Are DAWs Today Just Boring ?

[Smasha]

I normalised all files but some are louder than others?

I don't get it?

Reaper, sending me to an early grave lol.

[jens]

Again: do not tamper with settings you do not fully understand. Source should be set to "Master-mix" - and it is by default.

[enroe]

Daws are meant to be boring.

+1. Yes, if you really want to record or composte music,
DAWs have to be boring. Because you want to make music
and don't want to deal with the DAW as such. The less the
DAW gets in my way while composing, the better.

So in other words not boring = getting in your way?

How about not boring = exciting, inspiring, helping, leading to "happy accidents", guiding, etc.

DAW should only be boring if one treats it as a fancy tape recorder.

Haha, no no, ...

... I just want to be able to implement my visions
of melodies or runs easily and without obstacles. That is
only possible if the DAW does exactly what I want in an
inconspicuous and unspectacular manner.

I just don't want the DAW to guide me and tell me what
to do.

Or in other words: I believe that the music is only created
in my head - and only there. But not in the DAW. The DAW
is only there to record my music.

[jens]

I can't agree with either of you - neither am I looking for accidents (happy or not), nor do I want DAWs to be boring. I want them to be inspiring by making it as easy, simple and pleasant as possible for me to realize my visions.

[antic604]

Haha, no no, ...

... I just want to be able to implement my visions
of melodies or runs easily and without obstacles. That is
only possible if the DAW does exactly what I want in an
inconspicuous and unspectacular manner.

I just don't want the DAW to guide me and tell me what
to do.

Or in other words: I believe that the music is only created
in my head - and only there. But not in the DAW. The DAW
is only there to record my music.

The key words here: "I" and "my"

The topic isn't only about you.

Some (many?) of us rely on their DAWs also as a source of inspiration, like you would on your piano, guitar or any other instrument, incl. plugins or hardware synths. It's weird to put a strict delineation between e.g. "exciting" VST plugin and a "boring" DAW that runs it, because in a lot of ways the DAW informs the things you can do with the plugins (or hardware synth) and its output: can your DAW control all features of the device? how accessible and creative is the automation? is there any modulation available? how does the bouncing workflow looks like? can you save complex plugin chains for easy recall? does the DAW have features helping you get the idea faster (retrospective recording, quantizers, arpeggiators, step sequencers, randomisers, etc.)? does the DAW have features breathing new life into otherwise outdated devices?

I refuse to believe all you do is play your stuff, record it into your DAW and do some light mix/master and that's all. If you do, I envy your creativity and ...restraint

[antic604]

I can't agree with either of you - neither am I looking for accidents (happy or not), nor do I want DAWs to be boring. I want them to be inspiring by making it as easy, simple and pleasant as possible for me to realize my visions.

I'm not advocating for either / or and definitely not expecting the DAW to do all (or most) of the work for me. After all, the whole point of artistry - not that I'm one... - is either being able to cojure up the art in your mind and 'record' it into a medium, or being able to use the tools you have at your disposal to come up with unique, inspired piece sort of by throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. For example there's artistic intent even in using generative devices: it's on the artist to choose the right parameters (or trajectory of parameters over time) and/or to capture part(s) of the randomness and put it/them together into a bigger whole. Counless times such a process would spark an idea, where you NOW know where it needs to go and should rely on the "boringness" of the DAW to execute it. But without that initial idea, perhaps you wouldn't get to that point?

Again, it's weird for me to artificially separate the DAW from all the other tools... When I load up a plugins into a DAW, select a patch and record or sequence some notes, that's only the BEGINNING of fun, not the end of it.

[Unaspected]

I normalised all files but some are louder than others?

I don't get it?

Reaper, sending me to an early grave lol.

Are we talking about level measurement or perceived loudness?

Peak normalisation will not make all signals equal in a sense of "loudness". You need to observe the crest factor: Peak level divided by RMS. If this value is variable between files - if the RMS is variable - then it is unlikely that they will be perceived as being of equal loudness.

Normalisation is useful if you're developing sample based instruments and maybe for other very specific reasons where peak level is required as a reference - otherwise you're best off establishing equal loudness by ear whilst observing LUFS (Loudness Unit Full Scale) and/or RMS (Root Mean Squared).

[jancivil]

"How about not boring = exciting, inspiring, helping, leading to "happy accidents", guiding, etc.

DAW should only be boring if one treats it as a fancy tape recorder."
This is your dichotomy and you're welcome to it.

I prefer not to be "guided", I use the DAW to do one fack of a lot more than a tape recorder but 'being guided' looks like being stuck with limitations as much as anything. My happy accidents are from mistakes I made, having the tool impose accident on me is not very wanted. Once I definitely expected its limitation would create something unpredictable so I forced a happy accident knowing the limitation (audio that was polyphonic, dense and complex to MIDI; while the goal of that paradigm is a monophonic part. So it had integrity with the original source while being rather wild, and it was my idea, not Cubase's.)

'exciting', well that's one way to talk about stuff, I use Cubase and stay with it because of features I'm happy with, I suppose time warp was exciting when they created it 12 years ago or whatever. I was excited to find out you can create a grid of dotted pentuplets, septuplets etc as well as tuplets founded from a triplet grid (pentuplet triplet 8th = 15 in the time of a quarter), but I was measuring that sort of thing my own self. It's a convenience and it would suck to be in a DAW that doesn't have it because force of habit. Back to the original notion, DAWs are boring today, meh, the boredom is in the beholding just as excitement is.

[THE INTRANCER]

Imagine a little man running around on a sequencer lane pushing things around and destroying blocks for you, or sent on a mission to build musical creations for you which you can then change yourself. Built-in AI characters you can control and command to do certain jobs. An AI character that you con compete against in creating a piece of dance music, based on algorithmic programming.

[vurt]

Built-in AI characters you can control and command to do certain jobs.

hey little ai character, can you get me out of this thread? thanks.

[jancivil]

a new guitar, set up properly can be pretty exciting. Stability of intonation is properly uninteresting and uneventful

[jancivil]

<AI you can make to do certain jobs>
I like doing the jobs

[vurt]

<AI you can make to do certain jobs>
I like doing the jobs

can i get it to do my dishes, i dont like that.
used to in my old house, but the sink was at a window looking out on the garden, which i kept nice.
here, my face is basically at a cupboard door, very small kitchen.

[jancivil]

dishwashing should be a zen kind of a deal, like any menial task

[xbitz]

maybe should buy one