Disadvantages of DAWs in comparison to others

[ghettosynth]

Only Magix Music Studio has the "concert guitar."

https://www.magix.com/fileadmin/user_up ... ma-int.mp4

[Reticular]

Hey,

One day i just installed FL 11, it was very intuitive for me to start, just scan for a added VST, test the stuff and try to put some chords up. It woud knock, old effects i had enabled made everything punchier, so it was all good, was not thinking about trying out anything else.

But a year or so later when i tried to mix stuff out, i would get tired drawing automation, i saw that everything kinda points me in the same direction production vise and i would get tired and i really can do long hours as a ACAD user, no problem, but man, it would just burn me out, putting small samples and playing with them would not get the desired results, it is like template has already been made for certain kind of music and if you want to do anything else you get burned.

Went to a Reaper, got scared of all of that options in preferences, tried just setting up interface and get some music out. I could not get further than one midi track, it would feel like work, all my will and love for testing sound and music just washed away, a step or two longer to get any instrument to play was not an option and it still is not. In FL11 there is a icon of the synth i want or EQ i need on the left in a browser, i would just transfer it to a mixer when i feel i need, one step game.

But still, i can do the main part, but i got to the point where i would export stems and try to do some mixing in Reaper and i kinda works, but still i could not do it mentally. I tried different themes, 0. Still like how you can modify the gui and stock effects.

For some reason looking at old Cubase 5/6 got me excited, just looking at it, it felt like i knew the mind of a chief designer. I am not saying that is a good thing, but we are wired differently and that is pretty much it, i dont care about CPU, i´ll use less stuff just to knock music out. So i got myself a Cubase 5 right now to try it out.

I tried Ableton 10, Cakewalk and Reason Lite, i figured out that Reason would be good for production with those racks, normaly i knew also i needed a second monitor, so i got it. Still in tryouts faze tho.

Ableton got me confused, i was getting lost not knowing what am i doing, and it is all i can explain, the way my eyes are looking for stuff on screen just was not easy for me, but still i am downloading it as of right now, thankfully i had account on Focusrite where i can get the Pro Tools to try too.

now the punch line

In late hours i would open VST Host, throw some synths and drum machine, put Voxengo recorder on it and jam. It would visually feel like i have stuff on my work desk and dealing with hardware in realtime. And i would do it sometimes and get bummed about limitations, and try to figure out solution for a midi, mixer and such.

I also have done some track live in FL, standing up, pulling knobs with a mouse with a recorder on a master bus and it felt good. So i know i am a kinda live performer type brain and that is the direction where i am heading right now.

I always like old GUI like Windows 98, old boring themes, less stuff for me is better for my productivity, i if i can put some stuff out just playing with some plugins i´ll rather do that. I also mix as i go, export stuff and potentially get back to it when i find a better suited processing for a master channel which i found just last month.

I dont want to hate nobody for doing these programs and plugins, i think those guys are great and potentially we all are wired in a different way thru games we played as a kids or our toys and such. I started with a Nitendo, than old C64 gui, i never wanted a great desktop background to admire, or a beautifull stuff, i needed stuff to work so i can do as much as i can, to pull things apart and move on to the next thing. I´ll rather watch the sunset and birds, grass and flowers outside than have anything beautifull to watch on a peace of electronics, i dont admire eye candy stuff, even my mobile screens are in monocrome, i had a monocrome desktop for some time, it messed with my latency for some reason.

This is just me, not a opinion but a rewiev of how i felt trying to get some music out this last year and a half. I did not knew what a VST was before that.

I am more bummed about 4000€ price tag fo a Jupiter 4 and double that for Neve Preamps..

sorry fot the sausage post

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

Bitwig did the same trip, but didn't have an obtuse prick arguing it in fora.

Somewhere my memory rumble. There were some incidences where people would complain about the time signature issue, and then an IM fighter would argue why it is a redundant feature or something, right?

[jancivil]

this is after they finally implemented it. I get why someone would get sick of seeing it, but it's one of those things we argue about because it's there.
But the thing that stuck with me was this argument that since the only point of a time signature is visual organization (bad premise) these other methods of placing markers on clips or whatever were already quite sufficient. Insinuating the need for coherent time signatures is pretentious or precious.

- but what that says to me is someone cannot even be bothered to try and imagine <person has an idea that isn't in 4/4> and wants to deal with it on straight terms. The ignorance of the whole musical world here is

Like a hegemony from doltishness. This was their representative for KVR, not just the peanut gallery.

[mdstudio]

I don't like Studio One's MIDI editor. It can't remember the last note length, the selection tool snaps to grid unless you manually disable snap to grid every time you use it and re-enable it when entering notes.

I use REAPER now, and it's pretty much the perfect DAW for me with all the customization options and variety of available actions that you can put on a toolbar or map to a keyboard shortcut. The only thing that I would like to be able to disable is that when you click on the keyboard in the MIDI editor, it infers the velocity based on where you click on the actual key (all the way to the left = 0, all the way to the right = 127), and remembers that velocity for newly entered notes. I often end up entering notes with the velocity of 127 accidentally.

Both of these are for midi editing via a mouse, if you record yourself playing a keyboard, it doesn't matter as much, although like I said in REAPER I can do cool stuff like this: https://www.kawa.works/reascript-midi-section/

[ghettosynth]

I use REAPER now, and it's pretty much the perfect DAW

That pretty much sums it up right there.

[AdvancedFollower]

I don't like Studio One's MIDI editor. It can't remember the last note length

I remember when in FL always getting annoyed at the note lengths randomly changing because I painted in *one* note of a different length for variation. "Oh, I see you painted in one single 1/4 note, I guess this 16th note arpeggio is quarter notes from now on!". Studio one is predictable because I always know it will paint whatever note length I have selected (unless I click and drag while painting for longer notes).

[machinesworking]

I think DP's relationship with VSL, who do consider it important has meant a different implementation than what I saw in late 2009. It kind of seems like there wasn't always the MAS plugin so it was some workaround to get the multiple ports. Growing pains.

Yeah you're correct, the MAS plug in was eventually produced because the AU version of VEP has or had limitations, 16 channels per instance. That and Vienna saw fit to, probably because MAS proves to be really powerful in this situation anyway.

I don't use the expression maps, I'm not bothered really by keyswitches as I'm not converting to scores. My keyswitch notes look a certain way and out-of-the-way enough usually. VSL has developed a whole system with Studio One for it that's probably cuter than Cubase's.

I just really appreciate them, not because of scoring issues with keyswitches but for finalizing which keyswitch to use on what part, just easier than dragging a keyswitch note around. I feel like I'm shooting in the dark when I do this. It hasn't made me switch back to Logic yet, but we'll see. DP is due for a major upgrade soon, they keep hinting it's on the horizon, but that's been going on for months now. Probably because of Apple Silicon..

I wasn't interested at all in Bitwig until the time signature thing had been fixed. It's killed my interest in two different drum solutions though: Maschine and the MPC Live. Maschine to this day still only offers a single time signature in it's sequencer, and the MPC Live stand alone has a wonky workaround for it. It blows me away that drum based sequencers would just skip this, it's a sad indication of where music is these days that developers would do this and still make money off their products.

[machinesworking]

I use REAPER now, and it's pretty much the perfect DAW

That pretty much sums it up right there.

Just to jab at you a bit, comping sucks ass in Reaper. It's the main reason I eventually decided it would just be a collaboration DAW for my cheaper musical partners, not my main squeeze.

The sad part is the Reaper community is so stupidly loyal to Reaper that they trash any suggestions on how to fix it presented on their boards. Pushing it into Justins back burner and retaining it's crippling mediocracy.

[jancivil]

I had a beef agasint Maschine from the start because they murdered Kore for it. Later it seemed much more interesting, but no way am I putting one cent into something stuck on 4/4.

[jancivil]

"it's pretty much the perfect DAW"
"That pretty much sums it up right there."

[jancivil]

"it infers the velocity based on where you click on the actual key (all the way to the left = 0, all the way to the right = 127)"
I do hope you mean by the visual angle we're looking at it rather than the width of the key

Nifty feature, but it still sucks donkey dick for beer money
pretty much sums it up. right there

[jancivil]

I don't know why the back of the key is 0 but one supposes we can be conditioned to think that way. I'm conditioned by it being the opposite in everything I've noticed doing it.

[machinesworking]

I had a beef agasint Maschine from the start because they murdered Kore for it. Later it seemed much more interesting, but no way am I putting one cent into something stuck on 4/4.

I hear you, Kore was a good idea, and Maschine is so so. I bought it not knowing it only did 4/4 unless slaved to a DAW as a VSTi, which presents it's own issues as far as it getting confused when the switch in time signatures happens. It's these types of things that make a thread like this valuable, but you have to wade through a lot of BS to find out details about a DAW if you were to try to use it as a source before buying etc.
I've owned Komplete since v2 but I still have mixed feelings about them, never buying hardware from them again, that's for sure.

[telecharge]

In reference to the OP, there isn't any DAW that I would NOT recommend, but they all have their idiosyncrasies and shortcomings. As I said in another thread, it all boils down to the features and workflow that are most appealing to you.

Probably the most frustrating for me has been routing MIDI internally in FL Studio with the wrappers, patchers, and whatnot. Also, the window management is like a hidden object game -- particularly if you use the "Captionize" feature.