Old DAWs - nostalgia thread

[eLawnMust]

Present day VAZ Modular aside the old VAZ Modular 2.0 from 1998 was a groovebox only but a pretty nice one with it's stack racks, mixer (which could load DX FX but a bit picky) and very capable sequencer you could easily do whole tunes in it-

[eLawnMust]

I think AudioMulch had been mentioned but not this old one from 1998 (0.7b5) which was where AudioMulch was at when VAZ Modular was in force-

[eLawnMust]

EvoBeats Sequential Vibes 1.02 was a commercial tracker out in 2003 that could use VSTi and for FX VST, DXI, DMO making it quite versatile as well as having a capable unique sampler unit that was multi-sample capable. For automation pattern commands were available for the internal sampler whilst plugins of any kind had the 'record your knob twists' assignable but a limited amount.

The sampler had no editor but allowed to choose TWO external editors to open sesame. The German developers made the keyboard system their QWERTZ which weirds peeps out over here but using a MIDI keyboard or onscreen version rectified this. Probably the simplest & easiest tracker ever made for plugins to actually learn & use.

[osiris]

Loved Vaz Modular. I remember it morphing into Vaz 2000, which was a cutdown version & not as fun.

[donquixote]

any demo for that vaz modular v2.0 available anywhere?
thanks

[eLawnMust]

SQ4 II - The Musical Scratchpad & Inspirational Tool... Well maybe for some it looks rather involved to me, the old 'Fruity Keyboard' obviously borrowed for the 'Inspire Panel'-

[eLawnMust]

SVArSoft SVArTracker 1.22 from like 2008 the only 'freeware' version given out next version on was once again commercial...Had some heavy features like the FX Processor & Function Variator plus a real nice internal sampler that could be set to either hold samples in RAM or stream from disc & many other, Renoise don't even have that feature..

You can use VST-VSTi or DX DMO plugs seems pretty stable with most. The BIG issue I had with it was it's crashing when trying to change audio drivers OR the buffer size, crashes EVERYTIME!...Otherwise I woulda done a tune in it long ago-

Can be had here (Win32)-

https://web.archive.org/web/20160818081 ... e_inst.exe

[osiris]

I think maybe the Fairlight Sequencer was the germ of the idea of a DAW. Is this correct?

[eLawnMust]

Not sure of that but sure we are all stretching the definition of a DAW as most are sequencers rather than DAWs. Looks like I am the worst offender here for that but probably nobody really cares.

Here is LUNA 8.4 PreRelease which was right before MuLab 1.0. I like how in LUNA the selected rack 'expands' in MuLab this feature went away-

[NikkiA]

I think maybe the Fairlight Sequencer was the germ of the idea of a DAW. Is this correct?

Nope, the original sequencer/DAW was probably the PDP-1

[machinesworking]

Nope, the original sequencer/DAW was probably the PDP-1

IMO you can directly differentiate here, the PDPO-1 is near the first "sequencer", but the Fairlight could sample, and record on later models, so sequencing and audio = DAW.

If you want to get down to it the player piano is the first sequencer, since you could "write" your own compositions.

[osiris]

I think music boxes maybe the actual first. Ten year difference there. I guess maybe the same principle.

[eLawnMust]

The more input here the better cause I don't know nuthin'.

Here's the Late Arguru's FastFuck3r 1.5 Tracker that could utilize VST-VSTi-

[eLawnMust]

Here is the Late Arguru's Aodix 4.2 which was the last that was produced & was made free AD. This was certainly the most fluid of all the combo Tracker - Piano Rollers with ingenious VERTICAL piano roll that closely followed the outlay of the tracker notes in a 'tickless' environment that allowed sliding notes around even underneath each other in the vertical piano roll.
This allowed for more organic humanized sounds especially for chords without having to mess with pattern FX commands for 'offset' or the like. Aodix had no sampler & was VST-VSTi only as well as ASIO only. There are NO pattern blocks, you can make a song one entire pattern if you want but repeats can be applied via pattern calls commands.




Here is a test intro I did years ago. All notes entered via QWERTY then I played back & recorded pitch bends for the Bass Harmonics using a...wait for it...JOYSTICK!-

https://soundcloud.com/waxing-and-wanin ... mood-intro

[eLawnMust]

Here we have NoiseTrekker 3.2.2 which was sprung by the use of Arguru's OPEN SOURCED Noisetrekker 2. Which was a generous gesture like most ALL of Arguru's gestures were. Without that gift there would've been no renoise as that is what became of noisetrekker-




They did a nice job with it & you can make great stuff in it even today with a sample-based workflow & internal FX it also had drawable automation curves & much more.

Grab a copy from a COPY of the original website on the wayback-

https://web.archive.org/web/20020125161 ... 3.f2s.com/

Also check out Phazze's & TakTik's interview in the early days when discussing NoiseTrekker2 to 3 to Renoise-

https://web.archive.org/web/20020803155 ... php?id_p=3

Also NOTE that in the early days a PIANO ROLL was planned but TakTik hated them so must've won out. Would've been a smart move to have one in way back then. If done like Aodix it could only have been an asset.

https://web.archive.org/web/20030207123 ... om/wip.htm

YUP!...20 years ago a piano roll was on the table...LOL!

Moving ahead 5 years we had Renoise 1.9.0, much improvements & features added also seems like the best music was made around this time in Renoise. Nowadays Renoise is way too complex & I hear ever increasing garbage being made in it. IMHO I think probably around version 2.5 was a peak for Renoise, too busy after that.




Here's a tune I did in 'old' Renoise years ago never really finished it but just made a fade-out DONE!...NO DRUMS!, Only pot-pan percussion & other-

https://soundcloud.com/waxing-and-waning/soylent-greed