Why are DAWs so lacking in note context-menu editing ?

[Frantz]

Personally I wouldn't find this feature that helpful. When choosing a chord, I consider the key the song is in, the chord before it, whether I want to use an inversion, and the melody (if I have one) that goes along with it. Just adding a right click menu into a DAW with dozens of choices that does not consider the musical context is not going to give optimal results.

Normally composition assistance tools like arranger keyboards require you to choose the chord as the starting point and then it reharmonizes its patterns to fit the chord you chose. In other words, these tools as a bare minimum require you to figure out the chords yourself.

[pough]

What does "Minor Dominant Ninth" even mean?

I'm no musicagymbalist, so I consulted with expert Wikipedia and it says for a root of C you would play C E G Bb Db.

According to the TSC programmer, you would play C Eb G Bb D.

It sounds really cool, whatever it is. I'm pretty sure it's one of the chords in that Slickback song, which it turns out is a sample from a song called Gypsy Woman.

[pough]

@koalaboy it looks like the consensus option is, as usual, want something different.

[koalaboy]

@koalaboy it looks like the consensus option is, as usual, want something different.

Yup. I get that a lot, with a lot of software. I'm both a software engineer, and also a user who often doesn't get on with the decisions made by software companies.. I don't know if the two are related, or if my 'brain' is the reason for both.

Maybe one day, I'll write a DAW just for myself. Like all the other software I want to change. But I'll need to want it enough to spend so long doing it, which means likely not doing all the other things I want to do.

I have settled, at the moment, for using Live's step-recording (Probably others are similar). I like that I can try various chords (groups of notes) until they sound 'right' and then hit a key whilst holding them, and there's my chord entered. I could use scaler, and other tools, and they're all great, but none of them quite settle into a workflow for me yet...

Maybe chords on the note menu wouldn't either. My main rant is that DAWs don't let you customise things like that, in general (Cubase logical editor is terrible UX). Reaper is maybe the closest, but it needs so much 'configuration' out of the box, that it never gets there for me.

If I could add something like LUA-scripts to context menus at every level - that would be the sort of DAW I want. It's like in Bitwig, where there is the grid, but I can only play with the modules they provide. I want something like Voltage-Modular built in, where I can create or find modules by others.

I want a completely modular DAW. Not a modular rack - I have VCV rack, but I also want the higher-level views. Reason is cool, but only somewhat modular in the rack, and again you can't add modules unless you're a developer.

So many are close. Give me Studio One, with a fully modular approach to the various sections, and Bitwigs ideas around modulation. We're getting a bit closer each iteration, but still far from it, probably because it works as-is for most people.

[pdxindy]

I have settled, at the moment, for using Live's step-recording (Probably others are similar).

Midi Step Recording is my favorite approach. That works better for me than any of the more 'automated' tools. It's fast and flexible, including setting individual note lengths. Plus it records the velocity of played notes.

That's the feature I miss most from Live using Bitwig.

[muzicxs]

Reaper is maybe the closest, but it needs so much 'configuration' out of the box, that it never gets there for me.

You can't have you cake and eat it too. At one stage you need to put in the work. Reaper is extremely customizable, so it could be a good option to focus your efforts on.

Still, I don't think there's much value in selecting a note and then generating a chord based on that. There's a reason why pro musicians use chords. How would it know what to generate from just a C note? Cm? C major? D/C? E+? F7? They all have a C note in there. In the end it's about the chord progression. Focusing on a single note is like focussing on a single brick in a neighborhood full of houses. Probably not the level of detail you want to look at when you want to create an arrangement.

Personally, I would focus your efforts on a bit of music theory. There's so much more you can do with music theory than any DAW customization will ever be able to. Most DAWs already have chord tracks, so you could put your learnings straight into practice.

[koalaboy]

You can't have you cake and eat it too. At one stage you need to put in the work. Reaper is extremely customizable, so it could be a good option to focus your efforts on.

It's possible to have a good UI/UX base to build on. Reaper is MVP and not ideal to start from.

Personally, I would focus your efforts on a bit of music theory. There's so much more you can do with music theory than any DAW customization will ever be able to. Most DAWs already have chord tracks, so you could put your learnings straight into practice.

I can read/write music, and do non-DAW work. It was just some flexibility I would like.
Chord tracks also aren't what I'm looking for, but I use them for other things.

The new MIDI tools in Live 12 may well help towards my workflow.

This isn't about knowledge - it's about workflow, and they are often unrelated and vary by person.

[muzicxs]

This isn't about knowledge - it's about workflow, and they are often unrelated and vary by person.

You are right, and it's also not something I claimed to be related. I don't understand why you'd like to work from a single note if you already know about chords, though. But whatever works for you. The MIDI tools in Ableton 12 could be a great option for you. Good luck!

[Dionysos]

What I will agree with is that it makes sense for a DAW to "understand" the data that it holds, i.e. is able to infer the scale, chords, song structure, etc and should be able to display that information if needed, e.g. for learning purposes.

And in the age of AI it should probably be able to work with that information in a meaningful way, e.g. by suggesting interesting ways to mix things up or add to what's there, or simply edit chords or melodies in ways that aren't possible by an editor that doesn't "understand" the data it's displaying.

[koalaboy]

Computers exist to help humans, to ideally make their lives better. Whether that's 'more productive' or simple more enjoyable, this is the purpose. The more that they can do to help people flourish, the better.

I understand the occasional elitism of "You should be able to do that yourself", especially on any focused/specialty forum, but thinking that way is isolationist and not productive to humanity (something that is about to be magnified many times over with AI).

We should always strive to have computers empower everyone to achieve anything. Obviously we're nowhere near that, but deeming capabilities as 'not necessary' because some people don't need it, is the definition of ableism and whilst not really the point of this thread, a very real problem that needs more attention. Diversity and Inclusion exists for much more than compliance and 'wokeness'... It exists to help bring equality wherever possible, and that is where technology often helps with assistive technologies.

If I could sing in a line and a harmony line, and have the DAW generate chords (I sort of can through many plugins already) and then ask it to change some of them, with variations until I'm happy, it's still all my own creativity, but with an assistant helping out to remove the 'boilerplate' actions that aren't a part of that. This is the science 'fiction' we were promised, and where many of us have been working with computers towards. We're getting closer each day, and it's a wonderful time.

[jonljacobi]

What a load of hooey. Being able to do it yourself is not "elitism". Anyone is free to acquire the knowledge and skills.

What we're trying to tell you is that it's far more rewarding to use your brain and knowledge rather than rely on automated tools to do the work. I'm not against learning via such things, or using them as tools, but pointing at something that you know damn well the computer created and garnering true satisfaction from it is impossible for anyone with the least sense of pride. And claiming it as yours, as I've seen done on occasion, is dishonest.

It's not being equal, it's being lazy and delusional.

[pdxindy]

What we're trying to tell you is that it's far more rewarding to use your brain and knowledge rather than rely on automated tools to do the work.

What I learned, is that to be able to use the automated tools well, I had to have the knowledge anyway.

Earlier in my life, I was not very organized. A friend suggested buying a planner, so I did. Same thing there as I had to learn to be organized to use the planner and at that point I didn't need it. I suppose it worked in that sense

[Dionysos]

Anyone is free to acquire the knowledge and skills.

You have a bit to learn about privilege, limiting beliefs, lack of access to resources…

Wanting tools to be less powerful so that only the educated can use them is the very definition of elitism and exclusion.

[muzicxs]

Wanting tools to be less powerful so that only the educated can use them is the very definition of elitism and exclusion.

That's not at all what was being said, but nice attempt at a strawman argument.

[Dionysos]

It's what his statement boils down to, to me.

If the tools don't need to be made more accessible because "anyone is free to acquire the knowledge and skills" to work with them as they are, you end up at "keep things as they are so that only those in the know can use the tools".

I realise that jonljacobi was probably thinking more about "press button to generate song"-type technology, but that's not what this thread or koalaboy's preceding post were about. They were about pretty reasonable iterative improvements to make existing tools more accessible.