The bs of Pro DAWs Vs amateur DAWs

[THE INTRANCER]

And still no example of tracker music that does not sound like tracker music. I want to hear something that is not some sort of perfectly quantized lo-fi techno. Something that sounds like a real band performing with real instruments featuring all those typical velocity/timing/pitch variations.

I found this in two seconds vie a google search... Orchestral music with Renoise, it sounds pretty high quality to my ears.

https://forum.renoise.com/t/orchestral- ... oise/68412

https://soundcloud.com/expm/le-chant-de ... al_sharing

https://soundcloud.com/expm/le-point-di ... ite-part-2

[Largos]

And still no example of tracker music that does not sound like tracker music. I want to hear something that is not some sort of perfectly quantized lo-fi techno. Something that sounds like a real band performing with real instruments featuring all those typical velocity/timing/pitch variations.

Still waiting for you to post examples of your stuff you record with all that pro software you tell us is essential and so much better than everyone else uses.

[jamcat]

That's a pro tracker

[BBFG#]

What's an amateur DAW?

[WackyZoundz]

I found this in two seconds vie a google search... Orchestral music with Renoise, it sounds pretty high quality to my ears.

It's a step up from the demo scene techno but it does not sound like a performance to me. It sounds like mid-90s MIDI-style, something I would expect from a Playstation game (Like Final Fantasy). Neither is the velocity nor the timing there and it seems to not have been mixed at all, it's way too bright, way too much in your face (Lack of depth), I don't get the impression that the instruments and singers stand and perform together in a hall. A lot of editing is missing - the type of editing you can only do in a "big" DAW.

[30pinsimms]

fl studio is a toy. Protools is the DAW that is in every big professional studio I've worked in. IMHO both can give exactly the same results. Amateur or Pro DAWS do not exist but oftware that translates ideas to sound exist.

[zerocrossing]

... the implementation of complex features was more interesting for the passionate hobbyists, while the professionals used their software more as a digital tape recorder.

Years ago I worked for a professional marketing agency and the pro graphic designers (editing images for print) used ancient Photoshop versions because they already had what they needed. No bullshit, no bloat stuff.

That was me, and I still haven’t updated my v5 version of CS, but my employer pays for CS now and I have to say that my expert (and I’m really f’n good at this) rubber stamp tool fix/removal technique has been far surpassed by Photoshop’s AI version where you can do something like circle a power line in the photo and Photoshop just removes it. It’s scary good and happens in an instant, freeing up time to come on here and write b.s. posts like this one.

[zerocrossing]

“Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right.”

-Ani DeFranko

What you use, and how you use it, is really irrelevant. If you know what to do to produce the outcome you desire, then you are set. I’ve started using Cubase Pro, and frankly it’s kind of obnoxious in a lot of ways that DAWs like Live and Cubase are quick and intuitive. I’m sure after a while I’ll enjoy it and what it offers, but the truth is, I rarely had a problem getting what I wanted from Bitwig, even though some of it was annoying, like not being able to export a mono file.

[dikrek]

I’ve started using Cubase Pro, and frankly it’s kind of obnoxious in a lot of ways that DAWs like Live and Cubase are quick and intuitive.

I think something in that sentence doesn’t compute.

[WackyZoundz]

fl studio is a toy.

It was semiprofessional until they raised the insert channels to 128 and added the Patchbay. Now it plays in the top league. It hasn't been a toy since the mid-2000s. Back then it already had more features than any tracker.

[WackyZoundz]

“Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right.”

-Ani DeFranko

Even if this was true (which obviously isn't the case), have you ever heard of the saying "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight"? In case of trackers the knife can be swapped with a spoon. I'm not saying spoons are useless, I would never eat a soup with a knife or a gun. But yeah - if you're bringing a spoon to a gun fight then you're not just an idiot, you're insane.

[whyterabbyt]

The stuff I use is pro because I say so, and my opinion counts most because of the stuff I use being so pro. This means Im better than you.

[Michael L]

Even if this was true (which obviously isn't the case), have you ever heard of the saying "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight"? In case of trackers the knife can be swapped with a spoon. I'm not saying spoons are useless, I would never eat a soup with a knife or a gun. But yeah - if you're bringing a spoon to a gun fight then you're not just an idiot, you're insane.

Hmm....
Maybe you need a Pro Computer Keyboard to better sequence your thoughts.

[Jac459]

“Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right.”

-Ani DeFranko

Even if this was true (which obviously isn't the case), have you ever heard of the saying "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight"? In case of trackers the knife can be swapped with a spoon. I'm not saying spoons are useless, I would never eat a soup with a knife or a gun. But yeah - if you're bringing a spoon to a gun fight then you're not just an idiot, you're insane.

It is funny that in the same post in which you are trying to be insulting to others, the poor quality of your reasoning makes you look so stupid....

[Guenon]

Lots of cool tracker tunes in that one, intertwined with a "more traditional timeline" DAW. Both sound ace.

The question is, what good do contributions like the ones from WackyZoundz here actually accomplish? There is so much negativity, and it comes from a place of no experience, talking down upon some tools and methods that the negative commenter isn't at all well-versed in. There are so many factual errors and misplaced criticisms there, spanning from the sound to the workflow and back.

There is no use trying to "defend" a creative practice, toolset, methodology, or something like that, against material like this. In the end, it's just better to find a more positive creative community for one's actual creative journey.

The comments seen here are so unconstructive and filled with negativity to begin with, and full of misrepresentations like "FL Studio's step sequencer has been designed on purpose to be faster and more convenient. Three to four keystrokes vs a single (!) click. Trackers have been designed to be memory-efficient but not to be fast and convenient." One could go into loads of advanced technical details and aspects to counter this and so many other tidbits in this thread - and if the discussion was a positive one, and the commenter was someone actually interested in hearing more about some awesome things one can do in a certain type of toolset, that would be a cool discussion to have, of course.

So, for example that workflow and keystroke thing, I'll just mention this one specific thing (as I said, there is no use "defending" something when dealing with a commentator negative like this) ; the tracker interface is designed to be extremely fast and convenient for its use case. People who are skilled in editing compositions on trackers literally achieve a flow state, using the interface blazingly fast - typing the edits in (in many cases "tapping" the musical passage in so that also the musical rests have their place in the flow), not using the mouse. In addition to note events, they often do the same for parameter movement, sample slicing, and so on (of course, in something like Renoise, you have other facilities to achieve these, too). This is an extremely powerful editing state to be in, and the speeds at which it happens when a skilled user is making music routinely rise to the 5-7 keypresses per second range, in the flow state. The fastest ones even faster than that. You can really sequence amazingly quick in trackers.

But what does a discussion like the one we're actually seeing above do? Again, what good does it accomplish? A creative community where discussions are often like that... is not a very good one.

Celebrate each other's creative methods and output, and motivate each other to explore different methodologies and tools and ideas. You don't need to choose one way of doing something and bash everything else. Enjoying working using varying methods is a richness. Be enthusiastic about the ways someone else approaches their passion. Constructive criticism, and pointing out that something doesn't subjectively suit oneself and one's own use case, all of that is of course okay. But this tracker discussion hasn't been about that, at all. It's just some negative vibes coming from someone who wants to bash a thing.