Why Is Learning a DAW So Difficult?

[Anderton]

I've yet to see any DAW where the comments in reviews were "This program is really easy to use, I was up and recording music within a few minutes of booting up." Most everyone talks about how difficult DAWs are to learn, how user-hostile they are, etc. etc.

 

So...what do you think would make a DAW easier to learn? Here are some of my thoughts...

 

• Companies that make the interface and software have a unique opportunity to have the program open to a "hard-wired" setup that the user could later change if desired...but when you opened the project, it would have tracks ready to go, already assigned to inputs, etc.
  
• If you select a track, an LED would illuminate on the interface input.
  
• The auto-gain features in the Roland and Zoom interfaces are fantastic, there should be a button on every track that allows initiating it to set levels.
  

 

[philboking]

Having coded several UIs, I believe it takes a certain empathy.

And a big view of task flows that coders, mired in implementation details, cannot easily see.

To do it right, it also takes several passes to set it up as good as it can possibly be.

All of these translate into development costs that many companies are unwilling to pay.

[Mandolin Picker]

When I was doing live sound at our church, folks would look at our analog mixing board and state, "That looks too complicated. I don't know how you guys do it!". Now bear in mind it was 48 channel, 4-band EQ (upper and lower mids sweepable), 8 sends, mute/PFL, pan and fader. Nothing digital. If the 'average person' sees that board as complicated, imagine how they react to a DAW. Lots more options than you have on that analog board, and each option (like limiters, multi-band EQ, compressors, etc) add that much complication. Plus you have to know the audio interface to get the sound into the DAW. It is no wonder folks look at this stuff and say, "Man is this stuff complicated!"

 

However, it doesn't need to be that way. When I would explain the analog board to someone, I would start with a single channel strip, explain what each strip did, and they would get a basic understanding. Then when they are told the other 47 channels are just like the first channel, it no longer seems complicated. I think the same thing can be done with DAWs.

 

Years ago there was a free DAW called Kristal (it is still available for free at http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/). It was 16 channels (only audio, no midi), had 2 VST slots per channel, one master channel with 3 VST slots. The included effects were simple, incorporating the basic inputs you might find in an old style, non-digital outboard effects box. This 'restriction' made it great for new users. It reduced the number of 'decisions' they had to make. It was simple enough that when you made a decision to add an effect, you could 'hear' what you did.

 

I think SONAR may be on the right track with their option for 'lenses' that was recently released. It would seem that you could use the 'lenses' feature to reduce what the new user is able to see on the screen. Reduce the number of options, less decisions to make. Combine that with some tutorial videos and I think it would go a long way to easing someone into a DAW. Making it a 'step-by-step' process eases the user into the DAW (climbing the mountain one step at a time).

 

The other thing I think would help is an old fashion printed (dead tree) manual. You then have something sitting next to the computer that you can read plus see the same screen on the computer. Looking at a pdf on the same screen as the DAW is not the same thing. It is next to impossible to compare the pdf image to the DAW screen when you are switching back and forth between screens. To make matters worse, nearly every monitor today is HD, which means you are limited to a resolution of 1920 x 1080, regardless of the actual screen size (be it 18-inch or 60-inch). Since they are all the same resolution, you can't put more on the screen, instead the things on the screen just get bigger. So even if I had a 40-inch monitor, I still can't place the pdf alongside the DAW, as I am still at 1920 x 1080.

 

DAWs today are in a race to add new and wonderful tools with each new release. This is great for established users, but is a huge hurdle to the new users. In my opinion this is really short sighted, as you fail to expand your user base, and that will eventually kill off any company's product.

 

Sorry for the long rant

[MikeRivers]

 

For someone like me, who learned basic electricity, then electronics, then recording, there's nothing about a DAW that makes any physical sense. There's no sense of signal flow, and you need to find a particular spot on a picture (whether it's a menu selection or a drawing of a knob or button, point your mouse cursor to it, click, click your heels three times, put one finger on your nose, and then see what it is that you want to use. The problem is that it looks simple, but nearly everything you can do with an analog console and recorder is more complex and requires more coordination and dexterity when working on a DAW. Same applies to mixing on a digital console.

 

I'll grant that there are more features in a purely digital system, and some of them are pretty useful. But in order to use those features effectively, you have to be a system engineer and integrator working with abstract concepts like GUIs, software modules, and hardware I/O devices which have their own software. And "regular people" really don't know how to do that any more than they know how to operate a mixing console, multitrack recorder, and a splicing block.

 

You can make a lot of those things easier with some homework. For example, you can go into your interface box's software and assign logical names to the channels like you'd find on a patchbay. You can construct presets for typical recording tasks. You can organize your effects and virtual instrument libraries.

 

Expanding a DAW is often more complicated than meets the eye and pocketbook. For example, if you have a 16-channel mixer and you need 8 more channels, you can patch in an 8-channel console and do most (but not all) of the things you could do with a 24-channel console. But if you have an 8-channel interface and want to expand to 24 channels, not all operating systems will let you plug in a second interface, so you may need to purchase a 24-channel interface (awwww, go ahead, get 32 channels because you'll need them some day - think multiple headphone mixes, outboard hardware signal processing, and such), and that might mean getting a new computer to support it, and then you have the hassle of moving your DAW and projects to a new computer and making it work.

 

I could (and have) rant and rave about this, but in the end, digital is going to win out, and people who grew up playing computer games will relate to the DAW better than those of us who grew up listening to the radio and running around town with a tape recorder.

 

 

[nat whilk II]

There seems to be this floating expectation, out there drifting into brains all over the place, that, since computers are so "smart" that they should be able to make all tasks easy for us not-as-smart humans.

 

The advertising that software makers employ has a lot to do with this. Plus the fact that, yes, some software has been getting better at being user-friendly, easier to pick up. Like phones, readers, browsers.

 

But there are two paths to user-friendly. One path is to add features such as wizards, setup guides, step-by-step routines to give the user a solid intro and a base from which to then venture into more complex aspects. The other path is to just dumb the software down so that it does a whole lot less, offers the fewest choices possible, and claims it can get you where to need to go with no prior experience or education.

 

I like Cakewalk's method of providing different levels of Sonar - Home, Artist, Professional, Platinum. Start with the Home version and work up. Of course, if you're like me, you want the big, full package right off. I fully expect a full workout climbing the learning curve - I kind of thrive on that sort of challenge. The first synth I purchased - should have been something basic like a Minimoog or an MS-20. But no, I bought a Kurzweil K2000 because it was so loaded with features and fantastically complicated.

 

The deal is that DAW users develop their own working methods and pretty much stick to those once they're up and running. Take 20 moderately competent DAW users and you have 20 different methodologies at work. So it would be hard to impose a grid of "do it this way" except at the very beginning of the process.

 

The more you specialize the software (such as this version is for singer-songwriters or EDM or church or whatever) the smaller the market.

 

Sound recording, mixing, and mastering is just complicated. Just do the work, I say - and no, software is not here to make everything easy for you. It's to give you tools to expand the effectiveness of your own skills. Not to make those skills unnecessary.

 

nat

[Ernest Buckley]

DAWs offer to many options to the beginners eye.

 

When I first started working with a DAW in 2000 I was completely dumbfounded. I remember how long it took me just to get a signal! I had to call Sweetwater! Ridiculous when you think about it. Even after I had some tracks recorded, I remember thinking how unnatural the whole thing felt having to go to the mixer window and then when I wanted to mix everything down to two track... that involved going to File and scrolling down to "Bounce To Disc". 17 years later and DP still makes the simple complicated. And their manual which is as long as the bible was written so dry, its a real pain. I`ve been using DP since ver. 2.7... it has come a long way in features but dear God, the intuitiveness has not improved at all.

 

I started on Digital Performer which has a ridiculous amount of windows and mini-menus. Even to this day, even though I know DP much better, I find it to be overly complicated with all the windows and mini-menus.

 

This is why I love working with REASON... most of what I need is right there and all I have to do is drag and drop. I started using Ableton LIVE recently and I also appreciated the simplicity of their layout as well. I think going forward it would be wise for all developers to simplify: meaning to offer less windows, less mini-menus, and more drag and drop features.

 

Lastly, I think every single DAW should come with a video tutorial that runs inside the actual DAW to get the beginner comfortable, meaning they have a signal, they have MIDI, and they know how to access key features: quantization, editing audio, and mixing down to a stereo track.

 

The truth is YT definitely makes like easier, its now my go to for just about everything I need instruction in...

 

But in the end, every DAW would be wise to simplify the complicated... thats where genius lies.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I think that DAWs need a "basic button" - something that strips away all of the advanced options and features and leaves just the basics operational (and listed in the menus) - this, along with all of the assistance features mentioned in the OP (pre-configured layouts, track and input assignments, etc.) and tons of instrument specific presets for the basic EQ, compressor and delay/reverb would go a long way towards making things easier for the beginner. As it is now, a full-featured DAW just has too many things to learn, and neophytes usually don't know where to begin. It's option overload.

 

I started recording on a pair of two tracks - bouncing between the two decks. Then I went on to a four track... and I think there's a lot to be said for starting with the basics like that and learning how to record first - how to get things to sound good using various mic techniques. Sgt. Pepper aside, a four track forces you to keep the arrangements simpler and the overdubs to a relative minimum - and it also forces you to think in terms of the final result (when bouncing and pre-mixing) and it forces you to commit. All of those are things that I think would benefit a beginner in the long run. While I'm not suggesting that beginners today start with old analog decks like I did, they might want to consider starting with a more stripped down and basic DAW and focus on learning the fundamentals of recording first, and then start learning and incorporating some of the more advanced features once they have mastered the basics. A button that would pre-configure the DAW for that by stripping it down to the basics might be helpful to that end.

[WRGKMC]

People new to recording especially musicians have unfounded expectations. They think because they make music playing an instrument, they already possess everything they need to produce a hit recording. They also figure because they can browse the internet or navigate a cell phone they have all the technical background as well and its just a matter of reapplying what they already know.

 

Hollywood doesn't help here either. You'll see many movies about bands sitting in a control room making key mixing decisions and fans think those musicians acquired those skills through osmosis. In reality it more like an actor. You don't go from being a child in a grade school play to being a major movie producer over night. You may have all the positive energy in the world and a limitless passion to succeed but you simply have no concept of what's involved in making a great recording nor have you developed the skills to get the job done.

 

Yes you may be able to judge a great piece or music once its completed because you are a musician but its not the same thing as building that recording. Many non musicians can judge great art but the fact is, a man who makes bricks has to reeducate himself if he plans on being a great builder or an architect.

 

Acquiring the gear and software to record has never been simpler and less expensive then it has today and compared to the analog versions of gear its is by far much easier to operate. Acquisition and ownership doesn't make you good at anything. So many are sidetracked into thinking - If I only had this my music will be great and they chase the tail of that dragon till someone actually explains to them how foolish they are. Of course manufacturers of gear and software rely on people developing that acquisition syndrome to sell they're wares so its always going to be a tug of war between fact and fiction.

 

Most in music rely on dreams and alternate realities. Its at the essence of music as an art form. The recording requires at least a basic understanding in the science of sound to use the tools of the trade. The ability to track, mix, master, are just as much an art form as playing an instrument and does take a good deal of time and effort to even begin to show results.

 

The big problem with DAW manufacturers is most who use the software are already well versed in its use. Manuals are fine for someone who knows how to engineer a recording but what about the people who haven't got a clue. They often have to struggle blindly into the world of engineering not knowing any basics at all and having failure after failure, not because there is anything wrong with the software or gear, but because they're expectations were so high and they're skill levels so low.

 

The music industry hasn't done anything to change musicians perceptions either. That guy behind the glass is just a geeky with no fan following paid by the recording company to do grunt work. There isn't anything to that job, especially for a musician who can strut his wares on stage and garner an applause. Same thing for sound guys right?

 

That perception begins to change when someone tries to record themselves. They begin to appreciate the pioneers in recording from Edison who made the first audio recording to the Tom Dowd's who not only made great recordings but had to build most of they're own gear they used from scratch.

 

Education in both the use of a DAW but everything leading up to it is important in putting the role of audio engineering in perspective. Those in the industry have always tended to be what I'd call Jealous Gods who often intentionally mask they're skills to protect they're trade and they're jobs, (what few good jobs are left since the onset of the internet and collapse of the recording industry)

 

Knowing the role of engineering is essential to using the gear itself. Unless you develop the proper mindset, stepping out of the role as musician and into the role of an engineer the ability to rapidly learn the trade is handicapped. A musician is always going to cling to what he knows best and make poor decisions when it comes to recording because of this.

 

What can make it easier to learn? It can begin with the software manufacturers websites being tiered for beginner, novice and professional. Information pros need isn't going to be the same as what beginners need, neither are the products they sell. I can guarantee you if I google Cakewalk up, the first thing I'll come across is they're pro line with descriptions no beginner can possibly understand. Its great they have a high end product and it may wow someone whose new to recording. It may even coax them into buying that product but what happens after that. The person who buys it struggles to make the simplest of recordings and is overwhelmed by the technology. They dig and dig thinking there's some hidden formula within it all and eventually give up highly discouraged.

 

DAW's are extremely inexpensive compared to they're hardware counterparts and seekers will inevitably buy something much too technical for they're skill levels. This is why its important a basic package is designed to give the beginner the essentials that are both easy to operate but educational. Maybe an example would be plugins with minimal tweaks to get the jobs done and high quality preset options. Instead of a compressor having 10 knobs for every tweak possible, you limit it to 3.

 

As the user is able to produce good recordings or as the program detects the need for additional tweaks the program unmasks the controls the user needs. Maybe some A.I. or popups are needed for a beginner setting his recording levels and there can be links they can click on to take them to sights explaining the science in back of it all.

 

It would be an ambitious task but I used to be both a curriculum writer and a teacher and know it can be done. The question is, does a manufacturer want to develop something like that and how profitable would it actually be. Maybe having an educational package like that supported by some technical support people who can message/chat with the user when he's actually using the DAW and showing little progress would be something people are willing to pay for. There are surely plenty of forums with people asking questions. having it done in real time where they can be given real time support when mixing or tracking would be valuable to many, especially if it gets them decent recordings in the end.

 

 

[Etienne Rambert]

I've yet to see any DAW where the comments in reviews were "This program is really easy to use, I was up and recording music within a few minutes of booting up."

 

Most everyone talks about how difficult DAWs are to learn, how user-hostile they are, etc. etc.

• Companies that make the interface and software have a unique opportunity to have the program open to a "hard-wired" setup that the user could later change if desired...but when you opened the project, it would have tracks ready to go, already assigned to inputs, etc.
  
• If you select a track, an LED would illuminate on the interface input.
  
• The auto-gain features in the Roland and Zoom interfaces are fantastic, there should be a button on every track that allows initiating it to set levels.
  

 

Maybe that's because the leading DAW's are difficult to master and seem hostile to consumer-level users. How could they be better? Hire people like me to work in the design and beta testing process. I am very hostile to badly thought-out unintuitive designs on any product.

 

 

Simplicity and intuitiveness are my number 1 concern. Running down bugs is an example of bad design. I've said it before. I think DAW's are dinosaurs doomed to extinction. Why? They are too complicated to learn and to use.

 

Another area of improvement would be more effective technical support. Dumping a consumer into a stupid forum dedicated to the DAW's bugs is an insult AFAIC. It shows no consideration or empathy to customers who spent their hard-earned money to purchase that product.

 

A recent DAW that is easy and intuitive is Auria for iPads. It doesn't meet my MIDI needs. But it is a beautiful design that allowed me to master it in less than an hour. It's a mixing board. What is easier than that?

 

 

As for MIDI, I'm looking at Magix. I'm looking at Cakewalk/Sonar. My first concern is ease of use. I can get a free Cubase w/a mixer I recently purchased. I haven't even bothered to download it. Binnair dunnat w/Cubase I won't get suckered again.

 

My experience w/Sonar tech support has been very good via email. No need to spend hours in an Internet forum trying to find the answer to a stupid problem. Sonar people really did their best to help me along. But I think the UI is still too complicated. There is a SONAR University that's more helpful than a stupid Internet forum. But a "university" for a DAW should not be necessary. If the software was simpler and more intuitive, there would be no need for a SONAR University. The fact that it exists at all is an admission that the software is too difficult to use.

 

Magix seems to have folded Vegas video and Soundforge into its DAW. I know how to use both Vegas and Soundforge. So I'm seriously considering buying the the Magix DAW.

 

But the future is clear for for complicated DAW's IMO. Counter-intuitive, difficult-to-use DAW's are on their way to extinction. Soon enough there will be easy to use DAW's folded into computer operating systems and there will be hardware DAW's much easier to use and containing the features everyone needs. There may even be DAW's folded into plugs.

 

I will enjoy watching these DAW dinosaurs die. Consumers are demanding ease-of-use. Most DAW's give ease-of-use short-shrift. The consumer market will make those companies pay - put that in the bank.

 

NB: Old Digital Orchestrator Pro was a very easy-to-use DAW. Tracks were tracks. A single mouse click allowed you to assign digital audio or MIDI for that track. A single mouse click assigned the MIDI channel. A single mouse click assigned fx.

 

The big companies like Steinberg, Logic and SONAR might want to have a look at that interface. It took about a half hour to completely master it.

[MikeRivers]

I think that DAWs need a "basic button" - something that strips away all of the advanced options and features and leaves just the basics operational (and listed in the menus)

 

The trick is to decide what's "basic." But one thing that people seem to not get the hang of very quickly is the concept that your software will let you record 163 tracks, give or take a hundred, but your interface has only two outputs that you can feed to those tracks. If they used a patchbay in an analog setup, the concept of opening a drop-down menu on a track and selecting what might be a cryptically named source [Onyx1 when they don't even realize that their interface is an Onyx] for that track is going to be strange. Give them a matrix and it's even more confusing. And for any of that to work, the software has to be able to know what the hardware is calling itself.

 

I kind of liked the idea that Alesis came up with for the ADAT. Since most people were using it with either a 2-bus, 4-bus, or 8-bus mixer, you told it what you had and if you pushed the 2-bus button, Input 1 was routed to tracks 1, 3, 5, and 7 while Input 2 was routed to tracks 2, 4, 6, and 8. You could plug 2 mics into your mixer and record on two tracks at once, plug one mic into your mixer and use the mixer's pan pot to send it to odd or even numbered tracks. Similarly in the 4-bus mode, inputs 1, 2, 3, and 4 were routed to tracks 1 and 5, 2 and 6, 3 and 7, and 4 and 8 respectively. In the 8-bus mode each track got its own bus output. No patchbay or cable swapping needed.

 

Perhaps a "basic mode" could automatically assign sources to tracks automatically based on the output stream count of the interface. But that would complicate things for the person who had only one microphone, or wanted to use the same microphone to record four vocal tracks. Whaddaya do?

 

PreSonus Studio One together with a PreSonus interface can do this sort of routing, but you need to know to go to the Audio section of the menu and tell it what you want it to do with those two, or eight, or thirty-two output streams.

 

I started recording on a pair of two tracks - bouncing between the two decks. Then I went on to a four track... and I think there's a lot to be said for starting with the basics like that and learning how to record first - how to get things to sound good using various mic techniques.

 

By the time I wrapped up my Oops Wrong Button series in Recording Magazine, every beginner was starting out with a DAW of some sort. My last article in that series was a challenge - pretend you have only eight tracks, and if you need more, bounce. That taught a few lessons - first, how to route the source to the track you want to record record. Then, it taught you to listen to what you're doing, because you'll almost certainly be using it in your final mix, and finally, bouncing forced you to make decisions as to how the tracks you'll be erasing will be mixed.

 

Would a DAW that came out of the box that way sell? Maybe a better question would be what percentage of its users would work that way and then move up to a more DAW-like workflow, and what percentage would work that way for the rest of their recording career.

 

 

[nat whilk II]

Interesting points, all. Ok, I'll accept that DAWs should work towards more ease of use. Now I've been using DAWs too long to remember clearly what it was like when I first tried to figure out Cakewalk version minus 12 or whatever it was....so here's my here one big simple idea that I would (not really) die for...

 

A DAW that responds to vocal commands. The products that outfits like Dragon make are incredible. It would be nothing for one of those programs to translate simple voice commands into keystrokes. "Open Audio Track" "Name Guitar Solo" "Signal Chain Strat One" "Tempo 120" "Key E Major" "Time Three Four" "Arm" "Count In Two Measure" "Record".

 

From there, how wonderful if I could say "Maximize view track six" "Go To Measure 64" "Loop Record Measures 64 through 86" and so on. The mind boggles. Maybe I could burn my mouse.

 

nat

[MikeRivers]

That's way too complicated. How about "Add a drum track like Ringo would play it"

[nat whilk II]

The electric guitar amp sim programs, and also Reason (as mentioned by Ernest above) I think are on the right track - visual representations of hardware gear makes for at-a-glance orientation for the user as to what's going on.

 

A wizard that asks maybe a dozen questions when you start a project, e.g.

 

how many tracks?

 

what will go on each track? (live recording, VST, midi, sample loops/clips, etc.)

 

what do want on the basic board? (all tracks get these - faders, eq, comp, send/returns, inserts) Standard presets available.

 

what outboard hardware do you want available? (reverbs, harmonizer, comp, eq, delays, limiters, etc) Standard presets available.

 

From there (more or less) you tell the software to "build the studio" and it does so, giving you a visual representation of what you've asked for. You can drill down on any piece of equipment to tweak.

 

Then you just go into session mode, hopefully with a voice-command feature, tell it which track you're going to record to, hit the red light and you're off...

 

Probably way too simplistic and harder to do than it sounds....but I can dream.

 

nat

 

[MikeRivers]

Probably way too simplistic and harder to do than it sounds....but I can dream.

 

It probably is easier than it sounds BUT FIRST YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE FUNDAMENTALS. Today's DAW users don't, and that's why manufacturers try to make something that lets you record without knowing anything. That's the part that doesn't really work very well.

 

Make it clear that the little box with the pull-down window on the left end of a track graphic is where you define whether the track is MID, audio, or a combination of both (VSTi), and what the source for the track is. The thing that needs to be made automatic (and this may require some configuration by the user) is to name those sources so you'll know how to select the mic you have set up in front of the vocalist, or which keyboard you'll be playing the virtual instrument part on.

 

Then you have to understand monitoring, but that's a little harder.

[Mark L]

It took me years to suss out how to record stuff on a DAW. I still probably don't use about 90% of the features on mine. There's too much information. I like things kept simple

 

I drive a bloody car delivering dental lab work, for God's sake! I'm not intelligent enough to know how to operate a computer-based digital audio workstation

[MikeRivers]

I drive a bloody car delivering dental lab work, for God's sake! I'm not intelligent enough to know how to operate a computer-based digital audio workstation

 

These days, some DAWs are easier to operate than a car. Did you ever try to disable the "feature" that unlocks all the doors when you shift into Park? On a Toyota, it involves a combination of turning the ignition switch on and off a specific number of times while holding the door lock button. I have a PDF copy of that page in the owner's manual saved on my phone in the event that my rental car doesn't have an owner's manual in the glove box. And I spent half an hour in the hotel parking lot with a Nissan and its owner's manual trying to make it stop locking the doors automatically. It's not possible, at least not without cutting some wires (which would disable all the electric door locking/unlocking entirely - so I lived with it and know not to buy a Nissan. And without knowing the lingo, it's clumsy to set up a Bluetooth phone to talk to the car radio.

 

DAWs are similar in that not every program calls the same function or feature by the same name. If you use just one or two programs, eventually you'll learn the vocabulary, and that makes understanding instructions and menus easier (or possible).

 

 

 

 

[nat whilk II]

 

It probably is easier than it sounds BUT FIRST YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE FUNDAMENTALS. Today's DAW users don't, and that's why manufacturers try to make something that lets you record without knowing anything. That's the part that doesn't really work very well.

 

 

Absolutely agree that you need to understand the fundamentals. But I'll quibble about whether you have to learn them first or not.

 

It's like the difference between learning an instrument as a student, following a time-test curriculum, or learning as most amateurs learn, bit by bit accruing on a sort of random path.

 

I'm 99% self-taught, and I certainly spend a lot of time back-filling the gaps in my understanding as a musician, a songwriter, and a home studio type. But learning the "proper" way from the ground up, curriculum-style, can be a stifling, dreary process that leads to a lot of lost interest and wasted money on lessons.

 

I think there's something to the idea of just getting down to making music - getting it down as a recording as job one - good or bad doesn't matter for any particular newbie project. That's what we did as kids with reel-to-reel and cassette records. Plugged in a mic, got after it, had something to show off (or erase.) Then we'd upgrade to a better mic, or something with four tracks like a Portastudio. Step by step, making actual music all the way. It's not a bad trade-off I think, getting some sounds down right now, getting more proficient with the technicalities later. At some point, yes, the technicalities absolutely matter if you want to move on towards a professional sounding result. But not even McCartney had the patience for lessons and tedious technicality - and who can argue with his sort of success?

 

nat

 

 

 

 

[Mandolin Picker]

I frequent a web site called 'Recording Revolution' and in his blog post today he talked about DAWs and how switching DAWs is not a smart thing to do. One of the biggest reasons he gives is that you have to learn all over how to do things. He states DAWs are complicated pieces of software and as each DAW does things differently to get to the same end point. His contention is that you should stick with the DAW you have and know, otherwise you are going backwards and will not improve your recordings.

 

https://www.recordingrevolution.com/switching-daws-can-ruin-your-recordings/

 

Which brings me back to this discussion. How much of the issues people have with learning a new DAW are related to them switching software? Is a major issue (problem) the fact that they learned how to do stuff on one DAW and switched, and even though the new DAW does the same thing, the process to get it done is different and thus 'harder'? And if this is indeed the case, is there really anything that can be done to change that?

[MikeRivers]

How much of the issues people have with learning a new DAW are related to them switching software? Is a major issue (problem) the fact that they learned how to do stuff on one DAW and switched' date=' and even though the new DAW does the same thing, the process to get it done is different and thus 'harder'? And if this is indeed the case, is there really anything that can be done to change that?[/quote']

 

My problem isn't in switching from one DAW to another, it's in switching from hardware to software, from tactile controls to graphical imitations, and from logical signal flow to seemingly arbitrary signal flow. I know that signal flow it isn't really arbitrary in a DAW, but connecting the pieces to create the desired signal flow isn't always obvious. I get frustrated because what's (to me, anyway) a simple operation in a hardware system often requires more steps in a DAW.

 

I realize that DAWs can do amazing things that are darn near impossible with a hardware system, but 99% of the time, all I need to do is hook up some mics, press Record, and manipulate faders to get a good mix.

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

Now that I'm thinking about it' date=' Craig, your first suggestion could work really well, having everything "hard wired" and ready to go. That's what we want. For most scenarios, that would be useful, wouldn't it?[/quote']

 

It doesn't help raw beginners as much, but for experienced folks, I highly recommend creating and using templates for your most commonly-used layouts - it can really speed things up in terms of the setup, creating tracks, naming them and assigning routing, etc.

[electrow]

Perhaps the question really is: why weren't DAWs designed with ease of use in mind in the first place? Is there such a thing as craftsmanship in the digital realm? We accept time-consuming software glitches as just part of the product. Years ago I was told by a programmer that newer faster hardware was not needed just cleaner more efficient code. Is this true or myth today? I’m beginning to think major software programs , like DAWs, are becoming more bloat ware than anything else.

 

 

My contention is that DAWs are not designed to truly inspire, although the developer may think or honestly intend so. DAWs have become collection centers for endless plugins and feature saturation. It would be one thing if each plugin and feature was simple and intuitive enough to master over a short period of time, but many have enough depth that it can take years to do so which probably rarely happens.

 

Since the main focus is to sell product , the music software industry ends up overwhelming the customer. The assumption is that we won't buy or upgrade unless new bells and whistles are added to the product. Just how many new creative "possibilities" do we need from our DAW? The magnitude of possibilities in one respect is a bit of a joke. Should I explore routing possibilities, or maybe search my library of a multitude of FXs to come up with the perfect combination for a particular track or try some track layering for a thicker sound? Change this sound for another? And on and on. How many of us really desire transparency over possibilities? Anyone who is going to make music ends up restricting themselves anyway, yet at the same time it’s easy to get sucked into new possibilities

 

And then there's the manual which is a thousand plus page PDF. Great for a quick lookup but a crappy way to read from cover to cover IMHO. But who reads manuals anyway I guess? My point is we aren’t really indicating to the industry that we want solid, intuitive simplicity in DAWs or any digital music software for that matter. The matter is compounded when you feel you have to deal with continual “maintenance” upgrades, hardware driver glitches etc. let alone dealing with the computer OS “upgrades” which are no longer in the user’s control (at least on the PC side – in general terms).

 

I had been using Cubase since the Atari days. Since last September I stopped using it. I felt bogged down, creative inspiration lost in distractions of all the things I could do with Cubase, when all I really wanted was a stable system and more hands on control. I thought about going the all hardware route but found it to be too costly for me. I needed to narrow my focus. I ended up using Native Instruments Maschine (which I had bought for a sound design project), ignoring the whole beat based focus, as I saw it as much more than what it is marketed to be. I treat the Maschine environment as if it were a DAW – its limitations as ways of narrowing focus. This year I've felt more productive and inspired in a long time. Simply by adapting the less is more adage.

Had there not been integrated controllers I wouldn't have made the switch. The fact that there are integrated physical controllers is key to me. It really begs the question as to why the major DAWs don't supply affordable dedicated controllers. The easy answer is economics.

 

Still, how many musicians prefer turning a knob or moving a slider with a mouse? And then there's the size of the GUI and the limited ability to adjust the size, if not the DAW, many plug-ins seem designed with a "one size fits all" approach. In the last version of Reason I tried the mixer was so dense looking I felt it needed a 60" minimum screen. Ergonomics is really important for me. A mouse driven DAW just kills it for me. We tend to forget that, as obvious as it is – and it is worth repeating - selling product comes first. Ease of use is secondary.

 

 

What would it be like to have a developer who was focused on an inspiring DAW? And strived to put out a solid bug free DAW with well integrated “components” – soft and hard, in-depth manuals, intuitive use – would that be the workings of craftsmanship?

 

I wonder…

[MikeRivers]

Perhaps the question really is: why weren't DAWs designed with ease of use in mind in the first place?

 

The simple reason is that they were initially designed by programmers, not recording engineers. That's how it started. Also, the software design process has evolved.

 

Yesterday:

• The users developed the functional design specification - this defined what the product has to do, how fast, and how the user would interface with the software. This went through a design review process to be sure the final product would actually do what was intended
  
• The system engineers figured out how functions would be allocated between software and hardware.
  
• The software engineers defined how the functional blocks code would be implemented in order to meet the design requirements. This usually went through several stages of design review before the final software design is reached
  
• The programmers implemented the software design with code
  
• The test department tried to break it and sent it back to the programmers to fix the bugs
  
• The marketing department went to work selling it
  

 

Today:

• The marketing department tells the programmers what they thing the users want
  
• The marketing deaprtment asks a few studio engineers what cool features they would like to see
  
• The programmers try to make it
  
• The marketing department throws it out to the world.
  

 

My contention is that DAWs are not designed to truly inspire, although the developer may think or honestly intend so. DAWs have become collection centers for endless plugins and feature saturation.

 

Isn't that what a dream studio is? The difference is that engineers used to work with what they could afford, or build themselves, or what was available in the market. But they had to balance space and dollar budget with utility. You didn't have a box taking up space if you didn't use it. But software doesn't take up space (other than disk and memory space) and you only need to buy one virtual box to have as many as you need at your disposal.

 

Since the main focus is to sell product , the music software industry ends up overwhelming the customer. The assumption is that we won't buy or upgrade unless new bells and whistles are added to the product. Just how many new creative "possibilities" do we need from our DAW?

 

The thing is that the evolution of the DAW has changed the customer base. A studio had one console (one in each room if it was a multi-room studio), the console's EQ, a couple of outboard compressors and equalizers, a recorder, and that was it - and it cost a quarter of a million bucks when you added a useful collection of microphones. Today, most DAW software is sold to musicians who have no space or budget, or even engineering knowledge and skills. They have a functional box that allows them to play around with the same sort of tools that they'd find in the recording studio that they could never afford. Some figure it out, some don't.

 

The professional studio, because it's their business, learns to use the new tools in efficient ways.

 

Also, the way we make music has evolved, as a result of the DAW. Today you don't need a microphone to record instrumental music (fortunately, you still need one to record vocals). Some musicians are completely happy working like that. Pro studios learn to use these DAW tools to enhance, rather than enable, the work of creative artists.

 

And then there's the manual which is a thousand plus page PDF. Great for a quick lookup but a crappy way to read from cover to cover IMHO. But who reads manuals anyway

 

I agree about manuals, but it's not practical for one manual to be a tutorial on creating music (or whatever) with the DAW. A whole lot of DAW programs are sold to people who have little or no knowledge of the recording process and workflow, so they don't what to look for in the manual. They don't start out as studio interns and learn the basic process and where they can branch off. And that isn't something that you can learn from a book.

 

The matter is compounded when you feel you have to deal with continual “maintenance” upgrades, hardware driver glitches etc. let alone dealing with the computer OS “upgrades” which are no longer in the user’s control (at least on the PC side – in general terms).

 

That's a real problem. When your 8 track recorder was no longer adequate for your projects, you bought a 16 track recorder and it worked just like your 8 track recorder. Even the transition from analog to digital recording (a TASCAM 80-8 to an Alesis ADAT) wasn't all that difficult. The ADAT, right from the start, had the same kind of input/sync monitor switching as an analog multitrack recorder. But that important function went out the window with the first software DAW that depended on a computer sound card for the audio input and output.

 

But computer manufacturers gotta stay in business, as do operating system designers. So computers and operating systems, which weren't designed with a recording studio in mind, continue to make themselves obsolete. On the other hand, while my Mackie hard disk recorder/editor was designed in 1998-1999 and uses an Intel motherboard, it used a proprietary operating system and the software and hardware were designed in the same shop so they worked well together. It still works. One of these days, the motherboard will die and I won't be able to buy a modern one off the shelf to replace it, but there were only 4 software updates over its product life, and none of them broke anything. But products like this are too expensive for the home musician DAW crowd.

 

 

What would it be like to have a developer who was focused on an inspiring DAW? And strived to put out a solid bug free DAW with well integrated “components” – soft and hard, in-depth manuals, intuitive use – would that be the workings of craftsmanship?…

 

They'd probably sell a few. I've often thought that this stuff is just too inexpensive. When it cost a quarter of a milliion dollars to equip a studio, there were a handful of studios in most major cities. Now there are thousands of studios in every city, TASCAM and Akai, and let's not forget Fairlight, have designed very well integrated software/hardware solutions, but the majority of today's DAW users are having fun with the computer they already own and a few hundred bucks worth of software. A few of them are pretty successfu and are happy working with what they can afford. I suspect that this is the case with most of the people who visit this forum.

 

I'm an exception. I still have gear that I was using 40 years ago, and I'm still recording the kind of music I was recording 40 years ago, so it still works for me. I have no need for soft synths, drum editors, bass enhancers, and such, just some good microphones. But individuals are all different, and I can completly understand how easy it is to get frustrated with a DAW - becuase I get that way, too when I try to use one. Fortunately I don't need to use a software DAW very often.

 

 

[nat whilk II]

Mike is right in that software has changed. At least the big expertise systems that are mass-marketed. Spreadsheets, word processors, bookkeeping programs, graphics suites, video production suites, they all have manuals with page counts that run to four figures. Systems used to be written to save time, to streamline tasks. Now they are written to provide features and flexibility.

 

I sympathize with newbies and in many ways, I'm still struggling, too - but on the other hand, the complaints about too-much-complexity seemed a tad tainted with laziness. Get a random sampling of 20 newbies totally fresh to DAWs, hand them all something like Sonar, come back in a year or two, and see who's done what. Like with anything else, most will have tinkered their way into a little actual production of middling amateur quality. A few will have given up. And a few will have run with it, obsessed over it, delved and cussed and studied and experimented and kept at it, and have some truly impressive results to show.

 

Too many choices - sure there are. So what to do? Dumb down the choices? Or become a more focused and persistent chooser?

 

I'm all for the DAWs to improve themselves for users at all levels, don't get me wrong. But I'm not going to wait for it - I'll work it out for myself and move on.

 

nat

 

[MikeRivers]

Oh, and another thing - it's about the music. Much of today's music can't be performed, and can only be created with the tools that a DAW provides. Me, I record fiddlers, banjo players, guitarists, and singers. Occasonally an accordion, flute, or piano. It's all real stuff and doesn't need to be time stretched, distorted, re-clocked to a tempo grid, or to have every element of the mix sound HUGE.

And sometimes people dance to it, but get airplay? Not unless you consider your Facebook page a radio station. But for many, EDM and other software based music composition is the only form of music that they know.

[shmuelyosef]

I agree with Craig's initial thoughts about the "Lens" function in SONAR. To get more people using a DAW, I think that the Portastudio is a really good model. If Cakewalk built a DAW with a Portastudio record functionality and ProChannel mixing capability 'wrapped' by a lens it would be a huge addition, particularly if they could get it bundled with the likes of a Focusrite Scarlett aor a MOTU MicroBook, or....

 

I still see some talented young musicians recording multitrack with portastudios (at least not the tape kind) because its all-in-one. If their laptop plus a box was as simple as turning on a Portastudio AND they got 8-track or 16-track mixdown it would be a knockout.