The Future Awaits - a DAW That Fits in Your Pocket!

[BONES]

Is this the Lenovo being referred to
https://www.currys.co.uk/products/lenov ... _id=331615

Yes, it is.

So not much in demand, I think. Maybe due to price tag compared to tablets that cost 1/4 or so.

Like most things with Microsoft, they put a lot more effort into enterprise customers than consumers, so you find plenty of "end of lease" Surface Pros that mostly look brand new because they've spent their lives on someone's desk, often being used with a traditional keyboard and mouse, so the Type Covers look brand new. You can pick up some incredible bargains on eBay if a 3-4 year old machine works for you.

But a gaming console like this, is looking like PS Vita from 12 years ago, looks very limited if you also need regular computer work typing stuff.

Why? It has 2 x Type C Thunderbolt ports so with a $40 dock you can use it exactly like a desktop workstation with the same peripherals you need for one of those, as shown in the photo.

These compact pc:s with small footprint, stationary but really small, is alternative also if needing a compact daw computer. But not much of slots for extra addons. Not pocket size fully, but does it really need to be?

That's old-school thinking. With Thunderbolt, there's enough bandwidth to run a hundred peripherals from one port with no slowdown. I use one for my dock - which gives me 3 x USB3 Type A, 1 x Type C, 1 x HDMI, 1 x ethernet and power IN to keep the Legion GO charged - and the other one is for a direct connection to my Zoom U24.

Right now, as I type this, I have keyboard, mouse, monitor, audio I/O device, 2 x MIDI controllers and 2 x USB Flash drives (via my trusty old USB 3 hub) plugged into it, which is all I'd ever have had with any other computer I've owned. And the only thing I had to buy specifically was the dock, I already had all the other stuff.

Of course, if you're a gamer, it's even better because it has two gamer controller halves you can clip to the edges of it. To me that makes it even more than a desktop or laptop, not less.

The name for this type of tech is called "Convergence".

I don't know that it is, really. I think there has been considerable divergence, done deliberately to sell us more junk, so I see this more as a re-consolidation, an opportunity to simplify our lives. And I am all about the simplification. Think how much this could shrink your carbon footprint!

[jamcat]

I really do think the days of the stationary desktop are coming to an end, whether you’re on Mac or PC. There’s just no good reason to have separate mobile and workstation computers anymore.

Welcome to 2006. That's when I realised this and I haven't had a desktop machine since. Most of my laptops have performed at least as well as the stonking, great Z Series HP workstations and MacPros I've used at work They don't render projects as quickly but in terms of working with them, they feel just as fast, just as robust.

My current Apple Silicon MacBook is the first computer I’ve ever owned that could mix a full song in real-time. So this is the first time I've ever really had the luxury to consider it.

[BONES]

Well, my PC laptops have been able to do it easily since 2006 and now so can my 8" tablet (the 3rd I've owned). CPU use on this one rarely spikes over 50%, even on our most demanding songs. Working within boundaries is ingrained after 30+ years of having to make whatever hardware I could afford work. My production methods are so ultra-minimalist today that I'm sure I could get by on pretty much any old thing. OTOH, you seem to deliberately go out of your way to find the most CPU-intensive way of doing everything. I couldn't work like that. In fact I don't know how anyone could work at all without being able to preview things in real time. I assume you used to do a lot of freezing of plugins?

[jamcat]

No, I’ve never liked the idea of freezing plugins. I would just disable stuff that wasn’t critical to what I was working on. The most CPU intensive plugins were always the tape emulation on every channel, so that would be disabled until mixdown. They’re not critical to the mix like an EQ or a reverb.

It’s not that I want to go out of my way to do things in the most difficult or CPU-intensive way possible. I simply want to do things the right way, without compromise. That means when you have a string ensemble, you have a specific number of players which doesn’t change, and you use proper divisi. And each player in that ensemble is an individual who plays an individual melodic line. Sample libraries will never get you there. Sampled string sections grow and shrink depending on how many notes are in the chord. And none of those notes are your notes. They’re someone else’s notes, recorded somewhere else at some other time. So that’s why I’m going to use physically modeled strings. Yes, it is more difficult and it takes more CPU. But it’s the next best thing to hiring an ensemble yourself. Sampled strings will never sound like real strings. So they will never give me the sound I want.

And if I want my music to sound like a proper record that came out of a proper studio, then I’m going to have to follow the proper process. The sound is the result of that process. It’s the result of a mic into a preamp into a console channel with outboard gear patched in that is recorded to tape which is then mixed off that tape at a different studio through another console with a bunch of aux effects on sends. And all of that is mixed down to another tape. So that’s the process I’m going to replicate, because that is the recipe to get the sound of a proper record out of a proper studio.

[BONES]

If I felt there was a part I could just disable so I can listen to the rest of it, I'd get rid of that part. I wouldn't even think about it, it would just be gone. I am ruthless with my covers, I'll often prune three-quarters of the tracks in the MIDI file, just keeping the core elements that make the song the song.

Don't get me started on the merits, or lack thereof, of using plugins to make your recordings sound like shit, which is precisely what tape emulations and shit like that do. It's crazy stuff, like deliberately putting cross-talk into your mixes, which Studio One will happily do for you. The next big thing will be print-through emulations, so you can hear an out of time pre-echo of the next bit of the song, just like it had bled through from a real tape.

My covers sound a hundred times better than the originals, at least until I start my caterwauling over the top of the music - you can hear everything clearly and it's all punchy as hell. The original artists would have given their left testicle to sound half as good as any idiot (well, this idiot anyway) can sound today.

I don't get hung up on whether they are my notes or someone else's. Most of the time they're not mine anyway. It'll be a cover, made from a downloaded MIDI file, or a song my bandmate wrote and sent me. So what? It's not even a consideration. All that matters is that it's a good song and I do it justice. If you're playing in an orchestra, you're just one of 80 people playing and nobody is going to notice what you're doing unless you f**k up. And the real sad thing about it is that you do all this work and absolutely nobody else will notice, it won't make any difference to anyone's enjoyment of the piece if you do it right. You are making a rod for your own back. It's quite masochistic if you think about it.

And if I want my music to sound like a proper record that came out of a proper studio, then I’m going to have to follow the proper process.

And if I want to cover myself in shit, I need to roll around in a pig sty. Honestly, why would your end goal not be to make it sound as good as it can possibly sound? I don't want anyone to think anything other than "that sounds f**king awesome!" (I'm still waiting, of course).

BTW, the studio process you describe is at least 40 years out of date. It's like saying "I want my brand new car to wallow around all over the road like a car from the 70s. Things moved on for a reason - artists and producers wanted a better way of doing things.

I don't mean to give you a hard time, I just cannot understand why anyone would put themselves through what you do. Honestly, it does my head in.

[jamcat]

These are all good questions, actually. And the answer is because it gives me purpose in my music. It has helped me really learn what to do, and understand why you do it. And above all, it makes me feel more connected to musical history. I do it for myself, above all else.

There's a lot of music being made out there, more than you could ever listen to in a lifetime, and certainly more than you would want to, but most of it can't even justify its own existence. I want my music to sound like it was created 40 years ago, when music actually mattered a little bit. A lot of what I do is a defiant statement against everything I oppose. I'd think you could understand that bit.

[seafire]

I want my music to sound like it was created 40 years ago, when music actually mattered a little bit.

Presumably you mean 'good' music, ie the stuff you liked. There was just as much 'bad' music then as there is now.... or do you just mean you want that 1984 sound (whatever that is)

[jamcat]

Even the bad stuff was less disposable than anything today.

But, yes, I want the sound of 1984. Because you can hear the making of the record in the music. It wasn't just a recording of notes. It was a record of a moment in time and a place that existed. It wasn't sterile and disembodied like "modern" music seems to strive to be. Maybe that's why it seemed to matter more.

But don't get me wrong. I'm not doing it in an obvious or gimmicky way, the way a lot of synthwave is done. I just want it to sound like it was recorded in a real place, with real gear, by real people. There is a subtle harmonic enhancement that transistors and oxide imparts.

The magic of analogue records is the ambiguity. Not every note is entirely clear. But that is what captivates the listener and excites the mind at the possibilities.

[BONES]

...t most of it can't even justify its own existence.

Why does it need to? It's art, it doesn't need any further point.

I want my music to sound like it was created 40 years ago, when music actually mattered a little bit.

Did it? Joe Dolce's Shaddap You Face? Flying Lizards' cover of Money? My Old Man's a Dustman? Lilly the Pink? Or krap like Macarthur Park? I think music was probably even more vacuuous and mattered even less back then. There was certainly no music that really meant anything to me before Punk. As in literally no music that I would ever care to hear again. Not from my childhood or my teen years. Nothing. Even after 1977, 99% of it was still worthless garbage. Of course, today it's more like 99.99% krap but that was inevitable and that 0.01% that isn't krap is still a lot of music.

I just want it to sound like it was recorded in a real place, with real gear, by real people. There is a subtle harmonic enhancement that transistors and oxide imparts.

Yes and engineers spent lifetimes trying to get rid of it because it was/is unwanted, which is why I don't understand why you're so obsessed with it.

The magic of analogue records is the ambiguity. Not every note is entirely clear. But that is what captivates the listener and excites the mind at the possibilities.

I bet a lot of artists and producers of the day wished they had known that. They wouldn't have had to spend weeks or months in the studio getting it all as good as it could be, they could have just recorded it live in one session and been done with it.

We've been asked a few times about doing vinyl but we refuse because we don't want to take advantage of deluded idiots who think there is some magic in it. It doesn't seem right.

[briwil]

I owned the Legion Go for a few days recently- you need to change the title of this post, or share with us how big your pockets actually are, because the thing is huge! I have a steamdeck here which is also big but the Go is significantly bigger.
Not knocking it for that, just saying it’s not fitting into anyone pockets anytime soon. Backpack, sure, but it’s not pocketable.

[Uncle E]

JNCO's, obviously

[fedexnman]

Lol

[BONES]

I owned the Legion Go for a few days recently- you need to change the title of this post, or share with us how big your pockets actually are, because the thing is huge! I have a steamdeck here which is also big but the Go is significantly bigger.
Not knocking it for that, just saying it’s not fitting into anyone pockets anytime soon. Backpack, sure, but it’s not pocketable.

Maybe not the pocket of your jeans but easily into a coat pocket. It's way smaller than a Steamdeck with the controllers removed. I've left my controllers in the box, which I've put into storage. It's smaller than an iPad Mini - thicker but not as wide or high, thanks to slimmer bezels. I'll take a photo when I'm not actually using it.

[Uncle E]

[BONES]

I bought a new USB 3 I/O device and now I am getting 1.45ms input latency and 11.3ms output latency from a 64 sample buffer. So far, after several hours of rehearsal, it hasn't missed a beat (or a sample, for that matter).

I've also discovered that it makes a brilliant tablet. My last few laptops have seemed to work quite well with touch but I was never sure if it was some Asus magic or just that Win 11 is better for touch than W10 was. It's clear now that it's definitely Win 11 and the touch experience is at least as good as anything I've ever used. Assuming these things will continue to be developed, I can't imagine ever going back to a full-size computer. I had every intention of hanging onto my ROG Flow Z13 but, honestly, I can't see myself ever using it again, so I'll probably put it up on eBay, eventually.