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Do DAWs Look...Ugly??


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Came across an article over at "The Outline" (https://theoutline.com/post/2157/why-are-there-so-many-knobs-in-garage-band) that proposes that there are "too many knobs" in the modern day DAW. That one of the big problems with any DAW or plug-in is that too many of them look too much like their analog counterpart. And this gets in the way of working with the DAW:

 

"[M]odern music software is designed to work completely “in-the-box”; everything gets made inside the computer without any external hardware. That means there are no wires or sliders involved in making sounds. And especially now that a generation of musicians has been raised on GarageBand and iPads, does it really make sense to cover a piece of software in wood paneling? The rest of computing has moved on from felt and brushed aluminum, and this is getting embarrassing."

 

 

So what do you think? Is the 'look' of the DAW a major issue, a minor issue, or a non-issue?

 

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My problem with DAWs is that they don't have enough knobs. But, yeah, they do look ugly. Many allow you to customize the graphics and only show what you need to see, but that doesn't work for me. It's like putting something that's in the way somewhere else, and then you have to keep going after it.

 

I think that one of the things that have led to what's become the conventional DAW user interface is the way that most people use them. In the tape days, we recorded with the console in front of us and the recorder was off in a corner or in another room. The only thing we needed from the recorder was on its hardware remote controller - transport control buttons, track arming buttons, and usually a time/position display. Although recorders usually had meters, the console had meters, too, and that's what you watched while tracking. You recorded the tracks, and then you mixed. To apply this to a DAW, you'd (OK, I'd) want a full console with meter bridge, and just barely enough of the track view to see where there was something recorded, with perhaps the ability to click on a track to expand it for an edit, then put it away. .

 

Today, track editing has become integral with the recording process. Instead of just punching in a vocal phrase on a pretty good track, you record the track 16 times, then before recording the backup vocal, you fiddle with all of those tracks to make the perfect vocal track. When you record drums, you fiddle with the drum tracks before you record the guitar. For recording in this style, you'd want the conventional DAW track view with just a simple mixer so you could set monitor levels while tracking/editing and then blow it up with all the bells and whistles for mixdown.

 

What I'd like to see is a simple one-click way to see what I want to see when I want to see it. This might be impossible because there are too many possible views for there to be an on/off choice. When I'm (trying to) work in Reaper, I make the track window as small as possible, with the mixer and transport controls occupying most of the screen area. There are track arming buttons on the mixer channel strip so I have everything there that I need in order to record. I can have a simple monitor mixer for headphones plus the main mixer for the control room monitors. What I think I'd like to see is a button on the channel strips that would pop that track up so I could edit it if I wanted to do a quick edit while tracking. If I want to work on lots of tracks, I can make the mixer temporarily disappear, but since I didn't grow up editing within tracks on the multitrack recorder, I'm not tempted to do that.

 

I've been dabbling with Mixbus, but since it has more of the console controls in view all the time (that's its selling point) I really need a monitor about the size of my 24-channel Soundcraft console in order to use it comfortably.

 

 

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Yeah, I skimmed the article and it gave me the impression that the writer isn't an audio engineer. Can the look of DAW programs be improved? Almost certainly... Can DAW programs have "fewer knobs and buttons"? I'm not so sure.

 

Back when I was using a large analog console people used to be overwhelmed by the number of knobs, but would be less confused once I explained the concept of a channel strip and how they're replicated 32 times (or whatever) and each one is used for an individual part. It made them realize that there was less to "learn" and more organization and logic behind a mixing board's design than the "sea of knobs and buttons" might have initially made it appear.

 

The thing is, at one time or another, we NEED all of those controls - and more besides. A program might "hide" them until you need them, but having to hunt down a feature in a sea of menus isn't very helpful from a time / efficiency / productivity standpoint either, so we all dutifully memorize our various keyboard shortcuts.

 

If a DAW became more intelligent and could identify the types of tasks you were currently working on and anticipated your needs and automatically presented just those types of controls and options to you at that specific time, that would certainly be helpful. It would reduce the screen clutter, but not the overall number of available controls and options hidden deep within the program - it would just hide the stuff you didn't really need at the moment while presenting what you needed. I think we'll see more of that in the future as AI becomes more mature and capable. We won't have fewer controls, but we'll only see what we need at any given time. And it's also possible we'll get intelligent assistants that handle more of the mundane tasks while leaving the creative decisions to the user. We're already starting to see some of that as well.

 

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Came across an article over at "The Outline" (https://theoutline.com/post/2157/why...in-garage-band) that proposes that there are "too many knobs" in the modern day DAW. That one of the big problems with any DAW or plug-in is that too many of them look too much like their analog counterpart. And this gets in the way of working with the DAW:
"[M]odern music software is designed to work completely “in-the-box”; everything gets made inside the computer without any external hardware. That means there are no wires or sliders involved in making sounds. And especially now that a generation of musicians has been raised on GarageBand and iPads' date=' does it really make sense to cover a piece of software in wood paneling? The rest of computing has moved on from felt and brushed aluminum, and this is getting embarrassing."[/indent']

So what do you think? Is the 'look' of the DAW a major issue, a minor issue, or a non-issue?

 

 

Major issue for me and a serious creative drive killer if a DAW isn't customizable.

Personally, I am an extreme minimalist or purist. I enjoy wide open spaces, Montana, Wyoming, Large Corn fields and so on.

 

I know all of these Software are customization and so it's not like you can't make configurations but it's just a constant distraction.

 

As long as I can remove or hide things away then I have no issues. It becomes a problem when customization is limited.

 

 

 
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So what do you think? Is the 'look' of the DAW a major issue, a minor issue, or a non-issue?

 

Yes. It's a major issue to a new customer. That adds to the difficult to understand and use problem.

 

So DAWs are ugly, cluttered and hard-to-use. They make an intimidating first impression. Genius marketing for a product like that.

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Jeez, the article guy says, among all the rest of the useless complaining, that A circular control is extremely difficult to operate precisely with a mouse.

 

Ok, class, can anyone tell the expert article-writer how to make fine adjustments, using a mouse, when dealing with a virtual knob? Anyone? Yes, Billy?

 

Um, yeah, um you like move the mouse like down and keep going like?

 

That's correct, Billy. Have you been using DAWs for a long time?

 

Um, yes ma'am, my dad set me up with one about a month ago, so I got good at getting around it since then. I ain't no stoopid noob like the guy with the article.

 

nat

 

 

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You know, in many ways they are. I sit here at my desk and look at the near-field monitors I have, the blue front, wood-grain sides, silver speaker cones. The mixing board, with its multi-color knobs and faders, buttons that click on and off, lights that come on and off in different colors, meters that light up and needles that move. Then there is the instruments themselves, be it a mandolin, guitar, dulcimer, auto-harp or low whistle - the color of the woods, the curves of the body, the details carved into the sound holes, the pearl inlays. The look of music is really beautiful. So why shouldn't our DAW software reflect that beauty as well?

 

The fact is that we could have DAWs that are nothing but a solid grey panel with standard sliders, option buttons. check boxes, etc. And our DAW software would look like the overwhelming majority of business software on the market. Just another dull grey/white screen that gets the job done.

 

But music is art, and the things we use to create that art should reflect that. I like the plugins that look like real-world counterparts, that have a depth to them, and knobs to turn, and buttons to push, and meters that move. To me, it helps bring life to the music. It shows that it really is an art form, and not just another task to be done - like entering data and creating reports.

 

I think it will be a sad day indeed when our tools no longer look like art, but are simply the minimum that are needed to 'get the job done'. I think the music will suffer as well, being created in a dull lifeless environment.

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It's an old design problem - handsome individual elements, when all crammed together, make a bad overall impression.

 

The problem, seems to me (always ready with an opinion regardless of qualifications :)) is that a good interface needs to follow basic good UI design concepts. Take car dashboards/control panel as an example, here's a breakdown:

 

1 - a new dashboard can't be too different than what we're all used to coming in. So we can intuit our way around a new model with new bells and whistles. If it's too cluttered, it's not simply a problem of being ugly and confusing, but it's downright dangerous. Some pretty serious constraints exist for cars that don't exactly exist for DAWs of course. But the principle still holds. Capitalize on intuition, but push the envelope just so with each new model.

 

2 - new cars have new capabilities and those need to be reasonably accessible or else people just won't use them. I still don't know how to set the auto-pilot speed control on our 6-year-old Prius. Not that I particularly care, but I can tell you, just looking closely at all the physical controls won't reveal the secret to turning it on and adjusting it. So I don't bother.

 

3- a sexy dashboard is a huge part of the appeal of the new models, no question. I'm totally into the aesthetics of cars, not so much into the horsepower or RPMs (I'll just get into trouble if you give me a powerful engine.) So I do want the beauty of high-tech knobs and lights and dials and readouts and all that jazz. But there's a saturation point where confusion and an overwhelmed feeling take over - not good, I'll pass on that model. The designers have to juggle familiarity and eye-appeal. Not an easy job, but hey, I'm paying.

 

If you read around about car models and car design critics, there's a lot of buzz about overly-complicated dashboards. The digital capabilities are multiplying so fast and are ostensibly wanted by the public, but the dashboard has been crammed and made far too complex, so that a lot of the capabilities are just going unused. Sound familiar, DAW users? In typical fashion, the cutting edge seems to be heading toward having the car "decide" what info and controls you need in context. Hmmm....something in that I really don't like.

 

It's a puzzle for designers and a challenge for users, this interface-design issue. It's good to keep perspective 'tho - it's the problems of the wealthy, no question. Can't get too upset about it.

 

nat

 

 

 

 

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- new cars have new capabilities and those need to be reasonably accessible or else people just won't use them. I still don't know how to set the auto-pilot speed control on our 6-year-old Prius. Not that I particularly care, but I can tell you, just looking closely at all the physical controls won't reveal the secret to turning it on and adjusting it. So I don't bother.

 

I drive a 2003 car, which I bought new. It takes me a while to find things on a rental car, and many times I've downloaded the owner's manual if the book version isn't with the car, just to find simple things like where the dashboard light dimmer is, and how to set the clock (which is usually incorrect because someone tried to tune the radio and pushed a wrong button). And then there's the automatic door locks that lock you in when you start driving (not all that bad) and unlock all the doors when you put the gearshift in Park (could be scary). All of those things can be changed somewhat (although I don't think there's a recent Nissan that won't lock you in), but some are controlled by a menu on a touch screen, some have an LCD and a scroll-and-select knob, Toyotas have a complex series of holding down a door lock button while turning the ignition switch on and off while hopping up and down on your right foot with your umbrella open. I'm not ashamed of having to look this stuff up, but it's just annoying.

 

- a sexy dashboard is a huge part of the appeal of the new models, no question. I'm totally into the aesthetics of cars, not so much into the horsepower or RPMs (I'll just get into trouble if you give me a powerful engine.) So I do want the beauty of high-tech knobs and lights and dials and readouts and all that jazz. But there's a saturation point where confusion and an overwhelmed feeling take over

 

I kind of like the rear view video cameras that are becoming standard (I think there's a law that says that by some time soon all new cars must be equpped with one), but I don't like the screen flip-flopping from too much information about the audio system (except for where the bass and treble controls are) and the surface of the road behind me. It's very distracting.

 

The situation with DAW software is that the manufacturers are (like with so many other new products) in a feature war. It's not enough to have an equalizer on the mixer, you have to have your choice of about 500 different ones, some included with the basic software, some unique to the program that you can buy, some aftermarket ones you can buy, some that are free. And nobody I know bills for the time it takes to try twenty or so on a track to find just the right one. But simplicity isn't good enough for too many people.

 

 

 

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The slavery to hardware thinking has issues. Why can't virtual faders be curved, so you have more resolution in the travel?

 

Because that takes up more screen real estate, and some people can't figure out how to work a round knob with a mouse - because it's not intuitive. You don't move the mouse pointer around the knob like you would a knob pointer, you move it in a straight line, sometimes horizontally, sometimes vertically. But one thing that some programs do, and they all should do, is have a modifier key that changes the value slower when you move the mouse.

 

Why doesn't the fader turn light gray when there's no audio so you know that a track isn't getting signal, and dark gray so you know it's muted?

 

That's a good track to be on. I don't remember if I said this here or on another forum, but I don't need to see the track squiggles when I'm recording, but I do want to know if there's audio on that track or not. For the Mackie hard disk recorder, I suggested a "tracking" screen that had 24 big buttons (one for each track). This would serve to arm or disarm the track (red when armed, of course), and the background color of the button would change to indicate that there was something recorded on its track. That, a meter bridge (for those who didn't have one on the console), transport motion controls, and maybe a locator is all you need. A few of them thought it was a good idea, but it never got off my drawing board.

 

Why do overload indicators have to look like "LEDs" instead of flashing the fader red so you can see instantly which channel is distorting? When you group faders, why can't they turn a specific color?

 

I think that flashing faders would be really distracting. Sure, that's what it's supposed to do - get you to notice that there's a problem, but if you set the level right when you started recording, you wouldn't need to look at an overload indicator. And if you had an overload, there's nothing you can do about it other than re-do the take or try to patch it up with a waveform editor (or a plug-in). What would be useful, though, is to have a clip indicator for each track that stays on until you clear it. That way, when you stopped the reocording and the red light for that track was on, you know you that something clipped somewhere. Maybe include a feature that logs the time position of the clipping so you can jump to that section, listen, and decide if you need to fix it or not.

 

Some people might object to DAWs that have a "toy-like" look instead of something "professional" - in other words, gray and sedate. But color is a fantastic way to differentiate among elements. For example in SONAR I color all the vocal mixer channels green, but the lead vocal's channel is saturated to the max so it's super-green. I can lay my hands on that fader in a millisecond.

 

That's not a bad idea. Soundcraft has a feature on some of their digital consoles that use the same set of faders to control multiple mixes. They have colored LEDs illuminating the slot for the fader knob that changes colors as you assign the faders to different mixes. But these are live sound consoles, and that LED doesn't work very well in daylight.

 

 

 

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Jeez' date=' the article guy says, among all the rest of the useless complaining, that A circular control is extremely difficult to operate precisely with a mouse.

 

Ok, class, can anyone tell the expert article-writer how to make fine adjustments, using a mouse, when dealing with a virtual knob? Anyone? Yes, Billy?

 

Um, yeah, um you like move the mouse like down and keep going like?

 

That's correct, Billy. Have you been using DAWs for a long time?

 

Um, yes ma'am, my dad set me up with one about a month ago, so I got good at getting around it since then. I ain't no stoopid noob like the guy with the article.

 

nat

 

 

:lol:

 

Some DAWs and plugins allow you to change the way rotary controls work too, with your choice of rotary or up/down mouse control. Plus many will give you a finer / more precise degree of control if you hold down a keyboard key while manipulating the on-screen control with the mouse.

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I'm not saying make it round, make it curved - like a crescent. You would still move the mouse up or down, but you'd have a wider range of travel. Mute, solo, indicators, etc. would be inside the crescent. Some programs pop up a big version of a control when you click on it...that would work too, as would the modifier key (which thankfully, most programs have).

 

But think about how the faders in most DAWs stack all the controls vertically, so that they take up a large amount of vertical space. Why not have two much shorter rows of faders, with certain controls inside the "crescent," so you could see more tracks at once - or show/hide an entire horizontal row to free up more space to see tracks? This would also be more compatible with portrait display mode, which can be really wonderful when you have a lot of tracks.

 

 

That's a good idea - reminds me of how controls work on lots of Native Instruments stuff to some extent. There's lots of experimentation with interfaces going on at good ol' NI - has been for a long time.

 

To deal with DAW complexity, I periodically analyze my workflow, which includes studying the manual to find faster ways to do the stuff I do all the time. For example, I'll start with a blank project in Sonar, get out a notepad, and throw together some sort of typical song. Bass, drums, some keys or other, couple of guitars, vox. As I work, I'll make notes as to the procedures I do over and over, through the various stages of creating the ensemble of tracks and instruments, actual recording, mixing down, and my amateur version of mastering. At some point, after I have a bunch of notes, I'll sit down with the manual and some coffee, and I'll scan through the manual until I find some new way (or an old way I've forgotten) to do the more repetitive tasks - and I'll make a cheat sheet of techniques to use next time on a real project. Stupidly, I'll usually lose the cheat sheet at some point in my cluttered studio that's always being rearranged - I should work them up in Word and have them available permanently.

 

But nothing helps my efficiency more than going through a self-analytical procedure. When I'm really working efficiently, that's when the DAW goes rather invisible and the actual musical work is what I'm aware of. Fussing over the look and feel of the uncustomized DAW interface becomes a rather academic, unimportant thing at that point.

 

nat

 

 

 

 

 

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I think that would look weird and I would be uncomfortable with it, more so than with a typical DAW. And, just how much of a crescent are you thinking of? Unless it's darn near a semicircle, you really won't be adding much to the length of travel. And then you have something that takes up space in another direction. And I like long faders because sometimes they don't all line up in a straight line. Maybe I don't get what you're describing. Draw something up on the back of an envelope and post a picture of it here (or send your patent number for "A DAW User Interface" so we can look it up).

 

On a conventional console, a knob or fader is both the control and the indicator. On a computer, the mouse is (always) the control and the line or dot on the knob or the graphic of the fader is the indicator. And since we've come to expect to know the EQ frequency to two decimal places rather than "about 2 o'clock" you don't really need an indicator - click on the knob and you get a numerical display of the setting.

 

 

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The more I work with Ableton Live, the more I like the way it is constructed. I`ve been using Digital Performer now for 17 years and honestly, I`m only still using it because I collaborate with other musicians who use it. However, I can definitely see myself dumping DP at some point and just working with Ableton Live and Reason, two programs that understand workflow.

 

I do think that most DAWs have too many buttons on the screen and too many mini-menus. The single most impressive feature in Ableton Live for me is that everything is pretty much hidden until you click on the track you want to work on. I think this is the way to go... who needs to see every channel and every insert at all time ala DP`s mixer window?

 

I`m working on one track at a time so let me click on that and let the window expand to show me whats there... that`s the beauty and simplicity of Live. I`m not sure how many other DAWs function like this but it simplifies things for me.

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