2022 DAW Predictions

[SamDi]

Not a prediction but I'd like to see a DAW from MeldaProduction

If this would be the case, then Melda would kick Reaper from the throne of the most messed up DAW.

[apoclypse]

Cubase 12. Drops eLicenser, introduces machine activation C/R.

Yes, I'm a prophet.

Cubase will also get a remote control API and a major overhaul of how third-party hardware controls plugins and DAW functions.

Reaper will implement a new take comping system and add thousands of smaller features.

Studio One 5.5 will be released in early spring.

On that note I know Apple has been introducing Lua for scripting. I imagine they are going to add more functionality for more hardware controller support. They seriously need it, as cool as the iPad app is, its not something I want use for production. I like pads and hardware.

[apoclypse]

DAW prediction: CLAP supported DAWs and Plugins will start to rapidly appears and steadily gain the attention of everyone--especially Steinberg, to Steinberg's dismay.

That would be sweet... mostly though, I care about Bitwig CLAP support... and of course u-he

If it were to go big, everyone would benefit. I'm hesitant to predict how things will go at this point--LV2 has been an open source standard for years, and it has never caught on outside of the Linux realm. I guess there's a lot to be said about the timing of revolutions, and Steinberg's killing of the VST2SDK and the forcing of the VST3SDK makes the timing (in this case) a bit more interesting.

I think rethinking the name is probably a good idea even if its just CLP or something.

[pdxindy]

DAW prediction: CLAP supported DAWs and Plugins will start to rapidly appears and steadily gain the attention of everyone--especially Steinberg, to Steinberg's dismay.

That would be sweet... mostly though, I care about Bitwig CLAP support... and of course u-he

If it were to go big, everyone would benefit. I'm hesitant to predict how things will go at this point--LV2 has been an open source standard for years, and it has never caught on outside of the Linux realm. I guess there's a lot to be said about the timing of revolutions, and Steinberg's killing of the VST2SDK and the forcing of the VST3SDK makes the timing (in this case) a bit more interesting.

Good timing and also some well respected supporters. And yeah, if it went wide, it would benefit everyone. In the meanwhile, I am confident that sometime, maybe next year, I'll be doing polyphonic per voice Bitwig modulation with RePro!

[JonSolo]

What makes anything catch on is support...overwhelming support. VST is long in the tooth and VST3 seems to have broken as much as it "fixed" (think of the MIDI issues in VST3). But everyone supports it.

I would love to see CLAP catch on if it is as tight as it looks.

[cantaloupe]

If more and more DAWs are turning into subscription only, as seems to be the trend, i think we might see a lot of people checking out other DAWs.

From what i understand, Reaper seems to slowly become a new industry standard in certain audio niches (game audio). The upcoming changes to comping, the general maturity from the last couple years of development, and their very no-bullshit no-subscription attitude might persuade new people to try it out.

After a decade of Ableton dominance (maybe not in numbers, but at least in terms of cultural presence), i think we will see a slight uptick in interest of both linear DAWs like Garageband, Reaper, Pro Tools, and more esoteric DAWs like Bespoke, VCV, livecoding-based setups etc. The clip-based "lofi beats to study to" approach to composition so easily found in Ableton, Bitwig and recently Logic, is reaching its creative expiration date imo!

I would love to see DAWs getting into MTS-ESP and system-wide microtuning

I also think there is a place in the future for more minimalist/non-visual/experimental DAWs. Airwindows (and friends) have been thinking about a less visual 4track tape-like DAW that i would be super excited about.

I'm staying with Reaper, but would generally enjoy seeing less complexity and more opinionated designs in DAWs in the future. Still a lot of exploration to do in the DAW/recording computer space and i'm pretty excited about it all.

[BONES]

It's harder to get excited about simple low CPU synths, but I used the cheaper Waldorf PPG soft synth for years as a compliment to complex synths, you figure out quickly that thinner less "fuzzy" synths cut though a mix.

I get very excited by any synth that sounds good and allows me to get the most from it with the least effort. I bought Viper the same day I bought JP6K but I get way more satisfaction from finding yet another use for JP6K than I do from using Viper. With something like Viper, it's "of course it will do this if I spend long enough with it" whereas with JP6K it's "Holy f**k! Is there anything I can't get out of this in 90 seconds flat!?!" If you asked me what my favourite synths were, the ones I get the greatest pleasure from working with, it would be JP6K, bx_oberhausen, Olga and TRK-01 Bass - the four simplest synths I have.

Plus I'm chauvinistic about it (DP), I think some of it's features are vastly underrated, and it gets ignored so I'm defensive about it.

That's something I definitely understand and DP does look pretty damned good. But they all look pretty damned good so I figure on sticking with the one I've just spent a year or so learning how to get the most from. But DP is definitely where I'd be looking if we ever came across a showstopper with S1. (I couldn't tell you why I don't much like Cubase but I just don't.)

These are hardcore Unix coders, not graphics artists or MS Office jockeys.

Yes, people with no need for performance.

I'm remise to give in to your report though, mostly the only way you can mess up Mac OS is to either be completely computer illiterate or intentionally try to screw it up.

You don't even have to be one of those people, you can just wait for the next OS update and see what Apple have screwed up on your behalf, having decided you didn't need it any more. THAT, right there, is the thing I hate most about macOS, Apple's willingness to deprecate features on a whim. What scares me, though, is that Microsoft have taken a leaf out of Apple's book with Win11, taking out all kinds of things I rely on every day, without providing any alternative. e.g. The Quick Action buttons in Action Centre (along with Action Centre itself, of course). All just gone, like they never existed.

Online people do all these things they learned from Windows 95 or OS 9. I've never once had to reinstall OS X.

Our Macs used to get rebuilt fairly regularly, probably once a year on average, as they were subject to all kinds of weird stuff. It seemed to me mostly related to being on the big corporate network, though, so it's likely if you only have a simple set-up, there are fewer problems. But they'd get to a stage where licenses would stop working and access to network drives would become unreliable and the only way to fix it was a full rebuild.

You will alway hate Macs, so it's pretty much worthless talking to you about it

Actually I think the new MB Pros are pretty good. In a very un-Apple like move, they have restored lots of ports and removed stupid things no-one ever asked for, like they've actually listened to their customers for a change. Unfortunately, now that they have ditched Intel, I won't be able to run Windows on one so they'll never be in my selection set. But they look to be the best Apple laptops in at least a decade and they are far more competitively priced than ever before, too.

[fairlyclose]

Airwindows (and friends) have been thinking about a less visual 4track tape-like DAW that i would be super excited about.

Bremmer's multitrack studio

[cantaloupe]

Bremmer's multitrack studio

thanks for the tip, but seems very similar to DAWs like Reaper, no? or am i missing something. looks cool though.

the rumoured Airwindows DAW idea (if i understood correctly) was more like a tascam portastudio - no waveform, very limited amount of tracks, reduced amount of visual feedback, 'tactile' etc. i think this is something that is sorely missing from desktops.

[machinesworking]

Actually I think the new MB Pros are pretty good. In a very un-Apple like move, they have restored lots of ports and removed stupid things no-one ever asked for, like they've actually listened to their customers for a change. Unfortunately, now that they have ditched Intel, I won't be able to run Windows on one so they'll never be in my selection set. But they look to be the best Apple laptops in at least a decade and they are far more competitively priced than ever before, too.

The reason is pretty simple really, Johnny Ives who designed all their computers for the last 20 years finally stopped working directly for Apple, he only consults now. Probably because Tim Cook doesn't hang on his every design idea like a puppy like Jobs did. The new laptops are actually thicker than the ones before, which I love, because it speaks to engineers having more of a say than Ives and the design team. In terms of the chip, yeah for you it makes them not useful, but for the rest of us, this new chip is fantastic.

AFA complete rebuilds, poppycock, it's entirely possible to fix any issue on OS X without reinstalling the OS, the OS is far more protected than Windows is with the registry, but what happens often, is people learn one way to do something and they apply it across all platforms, i.e. slow access to a drive equals rebuild the OS, which is a registry corruption solution from Windows, not a Mac OS thing at all.

To be fair here, that Windows bug may have a solution, but it's not forthcoming right now. As of a couple months ago, there was absolutely no good solution to that disk full bug, even after days of searching the web and applying all kinds of supposed solutions. IMO it literally seems like a bug that happens at the OS level, all the roomate ever did with her computer was Office, and Zoom meetings, no crazy anything. She used some other Zoom style video conferencing software before that, so who knows? maybe the deep access those software got exposed something, but it's just wild to me that Windows 10 still has these sorts of things happen.

[machinesworking]

You don't even have to be one of those people, you can just wait for the next OS update and see what Apple have screwed up on your behalf, having decided you didn't need it any more. THAT, right there, is the thing I hate most about macOS, Apple's willingness to deprecate features on a whim. What scares me, though, is that Microsoft have taken a leaf out of Apple's book with Win11, taking out all kinds of things I rely on every day, without providing any alternative. e.g. The Quick Action buttons in Action Centre (along with Action Centre itself, of course). All just gone, like they never existed.

Yeah they did that with 7 too though didn't they? They had this whole "touch" interface that came and went etc.

The only one that bothered me with Mac OS was widgets, they're gone now replaced with the Notification Center, which finally has a "never" setting for notifications. Don't particularly care for the notification center, reminds me of the Windows Startup menu, which no Windows power user I've ever known uses.

[fairlyclose]

Bremmer's multitrack studio

thanks for the tip, but seems very similar to DAWs like Reaper, no? or am i missing something. looks cool though.

the rumoured Airwindows DAW idea (if i understood correctly) was more like a tascam portastudio - no waveform, very limited amount of tracks, reduced amount of visual feedback, 'tactile' etc. i think this is something that is sorely missing from desktops.

Bremmers can be very minimal, or at least it used to. There have been a few simple wav recorders, certainly in the early days. I suppose what you are talking of is similat to the distraction free writing programs.

[cantaloupe]

Bremmers can be very minimal, or at least it used to. There have been a few simple wav recorders, certainly in the early days. I suppose what you are talking of is similat to the distraction free writing programs.

Ah, i'll check it out then.

Yeah, distraction free writing program is a pretty good analogy!
Full DAWs require a huge amount of cognitive overhead to operate, which can often distract from attentive listening and creativity, and i think more simple/non-visual/minimalist tools have their place.

More tactile, and less data entry office worker.

[apoclypse]

Our Macs used to get rebuilt fairly regularly, probably once a year on average, as they were subject to all kinds of weird stuff. It seemed to me mostly related to being on the big corporate network, though, so it's likely if you only have a simple set-up, there are fewer problems. But they'd get to a stage where licenses would stop working and access to network drives would become unreliable and the only way to fix it was a full rebuild.

You will alway hate Macs, so it's pretty much worthless talking to you about it

Actually I think the new MB Pros are pretty good. In a very un-Apple like move, they have restored lots of ports and removed stupid things no-one ever asked for, like they've actually listened to their customers for a change. Unfortunately, now that they have ditched Intel, I won't be able to run Windows on one so they'll never be in my selection set. But they look to be the best Apple laptops in at least a decade and they are far more competitively priced than ever before, too.

In all my years dealing with Macs at a corporate or enterprise level I can confidently say that I've never run onto an issue where I had to rebuild macOS every year for anyone. And I mostly deal with developers and marketing folks who install more crap on their machines than your average DAW dweller. The times I've had to re-image a borked Windows install is another matter.

The most I can say is that I've had a few messed up upgrade attempts to the latest OS, a quick visit to recovery mode and reinstalling the OS there gets you back to working in an hour or so. Unlike Windows reinstalling macOS doesn't touch any of your files, applications, settings etc. It's as hassle free as can be imo. Kick it off, wait an hour, come back, log in a usual. Done.

Windows on ARM is a possibility to run on the new Macs at some point, but it's rumored that they have some kind of exclusivity deal with Qualcomm or something.

[pdxindy]

Bremmer's multitrack studio

thanks for the tip, but seems very similar to DAWs like Reaper, no? or am i missing something. looks cool though.

the rumoured Airwindows DAW idea (if i understood correctly) was more like a tascam portastudio - no waveform, very limited amount of tracks, reduced amount of visual feedback, 'tactile' etc. i think this is something that is sorely missing from desktops.

For something that basic and without visual feedback, I would rather buy a hardware solution. If you are not going to have the benefits of the computer, no point to have the drawbacks.