 3 & 4 is that much faster than 1 & 2. which is not unusual.
(I just now did those internal beats)

[kevvvvv]

Hardware controllers that work

[neverbeeninariot]

Access to the API via the Lua scripting language. (bloody Reaper again..). But, it makes all kinds of funky shit possible, like this - https://github.com/RobU23/ReaScripts/wi ... Ex-Machina (Randomiser, Sequencer, Euclid).

[telecharge]

Channel strips in DAWs are common, but Cakewalk's ProChannel implementation and included effects are unique to me. Cakewalk's "Quick Grouping" feature is also quite handy.

[reggie1979]

Hardware controllers that work

Amen, though my Nektar has been mostly superb. But most others, no.

[Audio Voltage]

Abletons way to randomize almost any parameter with M4L. I think this is still unique in the DAW world.

[cantaloupe]

Loading FX from the keyboard: Key modifier + C for compressor, E for EQ, R for reverb, B for bitcrush etc. In addition to open and closing FX windows on a selected track from the keyboard.

I would not like to go back to browsing menus and lists and clicking around with a mouse to add/open/close FX again.

[EvilDragon]

Time Warp in Cubendo

That's not a Cubendo-only feature, though?