VirtualDAW

[BertKoor]

Turn back the clock a little more than 25 years:
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/sonic-foundry-acid
(but now bring your own loops)

[funky lime]

Turn back the clock a little more than 25 years:
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/sonic-foundry-acid
(but now bring your own loops)

whoa hey, that was the first (and last) audio software my mom ever bought for me! acid rock! (also the only time my mom ever bought me acid)

[SamDi]

I clearly stated, that my DAW will be made for those, who want to start making modern music and who only have a laptop and maybe some headphones. That's how creativity starts.
And the modern styles I design this DAW for (EDM, HipHop, Dance, Techno, Trance and similar) simply do not necessarily need any physically analog devices. There are very good soft-synths and royalty-free samples out there.
Even for vocals you simply can use royalty free samples or if you do official remixes (e.g. for contests), you simply get stems, which then you modify and extend with plugins.

I think you should more analyze your target group. Beginners want an affordable DAW - yes. But they want also an all-in-one solution with crazy good effects, crazy good instruments and maybe even samples. Do you really think a beginner wants to mess with doing recherche on third-party open-source SW? No beginners want an easy starting point, though well equipped and they also want many tutorials on YT available and beeing able to exchange their projects with friends and exisiting eco-system. Nothing you can deliver with your idea as it is.

And therefore the DAW will be much more affordable, since the device driver communication part for those analog devices is not needed to be implemented.

No it will be not. Device driver communication and what you want to skip else is just 1% of an DAW. And it's crazy ridiculous. Implementing a DAW without ASIO and MIDI support in the 1st place is like wanting to implement a graphics programm without supporting input drawing devices and graphics card support. And as stated by others before. Starting cheap and eaysy is pretty well covered with Garage Band, Ableton Light, and all the other entry versions of all DAWs. So how do you think your solution will be that special, that one is even willing to spend one buck?

I please all of those, who simply do not need a lightweight and streamlined "virtual" DAW to no longer call me names. Thank you for your input, but you are not the ones, my project will be made for. I want to help those, who really struggle to afford all that expensive gear.
Thank you for your understanding.

So you present your idea on a public forum and as soon as critical voices appear, you call them to shut up? Good Luck with your project!

Furthermore DAWs are very complex programs developed with a team.

Orion wasn't and it comes closest to meeting my needs of all the host applications I have tried.

This was meant, that all DAWs in itself are complex ond no easy freetime projects. I don't know Orion, but I am sure even that has needed a couple of man years to implement. Not a thing you are making as one person beside your job in your freetime in one year.

Honestly - a lightweight under-featured DAW is the last thing the world is waiting for IMHO.

Certainly if it is under-featured but if it has all the basics and does it well, I think there is plenty of scope for it to be successful. There is currently no product on the market, at least nothing I am aware of, that comes close to giving me what I want from my DAW.

You are not the target group of this guy. Target group are beginners who want to save money and never ever need audio input or MIDI. Are you the guy who wants to draw notes in the piano roll? Ah wait, it hasn't even that before phase 2. So you have VST instruments but no MIDI input, no MIDI record and no piano roll, just can import MIDI files.
And I'm pretty sure, you also don't want to record audio with another tool and then import it. No - for this idea with this feature set there is definitely no market.

BTW, for Orion it seemed there wasn't a big market either, at least according to the words of Richard.

We're not developing Orion "as it is" beyond version 8.6, so that's the last update for now. There is far too little interest in Orion (from legit users anyway). We have a magnitude more plugin users than Orion users, and those users demand updates/bugfixes/future developments as well. As professional developers we can't afford to ignore 95% of our userbase in favor of the 5% or less using Orion. Of course that sucks since we love Orion and use it every single day, but we have to accept the reality as it is, not as we'd like it to be.
Note that we do have plans for a new sequencer, but that'll take quite some time for sure.

So why should there be one for the next 58th half-baken-thought-out DAW?

[VirtualDAW]

Target group are beginners who want to save money and never ever need audio input or MIDI. Are you the guy who wants to draw notes in the piano roll? Ah wait, it hasn't even that before phase 2. So you have VST instruments but no MIDI input, no MIDI record and no piano roll, just can import MIDI files.

These are implementation "phases", not product "phases". Of course the piano roll will be present always, when there is a public version. All "phases" need to be completed, until the project is finalized.

So who of the music producers, who produce the music styles EDM, HipHop, Dance, Techno, Trance really use analog input devices (except microphones)? If there is someone, please explain your use cases. Maybe some play in some notes with an old analog-synth. But in the final mix they then use a soft-synth... So that can be done through the piano roll also, especially when you simply only have a laptop.
If there is demand for a USB "Mini Keyboard" or USB "Drum Pad" or similar, I might consider to implement that. But most beginners do not even have such devices.

My DAW also will have no limit of tracks, like some other DAW's entry-level versions have. The number of tracks is only limited by system memory like in any other app. It makes a big difference.

Unfortunately device driver communication is not only 1% - maybe implementing the base code is easy, but it would be a major part to test it, since you would have to test the configuration with all those devices and nothing simply works out-of-the-box in many of these driver cases.

"critical voices" who "appear" were not shut down, but calling me names is not acceptable.
Where are the feature suggestions I asked for?
It seems instead a lot of pointless marketing analysis was made, since there's no final version yet. And before there is a final version, the UI and features only can be implemented the way users want, if they tell, what they want.
Yet that did not happen here.

[EuroHobbes]

So who of the music producers, who produce the music styles EDM, HipHop, Dance, Techno, Trance really use analog input devices (except microphones)?

You mean professionals? All of them. Synths, MPC's, modulars. Pick a random well known producer and Google their studio.

If there is someone, please explain your use cases. Maybe some play in some notes with an old analog-synth. But in the final mix they then use a soft-synth... So that can be done through the piano roll also, especially when you simply only have a laptop.

Apart from sound, sound design, character, inspiration? Workflow. Even if they use softsynths it'll be through midi controllers. Workflow is key in production, the faster you can sound down the way you want the better your inspiration gets in the track.

If there is demand for a USB "Mini Keyboard" or USB "Drum Pad" or similar, I might consider to implement that. But most beginners do not even have such devices.

Midi controllers are cheap these days. Under a 100 bucks hets you a 25 key midi controllers. Probably with an intro level DAW.

My DAW also will have no limit of tracks, like some other DAW's entry-level versions have. The number of tracks is only limited by system memory like in any other app. It makes a big difference.

That is just what a beginner doesn't need. When learning to produce 8 tracks is more than you need.

"critical voices" who "appear" were not shut down, but calling me names is not acceptable.

You haven't been the friendliest chap in this thread either

Where are the feature suggestions I asked for?
It seems instead a lot of pointless marketing analysis was made, since there's no final version yet. And before there is a final version, the UI and features only can be implemented the way users want, if they tell, what they want.
Yet that did not happen here.

You are the one building this, you haven't brought up features of your own. And I said it before: I applaud you for taking on a task like this, but all the unique selling points are things it won't do. The absence of a negative isn't a positive. And that is what is being said here. You can ignore that, or fight it, or listen to it. Your choice. Best of luck.

[EuroHobbes]

And to emphasize that I'm not just trying to rain on your parade:

I'd be interested in a virtual groovebox. Something like a deluge or a polyend play+, but I'd want to be able to add softsynths and other VST's and use the groovebox interface to control them; it would make the workflow unified.

Midi input would be a must-have though..

[VirtualDAW]

You haven't been the friendliest chap in this thread either

Sorry to hear that. I apologize if that indeed would be the case. English is not my native language. So maybe I need to improve the wording. Written words always sound much harder than spoken ones.

No, I meant beginner music producers. Not professionals, sorry for the confusion.

[VOODOO U]

You haven't been the friendliest chap in this thread either

Sorry to hear that. I apologize if that indeed would be the case. English is not my native language. So maybe I need to improve the wording. Written words always sound much harder than spoken ones.

As opposed to getting feedback here, have you considered, for example, starting a facebook page to get feedback?
Consider that your app would fare better as a phone app. So sell at Google play and eventually the Apple store.

[VOODOO U]

Actually can phone apps work with VSTs?? I have no idea

[BONES]

This was meant, that all DAWs in itself are complex ond no easy freetime projects.

Are you sure you're not putting the cart before the horse? Maybe DAWs are only complex because they have big teams working on them? Maybe that's the whole problem with them?

You are not the target group of this guy.

That doesn't mean others aren't.

[VirtualDAW]

Actually can phone apps work with VSTs?? I have no idea

My app yet is for Windows-Only. So its impossible to run it on any mobile phone.
If I later would also support macOS, then additionally to VST3 support I also would try to add AUv2 support.
For iOS (running on iphone) an "iOS InterApp-Audio" for VST3 is available.
But that comes with the limitation that its only working [..]If your plug-in does not use any specific Windows or macOS X API's, it should be reasonably easy to get your plug-in running on iOS[..]
https://steinbergmedia.github.io/vst3_d ... 0on%20iOS.
So some plugins may not work there at all.

[SamDi]

So who of the music producers, who produce the music styles EDM, HipHop, Dance, Techno, Trance really use analog input devices (except microphones)? If there is someone, please explain your use cases.

I think you are asking the wrong questions. The right question would be: "What makes my DAW special that (beginner) producers do consider to use it". Getting a new DAW on the road is not about thinking what users might not need and then you cut it away. It's about finding a USP, which makes it desireable for the crowd you have in mind. You still didn't tell, what this USP shall be, except affordable, because device drivers are not supported. But affordable is perfectly covered by all the big players yet.

If there is demand for a USB "Mini Keyboard" or USB "Drum Pad" or similar, I might consider to implement that. But most beginners do not even have such devices.

Did you even speak with "beginner producers"? Did you consider, that a beginner wants/need also a DAW with the potential to grow with him?

Unfortunately device driver communication is not only 1% - maybe implementing the base code is easy, but it would be a major part to test it, since you would have to test the configuration with all those devices and nothing simply works out-of-the-box in many of these driver cases.

Yeah, maybe. But it's definitely not the thing driving the complexity of a DAW and throwing it out making a DAW "affordable".

"critical voices" who "appear" were not shut down, but calling me names is not acceptable.
Where are the feature suggestions I asked for?
Yet that did not happen here.

Youre right. Calling names not, but critics should be OK. I think it's not easy to propose features to a DAW, which USP is to have as few faetures as possible. Would you wanted features for a it-can-do-it-al high-end DAW you couldn't save yourself from feature-wanting pack.

And I said it before: I applaud you for taking on a task like this, but all the unique selling points are things it won't do. The absence of a negative isn't a positive. And that is what is being said here. You can ignore that, or fight it, or listen to it. Your choice. Best of luck.

This! ^^

This was meant, that all DAWs in itself are complex ond no easy freetime projects.

Are you sure you're not putting the cart before the horse? Maybe DAWs are only complex because they have big teams working on them? Maybe that's the whole problem with them?

Yes, because even the simplest DAW imaginable is a very complex program compared to other software. Imagine, what you all need. Alone the GUI with needing to design each widget yourself isn't easy. You need display audio waveforms, MIDI events in a piano roll, implement zooming, mixer, tracks, etc. and that's just GUI.
And then all the other stuff. Audio engine, audio and instrument/MIDI tracks, routing, audio clips, MIDI events, VST-, ASIO-, MIDI-support. As a single person you can easily spend years to implement all this, even if you work on it full-time.

BTW, I wonder, why you didn't jump on the Ableton Live wagon, when switching the DAW. Until before 2 or 3 versions it was one of the simplest-to-use DAWs on the market by beeing capable doing the most important things for music makers. Still isn't a full-fledged DAW today, but for the most music making people it "delivers".

[VOODOO U]

Still isn't a full-fledged DAW today, but for the most music making people it "delivers".

I'm scratching my head with this one. How is Live not a full-fledged DAW???

[SamDi]

Still isn't a full-fledged DAW today, but for the most music making people it "delivers".

I'm scratching my head with this one. How is Live not a full-fledged DAW???

Because Live is more dedicated to music creation and producing especially for EDM or other pattern based music. So it's good to work with MIDI-Patterns and audio clips and arrange them and create tracks.

On the other side all the functions you need for recording audio into tracks, edit audio, manage huge projects with many tracks and finally mix all the tracks are relatively minimalistic compared to a "full-fledged" DAW. E.g. you can't even switch the time bar to show minutes and seconds, you have just one marker type, you can not hide tracks or search them (when you have dozens or hundreds of them). No one working with big audio projects would consider Live as the program of choice.

That doesn't mean Live is bad. Best DAW ever beside Bitwig. But it's approach is rather minimalistic for the sake of lean GUI and easy use.

[jens]

No, I meant beginner music producers. Not professionals, sorry for the confusion.

you know what would really suck for a beginner? Investing signifincant time and energy in learning a tool only to find out after a while when creativity strikes, that they chose just about the only DAW out of several dozens that doesn't even support such a basic function as recording some vocals - boy, would I be pissed!