[HN Gopher] What Is the Future of the DAW?
___________________________________________________________________
What Is the Future of the DAW?
Author : sowbug
Score : 114 points
Date : 2023-09-30 12:27 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (djmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (djmag.com)
| smetj wrote:
| DAWs just dont handle the jamming part very well ... Rythm
| generation, patterns, manual real time tweaking of sound and
| rythm ...
| squarefoot wrote:
| What I really miss in DAWs is a drum arranging tool that goes
| beyond scores or xoxo grids. Those are good for editing patterns
| in atomic ways, but I'd love something to quickly record new
| patterns played on drum pads on the fly, with arbitrary duration,
| create a new pattern that inherits parts of the one I just
| recorded (to make variations and fills) just by hitting one key
| and/or sending a MIDI note from a controller, etc. Then after
| having a good number of patterns, I'd like something that shows
| them as nodes on screen so that they can be connected dynamically
| according to a predefined flow with possible variations triggered
| by MIDI notes (pedal switches) during live performances so that
| the flow can be altered either by prolonging/shortening a series
| of patterns, jumping here and there based on conditions, but the
| visual node representation would be vital to have a quick
| feedback that shows what is going to happen say 5 measures from
| now, for example by highlighting the nodes and flow that will be
| followed under the present conditions.
| bandrami wrote:
| Have you ever looked at Non? It has a recording mode that is a
| lot like what you described if I understand you right.
| Development is kind of moribund but that can be an advantage in
| some ways.
| mxmilkiib wrote:
| Maybe https://github.com/ahlstromcj/seq66? Spiritual successor
| of seq24.
| vanjajaja1 wrote:
| ableton note phone app might be in the ballpark
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smJZcWwJsOw&pp=ygUMYWJsZXRvb...
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| Most of what you're talking about is pretty easy to do in
| Ableton.
| sbussard wrote:
| A DAW is an all-in-one tool for composing, recording, arranging,
| mixing, and more. There are several factors that make this
| coupling necessary - the high performance requirements of DSP,
| the lack of better standards, and subject matter expertise.
|
| To innovate in the space, we need an ecosystem of interoperable
| tools which can be used seamlessly to perform the same tasks
| reliably.
|
| I think of the paradigm shift between apache http server and
| nodejs. Does the server run the code or does the code run the
| server?
|
| If DAWs switched to the nodejs model, what would be the entry
| point?
| BryanLegend wrote:
| I too have been wondering what the future is for the Detroit Auto
| Workers....
| chaosprint wrote:
| I have been doing live coding for a while, but DAW is still
| important to me.
|
| I recently bought a Arturia keyboard in order to make some Trap
| and pop songs, and I immediately realised how important a
| seamless experience is between the DAW software and hardware.
| That kind of experience can't be replaced by AI.
|
| I am sure if Arturia makes a DAW, it would be a great one.
| roblh wrote:
| DAW version control is one of my dreams. If I could have a really
| tight git equivalent for reaper projects, it'd be so cool.
| Plugins are, as usual, the biggest barrier there. Doesn't seem
| like there will ever be a good way to deal with different people
| having completely different plugin collections. Unless someone
| makes "Netflix but for plugins" or something.
|
| The other thing I saw the other day that I thought was cool was a
| reverb plugin that uses your GPU. Seems like the next step for
| modeling could easily be in that direction. Especially since the
| bar there is low, pretty much just the positively ancient UAD
| hardware acceleration cards, although UAD themselves seem to be
| going the opposite way and pushing native stuff now.
| wizofaus wrote:
| What would a DAW-diff look (sound?!) like though... Though
| surely any sort of XML (or JSON etc.) based format would be
| fine for using along with git etc.
| kid64 wrote:
| Sounds like you're talking about both version control and
| project portability, which are different concerns. But with
| respect to version control, many systems like Cubase use XML
| project files. As long as you don't physically delete any audio
| from your disk, basic version control on your machine using git
| should be possible.
| roblh wrote:
| It's true that you can dump a project into a git repo, but
| the real problem is diffing. It would be pretty miserable
| trying to reconcile any significant changes or conflicts.
| What I think would be cool is a tool for auditioning and
| merging specific changes that's backed by git somehow. I'm
| not really sure what it would look like though.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| In the mid-late 2000's, Ardour (and a couple of other DAWs)
| had support for branching undo/redo histories.
|
| We (Ardour) abandoned it, because the universal experience
| of non-programmers was that they had no idea how to even
| begin to use this sort of feature. The majority of DAW
| users don't come ready to deal with the complexities of a
| branching workflow, or even a desire to learn it.
|
| There is at least one band out of Madison, WI that
| uses/used git with Ardour during the height of the pandemic
| to facilitate remote collaboration on new pieces. They gave
| a talk (and played) at the Ubuntu Summit in Prague last
| year.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| There are plenty of apps like Figma and Google Docs that
| have a kind collaboration and version control that non-
| programmers are able to understand.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I was specifically referring to branching workflows, not
| version control in general.
| roblh wrote:
| That's wild, super cool that you guys were trying to make
| that work so long ago. I can see how people unfamiliar
| with that way of thinking would be completely lost.
| Especially in the context of a daw which is basically a
| wall of buttons and switches.
|
| As a very entrenched Reaper user, I haven't tried Ardour,
| but I'm glad it exists and continues to exist. Thank you
| for your work :)
| dharma1 wrote:
| Splice actually started out with version control for collabs -
| it was called Splice Studio and was killed off recently. Don't
| think it ever found PMF (doesn't mean there won't be a product
| for this eventually) - https://cdm.link/2021/04/splice-studio-
| is-free-backup-versio...
|
| Turns out their pivot to being Netflix for samples/plugins is
| more in demand :)
| dleeftink wrote:
| Re: point 1, I feel you! Any chance you have checked out Splice
| or other rent-to-own plugin providers? It's not quite Netflixy,
| but less steep compared to upfront VST purchases.
|
| [0]: https://splice.com/plugins/rent-to-own
| shashasha wrote:
| Yeah +1 on version control being a dream. If real, functional
| version control for any DAW in the manner it sounds like you
| have in mind exists I will start making music with DAWs again!
| pdntspa wrote:
| FLStudio lets you save a new incremental version with CTRL+N, I
| use that as a sort of version control so I can roll back to an
| older version of an ideas if needed. Doesn't provide any
| equivalent of merging with head or branching or anything but it
| gets the job done for my needs.
| dleeftink wrote:
| What is the future of the rotary phone? The typewriter? The
| floppy disc?
|
| None of these have dissolved completely; the rotary dial, the
| keyboard layout, the swappable storage medium still exist,
| especially in music production hardware.
|
| It just takes a company like Bitwig to come along and show how
| else these pre-existing interfaces can be modularised and
| combined, and some iterations of the Push controller[0] to uppend
| the traditional fingering required to play them.
|
| [0]: https://www.ableton.com/en/push/
| CrypticShift wrote:
| Despite (or maybe because of) following this space for more than
| 20 years, I would love a (good) book on the inner (recent)
| history of the music software industry (= DAWs/plugins). I fail
| to find even one book on the subject. Anyone ?
|
| There is this quote : "To know your future, you must know your
| past". I agree the cloud/AI combo is revolutionary, but we also
| need to dig a little deeper into the past to understand what is
| coming.
| eunoia wrote:
| Very much agreed! If anyone knows of a good one I would love to
| read it as well.
| luckyt wrote:
| It would be great to see more innovation like AI in DAW tools,
| but there are some challenges. The main constraint is it needs to
| process in real time, allowing just a few ms to process a sample.
| Very few neural methods can work with that constraint, without
| it, they can't fit into the standard DAW workflow where you
| string together many plugins, each processing the signal in real
| time.
|
| There are some AI tools that work outside the main workflow, like
| for mastering after you're done with the DAW. But it's quite
| difficult to improve and bring new ideas beyond the typical
| signal processing modules without completely revamping the
| current workflow.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| DAW = Digital Audio Workstation.
|
| I expect the future of the DAW is a Xeon-powered machine from
| Dell or HP with Adobe Creative Cloud (CC.)
| [deleted]
| te_chris wrote:
| How can you write this article only interviewing a bunch of
| startups? Tim Exile is a very interesting and visionary dude, but
| without serious contributions from Ableton or Apple on the DAW
| side this article feels a bit listless - none of these others are
| real players in the space.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| You might want to consider what that sounds like if you rewind
| it to say, 2002. Ableton is a small startup in Berlin. The
| dominant DAWs include several that don't even do MIDI. Apple
| hasn't yet acquired Logic by buying Emagic.
|
| Why would expect the next steps to come from "real players in
| the space", when the previous next steps did not?
|
| Look at how quickly Presonus managed to build Studio One to a
| crazy-level of credibility (it helps that they hired someone
| who had already done it twice).
| te_chris wrote:
| Because it's not 2002? As you say, music production capable
| workstations didn't really exist. To count out extremely
| capable incumbents in favour of reporting the opinions of
| bandlab who bought Cakewalk in a fire sale and haven't really
| had much of a dent from what I can tell seems strange.
|
| No solid quotes from presonus either.
| xcv123 wrote:
| > To count out extremely capable incumbents
|
| The article mentions those "extremely capable incumbents"
| are now stuck with legacy codebases.
|
| > music production capable workstations didn't really exist
|
| Logic and Cubase were highly capable in 2002. They haven't
| progressed much in 20 years. The midi drum track editor in
| Cubase today looks the same as the 90s version.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > As you say, music production capable workstations didn't
| really exist.
|
| Didn't say that. They absolutely did!
|
| It took a small startup in Berlin to introduce the idea
| that maybe everything should be tied to the groove, always.
| That was not 100% revolutionary (Acid could do some of
| that), but it upended computer-based music production
| entirely.
|
| The incumbents are very, very unlikely to have access to
| people with a deep/serious interest in "AI & music"
| technology (maybe Apple?). Startups in this space are
| started by those people.
| flipcoder wrote:
| I can see VSTs being replaced with AI that will create instrument
| sounds or effects based on description text
| recursive wrote:
| That's just another VST with a different UI.
| bandrami wrote:
| I'm still getting used to the "new" scene-based model (which is I
| guess actually pretty old at this point) but it seems mostly
| unavoidable now that Ardour has switched to it in v7. Though I
| also think there's a lot of space on the low end of simple
| sequencers that the tracker renaissance is starting to fill.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| We haven't "switched to it" - it's an addition, not a
| replacement.
|
| ProTools just announced their version too.
|
| And yes, this model is roughly 20 years at this point (Ableton
| Live started at about the same as Ardour).
| bandrami wrote:
| Sorry, "switch" was the wrong word there, and I absolutely
| love the clip launcher. It's just kind of like the difference
| between editing text in a dumb editor vs an IDE or something
| like slime; lowering the "cost" of trying stuff absolutely
| changes how you think about your music and what you do with
| it.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| As long as your music is "in the box", yes. If you're a
| classical oud player, not so much.
| gizajob wrote:
| I wish someone would have put a bullet in Pro Tools two decades
| ago...
| helloplanets wrote:
| I could see this opening up a new way to generate ideas from
| which you can start building, or what to add/remove when you're
| stumped. Maybe a way to create coherent arrangements from a
| curated list of one shot samples and short loops. And I wouldn't
| be surprised at all if the automated mixing/mastering services
| (of which there has been a bunch for years) take a giant leap
| forward because of better technology.
|
| But in general I'd imagine written language to be a pretty
| infuriating tool for describing what you want musically, when the
| most interesting parts of music are just about always the ones
| that you can't really capture with language. You can kind of
| outline things with written language and traditional music
| theory, but it's usually just a blurry version of why a specific
| piece of music resonates.
|
| I think that AI tools for music will most likely just stay as
| plugins within the more traditional DAW structure. There's only
| so many ways to represent an audio file, and a fader that
| controls the volume of a track or some other parameter.
|
| Like mentioned in the article, most of these additions take quite
| a bit away from the amount of control the artist has over the
| music, and lowering the amount of 'input resolution' in this
| sense is a block that's almost impossible to overcome.
| BandButcher wrote:
| Agree with the text input being annoying and possibly more of
| an impedance. Personally i would prefer to speak out the sound
| i want (think beat boxing noises) and then have the generative
| ai give me an array of similar sounds and then i can just drag
| and drop where i want it
|
| Writing into a prompt feels opposite to the creative process
| but as a first pass its a cool tool, kudos
| pdntspa wrote:
| To be honest, I really like existing tools and workflows and I
| don't really want that to change.
|
| > Open a DAW from the year 2000 and it's highly likely you'll
| recognise the vast majority of the features -- both functionally
| and visually -- from any DAW you might use today.
|
| This assertion that "old is bad" really, really needs to die.
| Change for the sake of change is bad. I don't see why all these
| new innovations can't be baked into existing workflows in a
| natural and intuitive fashion.
|
| But then, in some cases, do I really want them? Like generative
| AI for music. I'm not sure but leaning towards no.
| matchagaucho wrote:
| I like the existing workflows. But I'd really love to GPT-
| define reverb settings, song forms, channel inputs, ... tedious
| copy-paste tasks.
|
| A local LLM running on x86 or M2 would be great. But API
| callouts while waiting for the silicon/Cuda migrations are fine
| too.
| plussed_reader wrote:
| Nothing will homogenize pop like LLM inspired filters; the
| new presets of the dx7.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| More or less, this.
|
| I've worked in a lot of studios with 2" tape or, like Radar or
| an HD24. In all of those, the engineer had really great chops.
| Functionally, for most "traditional" (I do a lot of folk, jazz,
| and country) I just do what they did, and Logic is just a
| glorified tape machine + mixer + processing.
|
| I am still mostly doing stuff in single takes until I like what
| I have and then maybe punching in a note or two here and there.
| It's a really fast way of working. And the old stuff I have is
| quite good: API/Neve front end, AKG/Schoeps mics, genelecs....
| these are all things that have been around a long time, and I
| am not seeing any benefits there for anything- they are fast
| and easy to use well without a lot of tweaking.
|
| Like, you could walk into any studio post 1980 and more or less
| find things will have a 1-1 correspondence to a modern DAW.
|
| There is nothing wrong with those tools, and so I assume folks
| will keep using them.
|
| However, I can see a couple of areas where I think that smarter
| tools might help. A big chunk of what I am doing already
| involves programmed drums, and a smarter "Drummer" in logic
| would be an improvement.
|
| Also I (and a lot of other folks) aren't super stoked about
| harmonies sung by one person overdubbing a bunch of lines. I'd
| be interested in some workflow where I could, like, sing a
| harmony and it would change my voice in a credible sounding
| way.
|
| But as far as workflow goes, I really don't need compositional
| tools- I could do most of my writing tasks with a pencil and
| notebook.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| Having started music production only in the late 2010s, I was
| honestly shocked to see just how similar DAWs from even the 90s
| were to the current existing workflows. It feels like you could
| teleport a producer from a few decades ago into the modern day
| music software iteration and they would figure things out
| pretty quickly.
|
| Of course things are far, far more convenient and faster
| nowadays, but the fundamental paradigms are mostly the same.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OaBkvwx7Hw
| gnulinux wrote:
| Really??? Uh, it's probably my fault but as a hobbyist composer
| (day job software engineer) I can personally say that tools I
| use absolutely and utterly suck. They're immensely buggy. My
| workflow includes:
|
| - LilyPond for writing the final notation
|
| - MuseScore 4 for playing around, MuseScore 3 for playing MIDI
|
| - REAPER as DAW, SFZ plugin for midi soundfonts
|
| - Audacity for processing WAV files
|
| - music21 python lib if I need to programmatically process MIDI
| (which I commonly do). My scripts using this lib.
|
| - Kdenlive for video processing
|
| - Most importantly: my piano Roland FP-30X
|
| Now among these the only one I don't hate is FP-30X. That piano
| is fucking amazing, it sounds and feels great.
|
| Kdenlive is also not terrible but I don't do a lot of video
| processing. Just basic notation videos for YouTube.
|
| Everything else is incredibly, incredibly buggy. MuseScore 4 is
| thrash, almost every interaction I have with it exposes some
| bug. REAPER is usually fine but there are pretty annoying bugs
| when it comes to MIDI import/export that involves time
| signature change.
|
| My workflow is so dogshit that last month I decided either I'll
| write my minimalist tiny notation/DAW tool or reconsider this
| hobby. So far haven't been able to do anything major but I'm
| confident I'll invest some time into developing my own tools in
| late 2023 or early 2024.
|
| I'm glad people like their workflow. Unfortunately my own
| experience with Linux audio processing has been nothing other
| than encountering one bug after the other one.
|
| EDIT: Whoops, don't know why I said Ardour. I never used it, I
| actually meant REAPER. Fixed now.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| > Unfortunately my own experience with Linux audio processing
| has been nothing other than encountering one bug after the
| other one.
|
| You kind of buried the lede there...
| matjus wrote:
| DAWs will need to refocus on managing recordings of live
| performances -- young kids are starting guitar bands again, and
| in a few years I think we will enter yet another period where
| electronic sounds are out of fashion.
|
| I'd also like to see more music creation nuts & bolts built into
| DAWs, like integrated lyrics, a quick way to shuffle pieces of a
| song like "bridge" and "verse", visualizations of key center
| shifts, chord builders and so on. A lot of that stuff is out
| there but it's definitely an afterthought.
| spacemadness wrote:
| I have wondered when the backlash, or maybe a sidelash, would
| start tasking place. I've been into many forms of electronic
| music and production since the 90s and right now if I was in my
| youth I might reach again for my guitar. Even though there is a
| lot of amazing stuff being produced that is not
| commercial/festival bound, there is a lot of money in EDM,
| probably too much, that would seem to push many people in the
| opposite direction away from the corporate driven machine.
| duped wrote:
| > DAWs will need to refocus on managing recordings of live
| performances
|
| They never stopped
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > a quick way to shuffle pieces of a song like "bridge" and
| "verse
|
| Present in the about-to-be-released Ardour 8 (using a design
| very similar to Studio One).
| Stinky_Lisa wrote:
| PreSonus Studio One has what you're describing. Im switching
| from logic pro to a new DAW and so far studio one has the most
| of my boxes checked.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Feels like "what is the future of the word processor" but with
| some weird expectation that you're expecting to see leaps and
| bounds.
|
| Look, FWIW, my favorite music making "stack" is
|
| - Fruityloops (as in, sure I'll use FL Studio but it was pretty
| much solid for me when it was called that)
|
| - Sony ACID. Still unbeatable to me for _quickly_ layering
| /previewing multiple tracks of loops
|
| - Cool Edit Pro/Adobe Audition. Still much nicer than Audacity. I
| don't know why Audacity remains so popular, it's way clunkier
| than the above
|
| Ableton/Bitwig are also fun to play with and I could see them
| being indispensable for some, but what more do people _need_ that
| you couldn 't theoretically get "incrementally" or "with
| plugins?"
| tomduncalf wrote:
| > I don't know why Audacity remains so popular, it's way
| clunkier than the above
|
| Presumably because it's free, but I'm with you on the
| clunkiness. The UI looks very dated.
|
| I can recommend OcenAudio, which is free though not open
| source, and for me offers just the right level of functionality
| in a clean user interface. It's very similar to how I remember
| the old versions of Cool Edit pre-Pro, which I thought were
| amazing bits of software.
| taywrobel wrote:
| If anyone else is as frustrated as I was with the article
| mentioning "the DAW" 73 times without defining once what the
| actual acronym stands for, it's "Digital Audio Workstation".
| _joel wrote:
| DJ mag aint what it used to be. The top 100 is pretty much a
| joke to most people who care about music.
| tomduncalf wrote:
| Yeah the top 100 is super weird, it's all these commercial
| EDM DJs but the weird thing is the magazine doesn't otherwise
| really seem to target that audience. I don't read it but I
| have come across some good long form pieces like this from
| them online, so actually I think they are trying to do some
| good stuff.
| cauthon wrote:
| In the same way I don't expect a biologist writing for
| biologists to explain "DNA" stands for "deoxyribonucleic acid",
| it's probably not necessary for a music producer writing for
| producers and engineers to define "DAW".
|
| Users here probably feel the same way about HTML, FIFO, DAG,
| etc
| bwanab wrote:
| The fact that the article was in DJMag might have been a clue?
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Defining DAW is like defining SQL. If you need the definition,
| you are definitely not the target audience.
| BigElephant wrote:
| No. The main audience for this article already know what a DAW
| is
| thr0waway001 wrote:
| D'OH!!!
| xcv123 wrote:
| [dead]
| karmakaze wrote:
| I wasn't in this instance, but am in general. For industry
| folks they probably don't even realize it's not a word--
| surprised it hasn't lowercased to daw by now /s.
| vladsanchez wrote:
| +1 Feels like they don't care who's their readership. Felt like
| they told me: "If you're not in the industry, Google it."
|
| DAW : Digital Audio Workstation
| https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-a-daw
| capableweb wrote:
| > +1 Feels like they don't care who's their readership. Felt
| like they told me: "If you're not in the industry, Google
| it."
|
| Caring about their readership is exactly what they're doing,
| just that you happen to not be what they think of when they
| imagine the typical reader. The typical reader is already
| into music production and with a 99% certainty know what a
| DAW is.
|
| I wouldn't expect every tutorial on "Google's Official
| Android Developer Blog" to explain that "JVM" means Java
| Virtual Machine, some resources really are for people who
| already know a bit about the subject area.
| Venn1 wrote:
| I've been using Reaper as a digital mixer for live streams and
| recording podcasts. Great way to set up virtual channel strips
| for everyone and do proper mix-minus so we don't have to rely on
| software echo cancelation. Works a treat with netjack2 on Linux.
| rcarmo wrote:
| No mention of Bitwig, which just keeps adding new features and
| modularity.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| I want to love Bitwig, but the UI needs serious work as does
| compatibility with external controllers like the Novation
| Launchpad (which is what I sequence all of my music through).
| I'm hoping the next release addresses both of these.
| sowbug wrote:
| _No mention of Bitwig, which just keeps adding new features and
| modularity._
|
| Bitwig is mentioned three times in the article.
|
| That said, I don't think the article author would consider
| Bitwig to be substantially novel compared to the other
| mainstream DAWs that inspired the sentiment behind the article.
| _joel wrote:
| The Logic screenshot with "Untitled" is triggering me.
| barkingcat wrote:
| DAW innovation will only come with inventing new algorithms.
|
| There needs to be significant number theory and computer science
| algorithmic work related to sound and how we represent sound with
| data.
|
| GPU's currently cannot work with sound data in the processing
| chain, and multicore is basically just used to scale horizontally
| (ie to have more plugins or instruments)
|
| New algorithms are needed to scale out audio processing, as well
| as make use of new hardware types (for example, using the gpu)
| sporkl wrote:
| It's still pretty new, but people are taking advantage of GPUs
| for audio these days: https://www.gpu.audio
| bandrami wrote:
| The GPU separates vocals and percussion from the instruments on
| my DJ laptop (also why has nobody made spleeter an LV2 yet?)
| jrajav wrote:
| You seem to think DAW makers don't already specialize a ton in
| DSP, algorithms, and concurrency - I can assure you that that's
| definitely the case, and that innovation and optimization
| happen at a very healthy pace. There is significant market
| pressure to run tracks and plugins in a highly optimized way.
| Several DAWs have a visible CPU-usage meter, and some allow
| users to directly configure a process isolation model for
| plugins.
|
| However, audio has a very different set of constraints from
| other types of workloads - the hallmarks being one worker doing
| LOTS of number crunching on a SINGLE stream of floating-point
| numbers (well, two streams, for stereo), that processing
| necessarily happening in SERIAL, and getting the results back
| INSTANTLY. Why serial? Because for most nontrivial audio
| processing algorithms, the results depend on not just the
| previous sample, or even chunk of samples, but are often a
| rolling algorithm that depends on a very long history of prior
| samples. Why instantly? Because plugins need to be able to run
| in realtime for production and auditioning, so every processing
| block has a very tight budget of tens of milliseconds to do all
| its work, and some of them make use of a lot of that budget.
| Also, all of these constraints apply across an entire track as
| well - every plugin on a track has to apply in serial, one at a
| time, and they need to share memory and act on the same block
| of audio.
|
| One thing you might notice is these constraints are pretty bad
| conditions for GPU work. You're not the first to think of
| trying that - it's just not a great fit for most kinds of audio
| processing. There are some algorithms that can run massively
| parallel and independent, but they're outliers. Horizontally
| scaling different tracks across CPUs, however, works
| splendidly.
| barkingcat wrote:
| Yah these are all well understood, however, you don't get to
| nuclear reactors without inventing some new math supporting
| subatomic physics.
|
| Saying that audio has "different set of constraints from
| other types of workloads" and giving up on fundamental
| algorithm research is just defeatist, throwing in the towel,
| and frankly really insulting to human advancement.
|
| Come on, we need some new algorithms and just saying "whelp
| it can't be done" is kind of ... not the hacker spirit.
|
| It could be that we need quantum algorithms for parallel
| processing what previously was thought to be serial. Just
| from reading your well reasoned paragraph, I can see we
| desperately need fundamental algorithm research in sound
| processing.
|
| An imaginary scenario might to to invent an algorithm to
| convert/transform sound/pressure wave information into
| another domain, one that is not dependent on serial time, and
| then do the operations, and then re-convert it back to the
| time domain that we usually associate with sound processing.
| Where, within this alternative domain, parallel processing is
| possible.
|
| We do stuff like this all the time in other disciplines. Even
| stuff like the FFT was an attempt to transform and make
| certain "unsolvable" problem solvable in another form.
|
| That's the kind of math research that I'm referring to.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Parallel processing isn't "interesting" except as a way to
| do things more quickly.
|
| But for 90% or more of the things people do in DAWs (and
| currently want to do in DAWs), current processors can
| already do it fast enough.
|
| So the sort of innovation your dreaming of/imagining isn't
| going to come from new algorithms - it's going to come from
| people wanting to do new things.
|
| This is already happening to some extent with things like
| timbral transfer, but even there, the most important part
| of it is well within current processing capabilities.
|
| > Come on, we need some new algorithms
|
| If you don't have a "why", that doesn't make much sense.
| Start with "Come on, we need to be able to do <this>" and
| then (maybe) the algorithms will follow.
|
| Necessity is the mother of invention, but so is desire.
| What do you desire?
| barkingcat wrote:
| The desire would be to work with sound artists and
| acoustic designers and product designers and engineers to
| make certain types of audio spaces.
|
| A lot of the cutting edge of acoustic research is from
| people wanting to make materials and spaces do certain
| things with sound.
|
| For example, this article describes a system that lets
| sound through one way This was described in
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-one-way-
| street-... ("an acoustic circulator") - the need will
| come from things like this.
|
| And for musicians, artists, and instrument makers to make
| use of materials, devices, and spaces like this. That
| would be my answer to your question of where the need/why
| will come from.
|
| Imagine needing to write a DAW module to deal with "one
| way sound" that results from using an acoustic circulator
| in a musical production or a song.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > An imaginary scenario might to to invent an algorithm to
| convert/transform sound/pressure wave information into
| another domain, one that is not dependent on serial time,
| and then do the operations, and then re-convert it back to
| the time domain that we usually associate with sound
| processing. Where, within this alternative domain, parallel
| processing is possible.
|
| We already do this. It's called FFT, which transforms the
| data from the time domain to the frequency domain. You can,
| if you want/need to, parallelize frequency domain
| processing. There's oodles of interesting audio software
| that does this.
|
| But again, parallel processing is only interesting for
| _speed_. And we mostly have plenty of speed these days.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| To be fair, some of the things currently piquing people's
| interest are suitable for offline "massively parallel"
| processing ala GPUs. Source separation and timbral transfer
| would be the first two that come to mind.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| TFA starts down an important path - identifying different
| categories of users - but doesn't really get this quite right
| IMO.
|
| There are (at least) four categories of DAW users:
|
| 1. Professionals who are being paid to make music, and for whom
| time is essentially money. Tools that speed up the production of
| that music are both financially valuable to them, and also make
| their overall lives easier (if done right).
|
| 2. Musicians for whom making music is a creative act of self-
| expression. They are not being paid by the hour (of music, or of
| effort), they are not under deadlines, but they do want tools
| that fit their own workflow and understanding of what the process
| should look like.
|
| 3. People who just want to have fun making music. Their level of
| performance virtuosity is likely low, and the originality of what
| they produce is likely to be judged by most music fans to be low.
| They want results that can be quickly obtained and are
| recognizable musical in whatever style they are aiming at, and
| they don't want to feel bogged down by the technology and
| process.
|
| 4. Audio engineers in a variety of fields who have little to no
| interest/need for music composition, but are faced with the task
| of taking a variety of audio data and transforming it radically
| or subtly to create the finished version, whether that's a
| collection of musical compositions or a podcast or a move
| soundtrack.
|
| The same individual may, at different times, be a member of more
| than one of these groups (or other groups that I've omitted).
|
| The needs of each of these groups overlap to a degree, but
| specifically the extent to which the current conception of AI in
| music&audio can help them, and how it may do so, are really quite
| different.
|
| We can already see this in the current DAW world, where the set
| of users of DAWs like Live, Bitwig and FL Studio tends to be
| somewhat disjoint from the users of ProTools, Logic and Studio
| One.
|
| TFA acknowledges this to some degree, but I don't think it does
| enough to recognize the different needs of these
| groups/workflows. Nevertheless, not a bad overview of the
| challenges/possibilities that we're facing.
| maroonblazer wrote:
| I like your taxonomy. I fall into #2.
|
| Logic Pro X is the DAW I'm most familiar with and while not
| "AI", it's "Drummer" plug-in is uncannily good. So good it's
| indistinguishable from AI. I want more of that. Give me "Bass
| Player" and "Keyboardist" and "Guitarist", etc, with all the
| options that "Drummer" currently has, to select style/genre,
| kit sound, etc.
|
| Another wish list item: Let me point the DAW to a 4/8/16 bar
| section of multitrack original music I've created, and suggest
| n number of directions to take it, spitting out each of the
| individual instruments on their own tracks, so I can
| mix/match/edit. My imagination is limited; that's where I'd
| like AI to help.
| duped wrote:
| There's a couple other taxonomy of DAW users that you're
| ignoring, which are people creating audio content that isn't
| music.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| See my #4 ... but also feel free to expand the taxonomy!
| duped wrote:
| I would say that there's a pair of taxonomies, one being of
| audio content (social audio, radio, film, multimedia art,
| music, etc) and one being of the level of user
| (hobby/beginner, student, pro, academic, etc) and the
| problem with DAWs are that they generally gravitate towards
| where the money is, which are pro users in music and film.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I think that's a solid observation. I just like to add a
| 3rd dimension to the taxonomy, which is the relationship
| of the user to the finished work (is it for money? is it
| for anyone else? is it for fun? is it meaningful?)
| because I think this impacts the user's relationship with
| the tools.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| >> problem with DAWs are that they generally gravitate
| towards where the money is, which are pro users in music
| and film.
|
| Is that the case though?
|
| Ableton and such don't charge per revenue as far as I'm
| aware. They charge same whether you are scoring a $500mil
| movie or fooling around after hard day of coding.
|
| And I feel in sheer numbers, latter outweighs the formers
| by several orders of magnitude. All forums I've been to
| are filled by, at best, "enthusiasts". Thousands upond
| tens of thousands of us with some disposable income we
| give to synths and software to tinker with :-).
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I think that another axis to take into consideration is
| the extent to which audio will originate outside the
| computer. The needs & desires of people recording actual
| performances on some kind of instrument (even an
| electronic one) are going to differ significantly from
| people working, as they say, entirely in the box.
| delgaudm wrote:
| 5. People who record, but have nothing to do with music
| whatsoever. For example, I have literally no musical skills
| whatsoever, but have at least 15k hours in my DAW. I'm a Voice
| actor, who worked hard to customize my DAW to get rid of as
| much music making stuff as possible from cluttering my
| interface (Reaper FTW)
|
| It's a Digital AUDIO workstation, not a Digital MUSIC
| workstation
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Can you share your workflow? I've tried using Resolve and
| Audacity yet it all feels awkward and is painfully slow
| delgaudm wrote:
| I'd be happy too,it's mostly templates: project templates,
| individual fx presets, fx chain templates for corrections,
| sweetening and mastering, export/render prsets, filename
| templates, And lots of keystroke macros that help me speed
| up my work. Things like specific keystrokes for punch and
| roll, quick edits and ripple delete. It's an amalgamation
| of lots of small optimizations. Reaper is also really good
| at UI customization, so you can hide grids, measures
| ,snapping, and really optimize things. ChatGPT is also
| reasonably good at writing Lua scripts for reaper called
| ReaScript that can leverage the API for automations more
| complex than what you can do with SWS additions to the
| immense actions list. If you have something specific, feel
| free to reach out directly. I love this stuff.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| If you're only recording lines, why isn't Audacity a lot more
| convenient?
| luxpir wrote:
| "Only recording lines"? There may be more to it than you
| think.
| delgaudm wrote:
| Audacity is not more convenient. Not by a mile. Voice
| actors have tons of workflows that only a DAW can help
| with.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I was trying to cover that with #4, but i put too much
| 'music-y" stuff in there. You're precisely one of the
| examples I was thinking about there.
| thegagne wrote:
| Any recommendations for #3? Particularly with low barrier of
| entry for kids? Something you can use a midi keyboard and a mic
| with?
| GoofballJones wrote:
| Absolutely, REAPER. While it may be a little obtuse to learn,
| it is absolutely as powerful as the big guys in music
| production such as ProTools. Plus it works on both Windows
| and Mac, unlike Logic.
|
| There is a big community around REAPER also, and tons of
| YouTube videos around it. Plus, you can download it and work
| with it for free, but after a while, it will want you to pay
| for it, which is only $60...but you can keep using it if you
| don't (though I would encourage you to pay for it if you like
| it).
| freedomben wrote:
| Works on Linux too! https://www.reaper.fm/download.php
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Reaper works on Linux, but a warning to anyone thinking
| of trying that, DAWs are all about adding and using
| plugins. And you'll need to confirm your favorite plugins
| run on Linux as well.
| dleeftink wrote:
| Some cool (albeit pricey) devices to toy with are the AIRA
| compact series by Roland[0].
|
| In the same vein, the Novation Grooveboxes[1] offer some
| expanded capabilities that don't require a computer. Second-
| hand pricing is quite reasonable for both.
|
| [0]: https://www.roland.com/au/categories/aira/aira_compact/
|
| [1]: https://novationmusic.com/categories/samplers-
| grooveboxes
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| Anything "free", Cakewalk, Garageband, Waveform, MPC Beats,
| or whatever license that comes with your midi keyboard. All
| these are already crazy powerful for a hobbyist.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Take a look at Reaper. It's a professional quality tool, but
| easy enough to get started with for kids too, its license is
| very friendly and the trial version isn't limited in any way.
| The Windows version always worked for me under Linux using
| WINE with very low latency, but they made a Linux port which
| is great. If you use the Linux port, you may want to use
| Yabridge to load Windows VSTs in a transparent way.
|
| http://reaper.fm/
|
| https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge
| JeffeFawkes wrote:
| Check out Korg Gadget![0] It's got an Ableton-Live-style clip
| launcher that's easy to compose in, and a variety of "gadget"
| instruments that produce different kinds of sounds. If you
| balk at $30 for an app, it goes on sale for half price a good
| 3-4 times a year, usually around holidays. You can hook up
| any midi devices (BLE midi or via the USB camera kit adapter,
| if not on a usbc iPad). If you've got an iPad with a
| headphone jack you can pick up an iRig clone for <$10 that
| gets you line / mic / guitar input, too.
|
| If you've got an iPad that's probably the best start (it'll
| run on any iPad 2 or above). It will run on iPhone's but it's
| a bit harder to play. There's also a Nintendo Switch version
| (it's more limited, eg no audio recording or export), and a
| mac version (but it's pricey). Annoyingly, the Mac and iOS
| versions are separate, but at least the iPhone and iPad
| versions come together as one purchase.
|
| [0]: https://www.korg.com/us/products/software/korg_gadget/
| schemescape wrote:
| Related question: any suggestions on what to try next after
| LMMS?
|
| I was planning to try Reaper or FL Studio.
|
| My biggest complaints with LMMS are: doesn't support VST3,
| can't see notes for multiple tracks at the same time
| (although I saw a "ghost notes" patch someone was working on
| for this scenario).
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Honestly, try the trial for both. Give Ableton and Bitwig a
| go if you have time as well. Or at least check out all 4 on
| youtube and see if a particular workflow strikes you.
|
| Unfortunately the open source DAWs don't hold a candle to
| any of the paid ones. But once you're paying they're all
| pretty solid. It's like asking if you should move to vim or
| emacs or jetbrains after starting with Notepad++. They're
| all good and everyone will have their own favorite. Many
| people also use multiple DAWs the same way people use
| multiple text editors. Personally I use Ableton and Reaper
| schemescape wrote:
| Thanks! Yeah, it's subjective, but I thought the chances
| of someone making the same progression (LMMS to ???) on
| HN were pretty high. Of course, I left out tons of
| context that might have helped (e.g. some people want to
| make music live--I do not).
|
| Really, it might make the most sense to just find music
| similar to what I've made (or want to make), and then
| ask/research what they're using. Edit: I think that's how
| I originally found FL Studio and Reaper, come to think of
| it!
| tomduncalf wrote:
| I believe BandLab is being used in schools to teach music
| making now. It's web based, I've not used it much myself so
| can't comment on how good it is but may be an easy starting
| point
| fractallyte wrote:
| Back in the 90s kids used a variety of sample trackers on
| their Amiga home computers:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_tracker#Selected_list_of.
| ..
|
| Oh, and samples? Kids used hardware samplers to rip or record
| their own:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37376675
|
| And how'd that work out? The end result was a piece of music
| called a _module_ ( "mod"). Strangely enough, I can't find
| exact (or even approximate) numbers. A snapshot of the MOD
| archive from 2007 had _120k_ mods:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_Archive
|
| So, yeah, a _very low_ barrier of entry... ;-)
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| Ableton has like a 3 month trial and honestly the stuff it
| comes with out of the box is way more than enough to
| determine if you want to continue with such a hobby or if
| it's not something you'd be interested in long term. The
| tutorials are plenty and easy to follow as well.
|
| I use Reaper as well, but it takes a while to get that
| "useable" for modern(ish) music production. The benefit is
| there's plenty of free virtual instruments/VSTs to download.
| All of them have downsides though as does reaper itself. In
| Ableton I can make an EDM track relatively fast given the out
| of the box presets - especially synth drums - but in Reaper
| using a free VST like HELM makes it kind of a pain to use.
| YMMV.
|
| No matter what you choose, I do HIGHLY recommend downloading
| Spitfire LABS though - the free instrument packages are
| massive and highly customizable. It's truly amazing.
|
| Here's some good VSTs for Reaper:
|
| https://plugins4free.com/instruments/ (when the site works)
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20181203014924/http://sonic.supe.
| ..
|
| https://guitarclan.com/best-free-vst-plugins/
|
| EDIT: oh also trying to master a track in Reaper with free
| plugins is frankly pretty bad for a beginner vs Ableton's
| preset limiters and other utilities. The Cuckoos plugins are
| messy to deal with in my opinion.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Ableton and Reaper are way too complicated for kids. I'd
| say they are 14+ software.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Sadly, its the group I pay the least attention to. I suspect
| that today or next week, something browser based might be the
| best choice, but I can't tell you what. Apologies.
| criddell wrote:
| Latency matters a lot. I can't see a browser-based DAW ever
| being very compelling.
| gooseyard wrote:
| I'm a heavy Reaper user since I love the experience of
| editing with it, but when I'm fooling around writing songs, I
| use Garage Band specifically because it has so many great
| instruments and sounds, and also because I find I interact
| with it much differently than with Reaper or Pro Tools
| because of the simplified interface and I don't get sucked
| into fiddling with the details of what I'm making.
|
| Before Garage Band, I used Tracktion (I think its now called
| Tracktion Waveform Free) in the same manner. It's been ages
| since I used it but if you're a Windows or Ubuntu user I
| think it'd be worth checking out.
| philjohn wrote:
| GarageBand - it's super quick to throw something together,
| has a wealth of virtual instruments and the user interface is
| in the same vein as professional DAWs, so there's a growth
| path if this is something kids enjoy and want to pursue
| further.
| luwatobil wrote:
| I always find GarageBand to be an easy-to-pick-up app that
| can be used to generate fun sonic blurbs in a short amount of
| time. It has its own limitations, but the lack of complexity
| contributes to its ease of use.
| [deleted]
| criddell wrote:
| When I was trying to figure out something on GarageBand I
| ended up on YouTube looking for tutorials and was astounded
| to see what people are doing with GarageBand on their
| phone. They play the DAW itself like an instrument and
| build songs in realtime. It was very humbling to see.
| robenkleene wrote:
| The umbrella topic to this is one of my favorite topics in all of
| software and one where strangely we as an industry don't seem to
| have internalized its lessons: That the right approach to
| building a software program (like a DAW, NLE, bitmap/vector
| editor) emerges early.
|
| This is why these applications have lifespans measured in
| decades, and it's extremely rare for a new player to be able
| offer anything new, different, and valuable because the design
| space has already been solved for the problems these applications
| are solving.
|
| I wrote a piece on this subject, e.g., why, how, when software
| transitions do happen for these kinds of apps:
| https://blog.robenkleene.com/2023/06/19/software-transitions...
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I don't think this is true at all. For several different
| reasons:
|
| First, "the right approach" to building a software program is
| wildly unspecified: it could refer to the UI/UX aspects and/or
| the internal design, and these both have dramatic impacts on
| long term evolution.
|
| Second: the "right approach" for "making music" in the early
| days covered things as distinct as MIDI sequencers, trackers
| and early ProTools. It was far from obvious whether all 3 would
| continue to exist or some hybrid would become dominant (that's
| actually what happened - early ProTools did not do MIDI; the
| eventually archetype for DAWs turned out to be a blend of
| ProTools and MIDI sequencers, and trackers were discarded).
|
| Third: As I alluded to in my comment here about user groups,
| the right approach is going to differ for different workflows
| and use cases. FL Studio is not used by many audio mastering
| engineers; ProTools is not the choice of beat producers.
|
| Fourth: the goalposts keep moving with increasing compute
| power. The current idea of infinitely elastic audio that has
| become common among the most popular DAWs would have been
| unachievable in the early 2000s. Network bandwidth may have a
| similar impact.
|
| Fifth: the right approach (especially visible today) for some
| people who are generally "in DAW space" isn't a DAW at all, but
| hardware designs that bypass most of the functionality
| associated with traditional DAW design. The Elektron and
| similar h/w sequencers of the last 5 years are in some senses
| closer to plugins than they are to DAWs.
|
| Sixth: plugins - the ones associated with compositional
| elements (you could say sequencers but it goes beyond that) -
| have long been where the innovation has been taking place.
| These have evolved quite differently and more diversely than
| the DAWs that host them. For many users, plugins are the real
| workhorses and the DAWs are just the scaffolding around that.
| It would be hard to take a look at compositional plugins and
| conclude that the "right approach" emerged early.
| robenkleene wrote:
| Not sure which point you think I'd disagree with here, I
| guess the core thing I didn't add is that yes, the design
| space changes over time as computers get more powerful. The
| original paradigms have proved to be remarkably durable
| though, hence the note in the piece about many pieces of
| software being the first ever in their category continue to
| be the market leader:
|
| > I started thinking about this question, of whether software
| transitions ever really happen, when I noticed just how
| common it was for the most popular application in a category
| to still be the very first application that was ever released
| in that category, or, they became the market leader so long
| ago that they might as well have been. The Adobe Creative
| Cloud is a hotbed of the former: After Effects (1993, Mac),
| Illustrator (1987, Mac), Photoshop (1990, Mac), Premiere
| (1991, Mac), and Lightroom (2007, Mac/Windows) are all market
| leaders that were also first in their category. Microsoft
| Excel (1987, Mac) and Word (1983, Windows) are examples of
| the latter, applications that weren't first but became market
| leaders so long ago they might as well be (PowerPoint [1987,
| Mac] is another example of the former).
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| In the DAW space, ProTools continuing-but-diminishing semi-
| dominance (at least at a professional level) is rooted in
| hardware rather than software. When they started, you could
| do not realtime audio on the CPU, so you got a DSP box with
| the software. The sort of hardware requirement was
| invaluable to Digidesign in establishing and locking in
| their early users, and it really didn't go away until
| sometimes in the mid-2000s when everybody started noticing
| that you really could do a remarkably large amount of
| processing on the CPU itself.
|
| So in this world at least, the longevity of the first mover
| has more to do with actual and imagined barriers to entry
| rather than anything especially good about the software
| itself (and indeed, many of its users used to complain
| endlessly about the software).
| jdietrich wrote:
| DAWs haven't converged on a "best" approach. Most use a
| traditional linear workflow that's essentially a digital
| multitrack tape, but Ableton and Bitwig use a clip-based
| workflow that tends to be better suited to improvisation and
| live performance.
|
| I think the factor you're missing is path dependence. The
| approach that becomes dominant isn't necessarily "best", just a
| stable equilibrium where switching costs are greater than
| potential benefits for most users. I'm typing this comment on a
| QWERTY keyboard, but I don't believe for one second that it's
| the optimal layout - I just can't be bothered to learn Dvorak
| or Colemak or whatever.
| robenkleene wrote:
| Clip-based workflow was facilitated by technology progress
| (e.g., Moore's law) which unlocks new design space (similar
| pattern to why Lightroom was "invented" so long after
| Photoshop). I.e., doing things real-time or non-destructively
| as computers get faster is really common, so that happens
| then the design space gets exhausted again. The key point
| being this happens quickly once the new approaches are
| possible.
|
| The piece I linked to makes all these points, as well as
| addressing your others.
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| DAWs should be rebuilt from the ground up, component by
| component, feature by feature, in 3D for XR(VR/MR/AR) where
| ultimately you can see the waveform as it is --- a 3D object
| , and interact with it like a sculpture or a Theremin
| experience. 2D screens, Keyboards, and a mouse are not the
| best fit.
| reassembled wrote:
| I highly encourage folks to check out a new DAW called
| Blockhead. It upends a lot of typical ideas of how a DAW should
| work. There's no MIDI events and no global tempo.
|
| Everything is represented as blocks of samples on rows of
| timelines which are then effected by transforms placed on the
| rows above the rows containing samples. Edits and transform
| adjustments all happen in real time, and everything is
| continuously rendered to a scratch buffer that can also be
| dragged in to the project as a new block of samples.
|
| It is truly a very creative approach and when you see it you
| will be wondering why nobody tried this approach before. The
| developer, Colugo, has a new video on YouTube showing how it's
| main features work.
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