Old DAWs - nostalgia thread

[sQeetz]

Software nowadays runs through a ton of abstraction layers. The real question is: if bare to the metal, how much efficient would software instruments/effects be?
I remember gol from Image-Line, for example, saying he coded lots of stuff in assembler for stuff to get faster.

[eLawnMust]

Instead of carrying a quote just a few points from comments back a few-

For me I don't think it's an amazing time for DAWs... Simply because of the sheer size & complexity with many features you might only use once in a blue moon. It would be different if I actually found desktop dabblers to be making better music in it but for the majority it is not the case. I hear alot of high-quality sounding krud as learning actual music or developing an ear seems to have gone bye-bye. Steeped in a quagmire of FX & more FX many 'tunes' sounding like one long sound FX or foley with the dabbler hitting as few notes as possible...

Yes, there are exceptions but getting harder to find...

I listen to alot of old tracker modules done @ 1995-2005 period & am amazed at the musical ideas & creative output done on grim machines of the day. Seemed like nothing stopped them in an era of poor samples & machines that would barely even start up...

Nowadays also everything gotta be made 'pretty' so graphics play a big part when it is actually useless & adds nothing to the sound & may actually cause instability or crashing depending on machine. Zynewave Podium actually has option for bypassing graphical GUIs & just using native built-in for potential plugin problems. You would not believe how small the actual DSP is if you take away all the graphic crap...

Currently working on a tune in AXS Tracker which is only a 352 KB EXE & with the other necessary files still under 400 KB AND has nice sounding internal synth & attractive retro GUI...Works on XP (what I use mostly) but also works on windows 10 (I only got one of those machines). however there is almost no DAW that will work on XP anymore let alone windows 98 with grim specs. Yet just try finding a coder that can produce something like AXS in the same size nowadays they will tell you it's impossible...

So as it may be of some opinion that modern DAWs are 'heaven' I think it's upped the bar by using 'impossible' old sequencers which NOW can sound a helluva lot better using modern samples & post process. You see I can render out every single track in AXS by manipulating the smart patterns to just render a single track at a time...THEN bring those into more modern multi-tracker then make it into modern continuous sound FX like so many like these days...

So I give you this equation Synthman2000 talked about going from 512 KB to 1 MB RAM he thought he was the man. So he was makin' tunes with 1 MB RAM back then.... Say your machine TODAY needs 8,000 MB RAM (plus faster speed, graphics, etc) to get through a tune... Is the quality 8,000 times better? Hell no...Maybe 2-3-4 times as good...

Anybody doubt the musical quality of old I'd be happy to upload a package to blow your mind....

[osiris]

Man, I remember the first computer I had was a Compaq and it had 10 whole megabytes of storage. (about enough for 2 mp3s)

[legendCNCD]

I listen to alot of old tracker modules done @ 1995-2005 period & am amazed at the musical ideas & creative output done on grim machines of the day. Seemed like nothing stopped them in an era of poor samples & machines that would barely even start up...

Anybody doubt the musical quality of old I'd be happy to upload a package to blow your mind....

Yeah... back then in the 80's I just loaded samples, put them up into the "excel sheets" and played it with some external effects. Thats it.

Nowadays its a lot of faffing about with stuff, ok the sound quality is much better and tools but still. The same remains, put up notes and samples into the grid.

https://modtu.be/ is an excellent web player which accesses modftp's. https://modtu.be/?m=358603 - this was made during one night back in '95 with X3 and Amiga

[eLawnMust]

HaHAHhh 10 megabytes of storage!...Wasn't even cheap storage either back then. Yeah!...Well I use old stuff but combined with newer utilities & better samples mostly use a ton of VSTi to make quality samples for trackers. The key is to just go back JUST FAR ENOUGH & not any farther...Hell Cubase VST 5.1 sound just fine, Cakewalk Project5 sound just fine, Skale Tracker sound just fine...

What the real amazement of old is the old 64 KB Farbrausch Intros so much packed into small space nothing really equates nowadays...nothing compares to those at all...

[spliffy_mcweed]

...

Post of the year thus far...

I'll add to that, regarding the times we are living in... All mature DAWs are subject to becoming a bloated mess when the business model is selling upgrades, unless being run by a highly disciplined great man of vision who can ignore the feature squirrels (which is basically none of the major ones). The UIs are getting so dense now that every pixel does something different when you click on it.

You would think that this would leave the market wide open to an innovative upstart with a streamlined experience. But the market has soundly rejected everything that wasn't a Cubase clone with an added gimmick or 2. Most DAWs fail in the early stages because half of the users are waiting for somebody else to try it and tell them they should use it too, and the other half are ridiculing it into oblivion for not being the bloated DAW they already own.

Back in the day, the hardware limited the software. Developers had no choice but to come up with a streamlined and efficient concept. None of those concepts would last 5 minutes in the current market, they would be shamed for existing.

[sQeetz]

You would think that this would leave the market wide open to an innovative upstart with a streamlined experience.

Bitwig does.

[spliffy_mcweed]

Bitwig does.

Bitwig is fine software, sure. But it's in the Ableton branch of the Cubase clone lineage. And it's pretty feature dense at this point, and it's only going to get worse. It's not, and it never was, a highly streamlined and efficient 1980s/90s kind of music software, it was always an attempt to compete head on, feature for feature, with the well entrenched incumbents.

[jonljacobi]

I don't find Bitwig or its workflow particularly streamlined. It's clever in spots, and frustrating (to me) in others. I don't think you can create a DAW that handles everything everyone wants it to handle and keep it completely streamlined by default. About the best you can do is find one with the features you use the most placed in the forefront.

I think more granular configuration is the only viable answer at this point. Indeed, DAWs like S1 and DP have started to add more of that. DAWS like Logic and Reaper are already very configurable. Takes time, but to a great degree you can move stuff you don't need to the background or out of the picture.

Anyone remember when Cubase let you configure menus??

Personally, I don't see Live or Bitwig as clones of Cubase, unless you want to consider anything with tracks and clips a clone. If anything, Live took inspiration from RealTime. As to that; Cubase borrowed heavily from several other DAWS (sequencers, actually) in its Atari days. Everyone stole from each other. I was at several Atari conferences in the SF bay area, drinking with the original devs. There was much discussion, though the C-Lab and Steinberg guys tended to be more closely guarded and aware of the financial aspects.

Actually, it wasn't considered stealing or cloning--just making use of good ideas that existed or were popping up. And the software everyone argues about is all just riffs on the physical means of recording and creating tones anyway. Multi-track tape decks, splicing, bouncing, synthesizers, tape echo, notation, guitars, amps, etc. Not to mention sampling keyboards where the term DAW originated.

[eLawnMust]

...
BTW...Renoise in recent years had this terrible piano roll addon thing being played with after fighting having one for decades as Tak Tik hates them (Mueller) but it was slated to be a new feature 20 years ago-

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

[eLawnMust]

Yeah, Checking into Making Waves it's still here-

http://www.makingwavessoftware.com/

Features look quite good, 90% sure of buying this even if the workflow 'don't fit me'...Major respect for a currently for sale DAW (yes, it is a DAW it can record audio & has editor)-

Check it-


That's heart warming...No windows 8 or 10 compat though but who cares I use mostly XP but looks good to windows 7...

Looks like it got most anything I need without any garbage-





Apparently this guy made album in Making Waves-

https://soundcloud.com/team-slinky/24-g ... rough-this

[BONES]

That's every bit (pun intended) as bad the artwork would lead to believe it is going to be. i.e. Absolutely bloody awful. Again, the mix is kinda strange, and not in a good way. Drums need to come down and vox need to go up, not to make them more legible but to give the song the right balance.

For me I don't think it's an amazing time for DAWs... Simply because of the sheer size & complexity with many features you might only use once in a blue moon.

Most DAWs have multiple versions so if the top-tier product is too complex for you, do what I do and use one of the lesser versions. I find Studio One Artist more than adequate for my needs and it's a lot cheaper than the full Pro version.

It would be different if I actually found desktop dabblers to be making better music in it but for the majority it is not the case. I hear alot of high-quality sounding krud as learning actual music or developing an ear seems to have gone bye-bye.

Everyone has to start somewhere. Where you and I spent our time developing our ear all alone in our room/studio or on tiny stages in front of equally tiny audiences, today people get to develop in a more accessible, public environment. I don't see how that is any less valid, just different, and they seem to develop a lot faster than I did.

Steeped in a quagmire of FX & more FX many 'tunes' sounding like one long sound FX or foley with the dabbler hitting as few notes as possible...

I remember bands like that from the early 80s, too. Bands like Wildlife Documentaries, The Makers of the Dead Travel Fast, SPK and Scattered Order. It ended up being called Industrial music.

I listen to alot of old tracker modules done @ 1995-2005 period & am amazed at the musical ideas & creative output done on grim machines of the day. Seemed like nothing stopped them in an era of poor samples & machines that would barely even start up...

To each his own but I found that stuff awful. For me the sweet spot lies somewhere between those two extremes.

Currently working on a tune in AXS Tracker which is only a 352 KB EXE & with the other necessary files still under 400 KB AND has nice sounding internal synth & attractive retro GUI...Works on XP (what I use mostly) but also works on windows 10 (I only got one of those machines). however there is almost no DAW that will work on XP anymore let alone windows 98 with grim specs.

Yep. You can't buy any cars that run on steam these days, either, both for good reason. Imagine what you could do if you took your Tracker ethos and applied it to modern technology? I still mostly work like I did when I was using my hardware workstations or in a 16 track studio. I've been working with DAs for more than 20 years now and it hasn't corrupted my process at all, it's just made everything much, much less hassle. In fact, what it has done lately is allow me to streamline/refine my process even further - using less tracks and virtually no effects. I can do that now because the quality of the tools at my disposal today is so high that they require a lot less effort to get the best sound from. I hardly ever need any EQ and I probably only use effects on one track in 4 or 5. That's about the level I was working at in the mid-80s but the results are the best I have been able to manage.

Yet just try finding a coder that can produce something like AXS in the same size nowadays they will tell you it's impossible...

And they'll be right because 64 bit code always seems to end up being much bigger. But the thing is, that used to matter, today it doesn't. When you had to use floppies as the storage medium for software, keeping things trim mattered but the smallest USB drives you can get these days are 16GB and you can download the full version of Cubase in less time than it would have taken you to download AXS over dial-up, so why would coders obsess over the size of their executables? Isn't it better that they concentrate on more important aspects of their work, like better sound quality?

So he was makin' tunes with 1 MB RAM back then....

And I Was making tunes in 1985 with 256kB of RAM. I eventually upgraded to 512kB but that cost more than $300, which was the best part of a week's wages.

Say your machine TODAY needs 8,000 MB RAM (plus faster speed, graphics, etc) to get through a tune... Is the quality 8,000 times better?

Yes, definitely. In fact, I'd say it is immeasurably better but, more importantly to me, I can do it without having to spend a fortune on studio time to get it all done. My first album cost me $5000 to record and release, on top of the thousands of dollars worth of gear I had at the time. The next one will cost me exactly nothing, on top of the hundreds of dollars worth of software I'm using on it.

Anybody doubt the musical quality of old I'd be happy to upload a package to blow your mind....

Feel free, I'd be interested in hearing some.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3n3c_8Nn2Y

Yeah, just as I thought, awful stuff. Truly awful and it just goes on forever. Boring as batshit and it sounds terrible - those kicks are a joke.

All mature DAWs are subject to becoming a bloated mess when the business model is selling upgrades

Again, only if you choose to use the full version. No-one would call the free version of Cubase "bloated" so if bloat worries you, why not use th4e free version?

You would think that this would leave the market wide open to an innovative upstart with a streamlined experience.

Bitwig does.

Not really. It's more of a Live clone and is even more convoluted/complex than Cubase as a result. I did not enjoy my Bitwig experience one bit and the way it had progressed since I owned it, I think I'd like it even less now. You can prefer it all you like but you can't say it offers a "streamlined experience" because it absolutely does not.

running out of space even with 3-foot monitors & thousands of pixels resolution.

Absolute f**king bullshit. I manage just fine on a 13" HD res screen that's a lot easier to work with than that blue monstrosity in your videos, guaranteed. I'm not seeing anything in the GUI that I don't want/need to see and nothing is more than a hotkey or a mouse click away.

But there are some DAWs-Sequencers that are rather still tight but few know of them. I call them Forage DAWs because like foraging which is free thus not advertised but better for you then the garbage produce you buy at the store that IS advertised.

Like- Zynewave Podium
- Bremmer's MultiTrack Studio
- MuTools MuLab
- LMMS (Free)

All garbage. I wouldn't use them if they were free.

Also Making Waves is still for sale & it appears to have the lowest system requires of ANYTHING else out there. In this regard you thusly need no 'track bouncing'...

I've never had to bounce or freeze a track in my life and I'm on a lowly Core i5 laptop. IT seems to me that you just don't know how to work with modern tools and are unwilling to take the time to learn and grow. You're stuck in a timewarp.

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

f**k, that's even worse than the other shit. that hi-hat has so much noise in it and the mix is pretty bad, too. The snare is way too loud and has absolutely no life in it at all. It sounds like the best I could manage in 1991, something I'd be embarrassed to play to anyone today.

[eLawnMust]

You could've just said "I don't like you & disagree with everything you say now & forever"...Rather than a baseless point-by-point based on bolstered inexperience hanging out on a forum constantly everyday every hour... it's rather toxic you think you are getting to me? Nobody on the internet can cause me discomfort because of 'words' just another case why the internet sucks because you cannot physically confront those....

[CinningBao]

..<typical BONES-style rant about how amazing his skills and ears are, plus a bunch of insults spread across the globe and time>

I'm so glad I don't interact with you; you really present yourself as an unpleasant individual. I sure hope you get the love you need from someone

[Tj Shredder]

Personally, I don't see Live or Bitwig as clones of Cubase

They and Logic are clearly clones of StudioVision… No doubt about it…