No More DAW...

Anyone got experience with using computers to make tunes but not using a DAW?

I'm getting tired of the predictable intentionality in DAW production. 

  On 5/19/2017 at 5:42 PM, bendish said:

Anyone got experience with using computers to make tunes but not using a DAW?

 

I'm getting tired of the predictable intentionality in DAW production. 

i use jeskola buzz, does that count?

That's how I started making music, but it's been quite a long time (~15+ years) since I've done computer music without a DAW.

I use my own Python software. Debatable whether it constitutes a DAW or not, it lacks many features that I expect are standard.

Buzz was my first experience with computer music (if you don't count dance e-jay lol)

Max/MSP or PD?

CSound or Supercollider?

Trackers?

You could use an old-style stereo editor with no mutlitrack capability (Sound Forge 4.5 or earlier, Cool Edit 2000, stuff like that) and do everything with destructive edits on a single stereo track, kind of like 50s musique concrete.  When I first got in to computers I jsut had Impulse Tracker and a dubious copy of Sound Forge 4 and I did entire tracks by drawing directly into the waveform with the pen tool in Sound Forge. 

Not saying they were good tracks (they weren't) but they could have been.

what type of music do you normally make? what do you want to make in the future? 

  On 5/19/2017 at 6:11 PM, fletcher said:

Buzz was my first experience with computer music (if you don't count dance e-jay lol)

Oh god, this GUI is hard to look at

define DAW tho

Cubase ableton logic protools etc

Renoise is kinda half daw in my view

I just wanna be free man :)

For a couple months I've been semi-seriously considering doing an EP entirely on an original Playstation with MTV Music Generator sometime this year.

I'm kind of joking but you can load your own samples into it, so no reason you couldn't make it work.

Bang on the computer with a stick.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say maybe DAWs aren't the real problem at hand.

  On 5/19/2017 at 9:59 PM, Gocab said:

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say maybe DAWs aren't the real problem at hand.

It's definitely good to completely switch up the way you work sometimes, though, to stay fresh.

Agreed

Whats wrong with daws?

I use supercollider, max, reason, machinedrum and monomachine and sounds from every of those end up in ableton for mixing + ableton'synths and plugs + third part synths and plugs....

Is there a better or more flexible way to produce electronic music?

How about an 8-track tape recorder and a compressor?

Personally i mostly use DAW's like they are a magical 8-track. I record everything from hardware and do the fine tuning on Cubase.

Pure data

Why not just use Reaper or something as a virtual multitrack recorder? That's what I did after moving from a hardware one. It's as simple and straighforward as CoolEdit Pro was back in the day. It just captures whatever you throw at it. 

Or do you want to "make" music on the computer, but not in a DAW? In that case, I'd definitely second the max/MSP/renoise/pure data shouts. 

i just thought well thats easy to answer but then i realised its not easy at all, getting somehow philosophical ideas lol

but yeah it depends on what you want to make, you could use a standalone programm for lets say drums or synths whatever, record it and then later put it together in something like soundforce, thats how you wont be distracted by other options.


 

I don't really understand why, if your bored with the predictability of a daw, you don't just lose the computer all together. 

  On 5/20/2017 at 12:05 AM, Auditor said:

I don't really understand why, if your bored with the predictability of a daw, you don't just lose the computer all together. 

money ?

  On 5/20/2017 at 12:11 AM, Kavinsky said:

 

  On 5/20/2017 at 12:05 AM, Auditor said:

I don't really understand why, if your bored with the predictability of a daw, you don't just lose the computer all together. 

money ?

 

As in making it, or affording hardware?

  On 5/20/2017 at 12:26 AM, Auditor said:

 

  On 5/20/2017 at 12:11 AM, Kavinsky said:

 

  On 5/20/2017 at 12:05 AM, Auditor said:

I don't really understand why, if your bored with the predictability of a daw, you don't just lose the computer all together. 

money ?

 

As in making it, or affording hardware?

 

affording hardware, i mean i know there is cheap stuff out there but still if you are used to a daw where you have so many instruments.