For some artists, the art is a direct reflection of the artist, an expression from the depth of their own being and it is extremely personal. That’s why some artists ignore critics completely. Critics are inconsequential to something that transcends technical judgments because the art exists exactly as it is meant to be and no other input is needed or wanted. Perhaps dawless YouTube jams are not art, though. Are they just content? I think art is there for you to relate to and discuss how it makes you feel. Content is there for fleeting mindless entertainment.
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Kind of same thing as “here’s my 8-minute ambient jam” which no one will appreciate it like the author. How was this 98% established - was it empirical. People go dawless or jam out in own style/fashion for their own goals, so maybe you can cut them some slack and just let them be. Adding on: thanks to technology which holds whatever you care to dish-out as music in a nice, tight time-code, you can hardly go “wrong” noodling/playing electronic music. They even had AI, auto-scale, harmoniser, auto-correct and stuff to set the entry bar low - which may account for the increase in no. of dawless jams. Is this a good or bad thing - you can decide. IMO, it is good for the general population to get into music development or as hobby.
…like a vast majority of signals don’t really profit from stereo by nature in first and foremost place…
in many many cases, they better be mono and placed to certain spots in the out panning stereo field, since the simple magic of the fact that we got two ears can be way more teased by truu stereo experience if ir’s “only” happening within rooms/reverbs and stereo delay impressions. while the core sonic element stays actually plain simple mono…
this simplicity is, for example, what makes the dtakt shine so bright while providing that punchy expressiveness…
and it’s always a good thing to have the option to flip ur whole mix session into mono…
way easier to level the overall sonic ratios of a piece of music…
not to mention the safety belt to check if u did not overstretch ur stereo spread, by finding out some elements suddenly start to cancel each other out and just vanish…doublechecking that everlasting mono compability…
and also that everlasting truuth, that all ur low and sub end better stay dead centered in whatever u want ur stereostage to be concepted…
otherwise it better be a fully concious, dedicated artistic decision…like, ok, all drums to the left…bass only from the right…to name some most obvious good old beatles trix…which is nothing but mono magic punch again…layed out just on a stereo soundsystem…
which leads to mid/side…stereo impressions are mostly not really happening full range…
they’re all details, most effective in mids and hi’s…and can be easily just mirrored in most cases…
I believe that’s precisely the main reason to start playing with hardware: turning the computer off 
…nothing full range intended can shine for real, within the given frequency limitations of any phone connection’s abllity to preserve and deliver…
one overall midfield bandpass is what it is…
but if ur “mix” is decent, it still worx in it’s essence, even brutally notched…
so the new product by auratone is called the Auraphone, with even worse sound, to check if your mix translates to phones. Very important tool for our new hype genre dawless hold music 
BTW: first hit for searching dawless hold music on youtube is “uncomfortable truths about going dawless”. So, who is the first to start this new trend?
…why not…i have an ep in the work that follows eno’s concept of “music for airports”…
but conceptually translated to the 21st century streaming madness and will be called “all skipped intros”…but “music for on hold lines” could also be a take to consider… 
an ep that simply never has to care about any proper low and hi ends might be a pretty relaxed writing and production process…
not to mention the fact, that all ur mixing has only to translate well on phone speakers…
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I wouldn’t argue with the central point, but I would counter that some people use the ‘art for art’s sake’ mantra as a shield.
I once knew a poet who was militant in his insistence that a writer shouldn’t even consider that there might ever be market for their work for fear of that acknowledgement corrupting the purity of the art. He argued that anything made with an expressed intent of finding a paying consumer would be to compromise yourself—that it was his job to simply create, and the world’s reaction beyond that poitn was not relevant to his process.
Frankly, I thought that was bollocks. It struck me as cop out, born through fear of rejection—as though if you don’t play the game you can’t lose.
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…good point…
on ur side…but never the less also on that poets’ side…
all that get the balance right curse again…work for the arts sake AND/OR work for the attention that leads to monetary profit…hmmmmm…just another everlasting battlefield…
truu colours vs sources of intention…
realness vs virtue signaling…
fear for creation vs fear for competition…
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I see what you’re saying, but many of us have regular 9-5 jobs so to speak and in some ways we are more free to create art without even the slightest need for monetary gain. What’s actually difficult to attain is any sort of audience whatsoever.
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This thread has inspired me to pull out my ratty Maximum Rock n Rolls and spend my day reading the endlessly fascinating debates of what is punk?
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This thread is totally guilty of making me think of “Urgent” by Foreigner but the chorus is now “You say It’s dawless, so dawless”. may be one could make a mashup with “Hold the Line” by Toto to get back to the topic
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to be clear, I’m not saying there’s anything invalid about making music for your own pleasure with no great expectation of finding an audience (I run my own business, and playing around on drum machines is never going to replace that for me).
I’m more trying to make the point that the creation of art without a sense of doing so for an end user—whilst being something that could be considered noble—is more likely an act of denial.
How many people here would, in all honesty, not like the validation of their music finding an audience who would listen to the product of their own volition?
Some, quite possibly, but I suspect for a lot of people there is an element of fear which manifests in the form of noodling away indefinitely without ever focussing on putting their music and themselves out there.
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Yes, and to your point I think, the specific words “jam” and “hobby” seem to have a somewhat self-deprecating tone in this context.
When I played guitar in bands, jamming was just a warm up or improvisation that was not meant for anyone else to hear, like practicing basically. So it’s free from judgement because it isn’t meant to be a completed or established thing. And saying something is your hobby gives it a less important, secondary quality. I wonder if others get that sense from these words.
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For me it definitely does. And also putting the name of the tools I use before what I am doing strengthens this. I mean I wouldn’t expect a Jimi Hendrix improvisation in a video on Youtube called “Fender Stratocaster Jam”.
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Good observation on the terminology.
Putting things out with the label ‘jam’ definitely caveats the act - ‘this isn’t for judgement.’
and that’s fine, if that’s all a person’s looking for, or it’s workshopping something in progress.
But if that’s all a creator ever sees themselves doing, there’s a trap of never pushing yourself or seeing how ‘good’ you can be.
I want the music I make to be fucking great, and loved by people I’ve never met.
Do I expect that? No.
Nor do I need that in order to enjoy making it.
But I need that desire to be acknowledged in myself in order to get into the headspace to do the work.
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I hear what you’re saying, and I have a similar background of jamming in bands… jamming is improvising, sometimes in rehearsals for loosening up or to jam something out as a writing method.
I don’t have an issue with dawless jams being called jamming… there’s usually an element of improvisation going on, and it’s probably not going to sound the same twice when recorded, so its fine IMO.
It’s interesting to read the interpretations of this topic though… it was triggered mainly by two things;
- YouTube and Instagram dawless jam videos that are being pushed to me increasingly
- Reviewing a track I recorded earlier this year, solo on an MC707, that I thought was great and something Richie Hawtin would be proud of… 8 months later it sounds 100% vanilla to me, and something that I’d need to work on further if I WAS to use it… got me thinking, hence thread.
I think it’s REALLY tough for ANYONE to create a keeper track with a small dawless setup in one take… that’s all. And we live in a time when the gear is fucking amazing and accessible, couple that with the instant access to video making/release, and voila, our world is full of spontaneous dawless jams.
I think a lot of great music starts out this way, and is then developed… that’s the craft, and usually/generally the difference between a hobbyist and a pro/artist.
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Punk is not dead it just bought a DAW…
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98% of everything pretty much suck
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