Jump to content

DAW Features You'd Like to See Added to DAWs


Anderton

Recommended Posts

  • Members

I see a lot of "everything's been invented" attitude about DAWs. But I can think of several things I'd like to see in DAWs. Here are two; what are yours?

 

* A rhyming dictionary. Why not? When I'm writing songs on a DAW, most of the time I have two rhyming dictionaries open.

* Algorithmic composition. This used to be really big back in the days of the Commodore-64 - programs would generate bass lines, drum parts, etc. If youu didn't like one,you just pushed a button and it generated a new one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 69
  • Created
  • Last Reply
Instruction manuals that don't assume you have a PhD in audio engineering

 

I'm an audio engineer and I don't know a single person with a PhD in that field. :idk: A quick Google search shows a few programs in Europe, but here in the USA, it's more likely you'd go for a PhD in Electrical Engineering or Acoustics, although there may be a few Music Technology PhD programs out there.

 

IMHO manuals have actually gotten considerably better over the years. I used to hate trying to figure out some of the manuals in the 70s / 80s that were obviously written by non-native English speakers or written in another language and translated (very poorly) to English.

 

Does it bother anyone that more and more manuals come as PDF files these days instead of as printed manuals?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reaper has varispeed. Very heavy on the CPU though...

 

I used to have a pair of Yamaha AW4416 mixer / recorders and they had varispeed too.

 

I've been known to use an ADAT deck as a varispeed clock for Pro Tools, but I think I need to just break down and buy a Digidesign / Avid Sync. They have varispeed capability.

 

Craig, does Sonar have a varispeed control built in?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

I'm an audio engineer and I don't know a single person with a PhD in that field. :idk: A quick Google search shows a few programs in Europe, but here in the USA, it's more likely you'd go for a PhD in Electrical Engineering or Acoustics, although there may be a few Music Technology PhD programs out there.

 

IMHO manuals have actually gotten considerably better over the years. I used to hate trying to figure out some of the manuals in the 70s / 80s that were obviously written by non-native English speakers or written in another language and translated (very poorly) to English.

 

Does it bother anyone that more and more manuals come as PDF files these days instead of as printed manuals?

 

I wasn't trying to be factually accurate, Phil, I was just making a point ;)

 

And yes, I much prefer paper instruction manuals to PDF files

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Error messages for everything, including signal flow, that include suggestions on what to look for when something is not working, or at least some of the most common ones.

 

Good sound. :D

 

I believe gestural commands is coming down the pipe at some point, and has been mentioned countless times before.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Sonar does not have track notation features. I need to take notes on all sorts of stuff and some way to have that available per-track would save me time and help me remember to take notes.

 

And if there could be a popup display of lyrics that scrolled with the music, enlargeable so it could be read from some distance...

 

and if DAWs could auto-erase crappy music, the world would be a better place

 

nat whilk ii

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • CMS Author
Instruction manuals that don't assume you have a PhD in audio engineering

 

And to go along with that, a common lexicon (or maybe vocabulary is the right word), and to be picky, as close as is reasonable to what you find on a real console and recorder. On my console, i can just turn an Aux Send knob, but on my DAW I have to create a bus first.

 

Maybe the thing would be a set of templates for the mixing section. If you're used to a Mackie 4-bus, you'd select that and it would be one. If you're used to an SSL-4000, push another button and you'd get one of those.

 

Maybe just build the whole darn thing out of hardware and I'd be happiest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • CMS Author

Does it bother anyone that more and more manuals come as PDF files these days instead of as printed manuals?

 

It bothers me that there are no printed manuals, unless I make one myself, and that never comes out as good as a real printed and bound manual. PDFs are nice if you know what you're looking for and can search for the word (see my other comment about vocabulary), but leafing through a manual until you spot the picture of what you see on the screen, or the title of a paragraph you know you saw before and needed to look at again.

 

I find reading a manual on a screen tedious at best for two reasons. One is that I can only see one page at a time unless I make it too small to read, and the other is that I'm restricted to where I can be when I'm reading it. I can't go to the living room couch or the can and study over a section unless I have a copy of it on my tablet or phone, which is difficult to read.

 

I like to have a machine-searchable copy for when that's appropriate, but if I had my choice of one or the other, I'd take a forest of trees any time. They'll grow back. My eyes won't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

As much as I like Digital Performer, their owner manuals suck. The manuals are dry, repetitive, and feel like you`re reading a Roland manual which is not saying much.

 

I honestly don`t think DP needs much more than what it has. I`m actually a bit overwhelmed with DP8. There are features I`ll never use, thats the truth.

 

I use the DAW like a recording machine so most of the features go untouched. I would actually like to see less mini-menus and less windows overall to reach certain functions.

 

As for a rhyming dictionary, I cannot use a computer to write music, to me the whole technology thing kills my creativity. I rather sit there with paper and pen.

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I'd like to see the option to 'strip down' the user interface to, for example, work just like a multitrack tape machine. Better yet, have configurable stripped down 'subfeature' setups that can be saved and recalled.

 

I'd like a feature that would indicate that clipping is happening anywhere in the plugin chain in any track. Better yet, have the program automatically insert a level plugin just before the one clipping, preset to reduce the level the correct amount.

 

On Reaper, I'd like the scrubbing feature to automatically kick in some (10 dB?) attenuation so the speakers are not 'over-wowed' by the infrabass content.

 

Again on Reaper, I'd like to have locally cached help files (instead of needing to download a .pdf manual, then looking for it on the drive, then finally finding it just after forgetting why I needed it).

 

I'd like a metronome that uses a kick and snare sample played in 2/4 time (Kick, snare, kick, snare...) by default. I do that now, but have to set the time sig to 2/4 to get what I want, even though the song itself is 4/4.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Craig, does Sonar have a varispeed control built in?

 

Yes and no. There's no dedicated control where you can just turn a knob and speed up or slow down a project. However, you can do varispeed-style pitch shifting on individual clips. I do this a lot with a final mix where I want to speed the whole thing up, say, 2% like in the old days when you bumped up the varispeed on the two-track to give a brighter sound.

 

If anyone here uses SONAR, I described how to do this by abusing the Loop Construction window.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

1. Easy-to-use.

 

2. When you load & play a MIDI file -- you automatically hear sound - without fishing around any menus. Something defaults.

 

AFAIC, no computer-based DAW qualifies for #1. Zero. Auria is easy for iPad. But it doesn't do MIDI. Only SONAR does #2. So now I use SONAR.

 

My first test is ALWAYS - load a MIDI file. If I hear it play back - I'm in business. If not - I'm not going to hassle with it any further. ​Studio One failed that test this week. Cubase has failed it many times. So I don't use either.

 

I can't say SONAR is easy to use.But at least it passes the MIDI file test without my having to make adjustments.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I'd like a feature that would indicate that clipping is happening anywhere in the plugin chain in any track. Better yet, have the program automatically insert a level plugin just before the one clipping, preset to reduce the level the correct amount.

 

This would be fantastic. Every once in a while, there's something that no matter what, I can't track down...and I understand the signal chain quite well, and don't usually have anything to complicated. But there's moments when I have an aux track feeding another aux track, etc., feeding one effect into another, and this sort of feature really would be rather nice. Doesn't happen very often, but once in a while, we spend an awful lot of time trying to track down clipping.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

 

Well I love to be wrong when it's to my benefit!

 

I need a few long sit-downs with the X3 manual and a few gallons of coffee, I think.

 

Thanks for pointing this out, Craig.

 

nat whilk ii

 

Glad it helped. I won't embarrass myself by saying it long it took me to find those.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...