Which DAW for sketching out ideas fast (and easy)

[reggie1979]

edit, screwed that up.

[jancivil]

Ableton 10 has the same concept called capture, the transport does not have to be running, it can detect the tempo too

I think Cubase might also have a tempo detector as well, though I've never used it. Anyone know about this?

[crimsonwarlock]

UPDATE

Live Lite is out. If I want to put an arpeggiator or similar plugin before an instrument I have to sacrifice an additional track for that. That's crazy. Any respectable DAW has done away with such workflows around a decade ago or so.

The jury is still out on Orion because it is fun to play around with it again (and making music should be fun, right). But I already ran into the problem that made me move away from Orion back then; it is cumbersome if you have a sequence setup on a specific instrument to exchange the instrument with another as patterns are part of the specific instance of an instrument. Also, when I close Orion, it kills the connection to my Komplete Kontrol keyboard and I need to reboot the machine to get it back. Well, that's the problem of no longer supported software of course.

In the meantime I have been working on a pattern-based workflow in reaper and that seems to get me somewhere, so I do have some idea where this is going

[whyterabbyt]

UPDATE

Live Lite is out. If I want to put an arpeggiator or similar plugin before an instrument I have to sacrifice an additional track for that.

No you dont. Not for Live's Arpeggiator device, not for 3rd party plugins. You put the arp and the plugin in an Instrument Rack.

Any respectable DAW has done away with such workflows around a decade ago or so.

Any respectable DAW user properly finds out what a DAW can do before they start going on about alleged problems with its workflow.

[chk071]

You guys make my day.

[BONES]

it is cumbersome if you have a sequence setup on a specific instrument to exchange the instrument with another as patterns are part of the specific instance of an instrument.

Add the instrument you want to swap to, then go to the instrument you want to swap from in the Playlist, right-click on it and select "Clone track to" and then select the new instrument. This will copy all the patterns, arrangement and mixer settings to the new synth in one go. If you just want to copy/paste the patterns, select the first instrument, press CTRL+SHIFT+C to copy all the patterns, then select the other instrument and press CTRL+V.

Also, when I close Orion, it kills the connection to my Komplete Kontrol keyboard and I need to reboot the machine to get it back. Well, that's the problem of no longer supported software of course.

Have you selected it in "Options|MIDI In settings". If you select it and it's highlighted, Orion will remember it next time. Or is it killing the connection to the PC itself? It's never done that to me with my Maschine Mikro.

The pattern-based workflow in Orion was never a big drawcard for me and I am really loving the way I can work in Cubase. I can play around with a riff or a loop, then push it down the timeline and play with something else, then push it out of the way or move to an empty spot and try another thing. I can glue bits together, cut bits apart, easily transpose, experiment with keys and chords, etc. It actually feels so much freer than Orion or even Bitwig. There are aspects I am less thrilled with but the playing around/experimenting thing is really good. Peter, maybe you should have a look at one of the lesser versions of Cubase? I can point you to a couple of good video tutorials to get you started.

[crimsonwarlock]

Add the instrument you want to swap to, then go to the instrument you want to swap from in the Playlist, right-click on it and select "Clone track to" and then select the new instrument. This will copy all the patterns, arrangement and mixer settings to the new synth in one go. If you just want to copy/paste the patterns, select the first instrument, press CTRL+SHIFT+C to copy all the patterns, then select the other instrument and press CTRL+V.

Ah, didn't know that, I was still thinking the old way of rerouting the pattern to another track.

Or is it killing the connection to the PC itself?

Yep, after closing Orion, no other DAW including Maschine/Komplete Kontrol kan access the keyboard.

This could very well be related to my setup though, as I have a lot of MIDI-over-USB stuff connected and Windows 10 still hasn't fixed the whole 'IRQ going bonkers' thing

I am really loving the way I can work in Cubase. I can play around with a riff or a loop, then push it down the timeline and play with something else, then push it out of the way or move to an empty spot and try another thing. I can glue bits together, cut bits apart, easily transpose, experiment with keys and chords, etc. It actually feels so much freer than Orion or even Bitwig.

That is pretty much the route I'm taking now with reaper, including a bunch of custom actions to make it all a very fluid workflow. I now have a button on the keyboard assigned that creates a new midi-clip on the timeline, sets it up completely for recording and handles all the time-selection and looping stuf for that clip. I can hit record (on the keyboard as well) and play until I have what I want and when I stop recording another custom action cleans up everything and saves it. I can now add ideas to the timeline as long as I want without even looking once at my computer screen

[Psuper]

^ There's definitely things I'll miss from Reaper when in Cubase, but I have the best of both worlds now, just prefer to stick with 1 DAW for the majority.

[crimsonwarlock]

just prefer to stick with 1 DAW for the majority.

Absolutely agree, same here. But 'majority' implies there is always a minority as well

Sometimes playing around with other DAWs can be stimulating and even bring you ideas for how to do things in your 'main' DAW.

[MusicMayor]

That is pretty much the route I'm taking now with reaper, including a bunch of custom actions to make it all a very fluid workflow. I now have a button on the keyboard assigned that creates a new midi-clip on the timeline, sets it up completely for recording and handles all the time-selection and looping stuf for that clip. I can hit record (on the keyboard as well) and play until I have what I want and when I stop recording another custom action cleans up everything and saves it. I can now add ideas to the timeline as long as I want without even looking once at my computer screen

Could you kindly share the details on how you accomplished this, so that I might do something similar?

Thanks

[crimsonwarlock]

Could you kindly share the details on how you accomplished this, so that I might do something similar?

Thanks

Will do. I'm currently away from the studio for a couple of days but I'll do a write-up this weekend.

[vurt]

have you tried reaper?

[crimsonwarlock]

have you tried reaper?

[MusicMayor]

Could you kindly share the details on how you accomplished this, so that I might do something similar?

Thanks

Will do. I'm currently away from the studio for a couple of days but I'll do a write-up this weekend.

Looking forward to your write-up!

[crimsonwarlock]

Could you kindly share the details on how you accomplished this, so that I might do something similar?

Thanks

Will do. I'm currently away from the studio for a couple of days but I'll do a write-up this weekend.

Looking forward to your write-up!

I didn't forget, just didn't make it into the studio last weekend