Best DAW for beatless ambient music

What is the Best DAW for beatless ambient music? I use FL Studio, but the timeline can be distracting if a track doesn't involve beats. Instead I'd rather place the sounds where I feel it needs to be, instead of quantized or feeling it may be 'off-beat' . Also looking for a way to turn off said feature in FL Studio, but I don't think you can.

audiomulch can great for ambient. not really a DAW though. but you can set it up to record all your parts then load them in a daw for editing and mixing.  it hasn't been updated for a while though.. i think an update is coming but no idea when. 

live is good for all the things really.. you just have to get used to it. 

if you're on a mac five12 numerology is good for ambient. 

  On 5/8/2020 at 8:08 AM, ignatius said:

audiomulch can great for ambient. not really a DAW though. but you can set it up to record all your parts then load them in a daw for editing and mixing.  it hasn't been updated for a while though.. i think an update is coming but no idea when. 

live is good for all the things really.. you just have to get used to it. 

if you're on a mac five12 numerology is good for ambient. 

 

yeah I'm trying to kinda emulate Burial's method where he used (I think) audacity so his tracks didn't come out too quantized. Though I would rather find a fully  fledged DAW, or at least one that can load in plugins.

  On 5/8/2020 at 8:11 AM, Brisbot said:

yeah I'm trying to kinda emulate Burial's method where he used (I think) audacity so his tracks didn't come out too quantized. Though I would rather find a fully  fledged DAW, or at least one that can load in plugins.

audiomulch can host plug ins. numerology as well. max can too.  really you would probably like live. you can edit in the arranger to any kind of unquantized thing you want.. also in session view you can set up clips that are unquantized or whatever. 

I've used Live for all my ambient. The grid resolution can either be turned off or set high enough that you don't have to pay attention, but it helps to record stuff like sound generators into audio tracks, and to play synths live.

Whatever DAW you want.

Working this way, either with loose timing within the bar, or just more generally loose timing throughout the track, I don't find it too distracting to have the timeline there.  Just turn off snap to grid in the first instance.  What I do like having is a DAW with good audio editing (Cubase) though I imagine most are much of a muchness these days. 

Ambient music usually has some underlying rhythm even if it's not obvious at first.  Work that out and then use that as an overall timing structure, again Cubase has lots of options i.e. tempo maps, it might make it feel less mechanical.

The most obvious thing is to turn off your monitor when you don't need it, which I sometimes do when mixing.  I appreciate that would be difficult when audio editing and moving events around, though it might be possible with kb shortcuts.            

Cubase

Wavelab is quite good.

  On 5/8/2020 at 8:08 AM, ignatius said:

audiomulch can great for ambient. not really a DAW though. but you can set it up to record all your parts then load them in a daw for editing and mixing.  it hasn't been updated for a while though.. i think an update is coming but no idea when. 

can second Audiomulch for some off-the-grid music. that and chopping/combining WAVs in Windows Sound Recorder (I think that’s what it was called) was how i cut my teeth on the electronic stuff, just splicing and modifying bits of wavs over and over, a bit similar to what Bris is talking about Burial doing in Audacity. 
 

but as others are saying most/any DAWs can be off the grid if you try hard enough

a mixer into a tape machine

I think it depends less on which DAW you use and more on how you use it. I too have used FL Studio extensively up until recently because I don't really make music anymore. But you don't have to use percussion if you don't want it. Hell, I even remember dicking around with Audiomulch a bit before that back in 2001.

Even a WAV editor like Cool Edit can suit your needs if you're committed enough. But personally I've kept meaning to try ByteBeat - the in-game DAW in No Man's Sky.

I'm a Reaper guy and I have a rather well-established habit of treating it like a glorified tape machine and completely ignoring all tempo-related features. This makes navigation a little tedious, but it fits your description of not quantizing. I don't know if it's easier to ignore in Reaper or if it's just me. I usually (but not always) record hardware sequencers into it, for what it's worth.

I use Paulstretch for my Beatles ambient.

It's literally impossible to do this with anything other than WaveWarp.  Literally impossible.

  On 5/9/2020 at 5:27 PM, Zephyr_Nova said:

I use Paulstretch for my Beatles ambient.

 

Lol yeah. There is a cliche sound at this point that you get from it, but sometimes the output can surprise you. I'd love for there to be a different version of paulstretch that creates its sound in other ways. You can get close kinda in other ways, but you can get new sounds with 3 clicks with paulstretch and there surely must be much more you can get out of what paulstretch does.

 

  On 5/8/2020 at 7:31 PM, auxien said:

can second Audiomulch for some off-the-grid music. that and chopping/combining WAVs in Windows Sound Recorder (I think that’s what it was called) was how i cut my teeth on the electronic stuff, just splicing and modifying bits of wavs over and over, a bit similar to what Bris is talking about Burial doing in Audacity. 
 

but as others are saying most/any DAWs can be off the grid if you try hard enough

 

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Thanks! I do prefer it to be cheap and audiomulch seems to be maybe what I'm looking for.

Unfortunatly you can't degrid the DAW I use. Even if you make the grid in FL Studio meaningless setting it to a wonky time signature, it's still distracting and I am kinda primed to want heavy quantization if there is a grid.

  On 5/9/2020 at 8:00 PM, TubularCorporation said:

It's literally impossible to do this with anything other than WaveWarp.  Literally impossible.

 

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What exactly is special about it?

  On 5/9/2020 at 5:22 PM, sweepstakes said:

I'm a Reaper guy and I have a rather well-established habit of treating it like a glorified tape machine and completely ignoring all tempo-related features. This makes navigation a little tedious, but it fits your description of not quantizing. I don't know if it's easier to ignore in Reaper or if it's just me. I usually (but not always) record hardware sequencers into it, for what it's worth.

I've always wanted to check out reaper as a kind of alternative DAW. If you've used FL Studio, how does it compare? Why do you choose reaper.

  On 5/9/2020 at 6:49 AM, timbre monke said:

I think it depends less on which DAW you use and more on how you use it. I too have used FL Studio extensively up until recently because I don't really make music anymore. But you don't have to use percussion if you don't want it. Hell, I even remember dicking around with Audiomulch a bit before that back in 2001.
 

  On 5/8/2020 at 4:25 PM, Squee said:

Whatever DAW you want.

My biggest reason for wanting a gridless is that the grid is a distraction of sorts. If FL Studio could get rid of the grid entirely I wouldn't have this question. Otherwise in terms of making ambient music it obviously can be any DAW you want. But if you're looking to get rid of the grid various daws are suddenly filtered out.

You can change and even remove the time signature in FL Studio - perhaps that would help a bit?

https://www.image-line.com/support/flstudio_online_manual/html/songsettings_settings.htm

https://www.image-line.com/support/flstudio_online_manual/html/songsettings_settings.htm

  On 5/11/2020 at 7:14 PM, Brisbot said:

Thanks! I do prefer it to be cheap and audiomulch seems to be maybe what I'm looking for.

Unfortunatly you can't degrid the DAW I use. Even if you make the grid in FL Studio meaningless setting it to a wonky time signature, it's still distracting and I am kinda primed to want heavy quantization if there is a grid.

AM is definitely worth looking into but i just glanced at the forums and it seems there's issues many are having because it doesn't yet have 64 bit support, or it's still in beta i guess? not sure. but VST compatibility and updates are likely a big concern to anyone using AM in 2020. it's been barely kept alive for about a decade now, can't imagine the software ever truly catching up or innovating further either....not a dealbreaker i'm sure but just in case you hadn't seen those possible issues...

also what i was getting at wasn't 'de-gridding' a DAW, it was more just...making the grid useless. when i was trying to play off the grid in Ableton i would drag the BPM down super slow, and sometimes would automate slight BPM changes so even if i felt myself finding a rhythm, it wouldn't actually be really to the grid and i couldn't really lock in anyway. tricking myself is how i get through life  but anyway you're looking for non-gridded options.... so:

i realized no one has mentioned Reaktor yet. Blocks is sorta modular and can essentially ignore the BPM/timeline, so this might be a possible solution if you haven't looked into it before.

  On 5/11/2020 at 7:14 PM, Brisbot said:

I've always wanted to check out reaper as a kind of alternative DAW. If you've used FL Studio, how does it compare? Why do you choose reaper.

I haven't used FL in like 16 years, so I might be way off, but I always thought of it as oriented toward hip hop and dance (and had a great time doing that kind of stuff in it).

Reaper has a dry, utilitarian vibe, and it's more oriented toward, say, rock recording or stuff like that. I chose it primarily for the price and the scriptability. The value is frankly unbeatable - not just that it's cheap but there's a TON of useful stuff in there. I stuck with it (for about 10 years and counting) because not only is it cheap, but its licensing model is brilliant. Also its non-destructive editing paradigm really fits the way I like to work with longer audio, its routing features are great, and its performance (download size, startup time, crash-resilience, and responsiveness) are absolutely unmatched. On top of that there is just a shit-ton of goodies in it as far as effects, automation, etc. and most of its built-in utilities are open-source, so if you don't like the way something works, you are free to tweak it. Oh yeah and I just learned that there is a web-based control surface for it, so if you're ever in a situation where you're out of reach of your keyboard and mouse but need to control Reaper, you can use your phone or iPad to do so.

All that said, I still prefer trimming one-shots in either Renoise or the MPC1000.

I was joking about Wavewarp, it's just an obscure old program I remember trying once or twice.

Anything without an obvious, horizontal time-line : Live's Session mode, Five 12 Numerology, Loomer Architect, Max/PD, Tidal Cycles, Orca, Renoise... As long as it takes you out of your comfort zone and force you to listen rather than watch then it should be all good. Really worth the effort IMO.

  On 5/12/2020 at 10:53 AM, Nil said:

As long as it takes you out of your comfort zone and force you to listen rather than watch then it should be all good. Really worth the effort IMO.

This.

I find I make much better music on the couch with my A4 than on my laptop with Live

(or with live coding or with renoise).

Reaktor (Blocks)

I'm surprised nobody has suggested modular synths yet. Messing around with an eurorack setup definitely makes you lose track of time (and most of your money too, unfortunately).

As a serious suggestion: Reaper and turn off the grid. If you need anything more advanced, ReWire it into the master Reaper project and viola. You can toggle the timeline to show samples if you don't want to see beats or minutes.