Hardware fun vs. DAW productivity

Yes!! Extremely rewarding when you get the desired results!!

I’ll be honest, yes I love jamming & doing as much possible live, but at the same time I got to a point where I felt my tracks weren’t matching my skill level & knowledge. So much power using software & it didn’t feel right to avoid it. I’m really trying to get a nice hybrid workflow going…mixing arranging & live play & hardware & software.

Sometimes it can be frustrating finding a good workflow, especially when you have a lot of hardware, but it can be a lot of fun at the same time trying different workflows out. Seeing what works best.

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Agree with all you’ve said, an ideal workflow can be difficult to acheive. I feel like I’m almost there myself. When OB 2.0 comes out, I won’t have the issues of getting levels right on the jams because everything will be tracked separately into the Daw, including 2 synths of my choice through the DN’s left and right inputs. Then I feel I will be most efficient.

Although I can always just track the instruments separate, just takes more time.

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I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the following unsorted thoughts:

  1. Hardware is cool
  2. Software is cool
  3. DAWs are probably not cool

The reason why we’re stuck in this punitive oscillating dialectic between “software and hardware”’ is false consciousness. Software and hardware are fine. DAWs are the apex commercial predator in our ecosystem since they’re the industry’s way of saying “your music is done and finished and not before that.” Massive gatekeeping eh.

The veneer of respectability DAWs create is like cable TV companies trying to bullly people into still subscribing.

Hardware devices run… software. Software devices need… human interfaces. Big surprise.

These aren’t two communities at odds. What we’re at odds with is the linear, rigid, and novelistic DAW. The idea of “tracks” and “inputs” and “blah blah blah.”

How can a person, who uses hardware and/or software, release music without interacting with a legacy “recording arts” mentality? Thinking.

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Interesting thoughts…

I do think that while DAWs may not be “cool” they are really the best, most convenient thing and they do their jobs well. They’re like your dad. Not very cool but super helpful and necessary and there’s a reason why lots of people have dads.

I guess.

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I can only speak for myself, but there is an urge to go down the rabbit hole of micro mixing my masterpiece to perfection using all the latests and greatest hybridSoftOSware that I spent crazy money on.
Then there’s these songs I really love, that got me into making music that sounds like they were recorded on a dirty 4 track, or within that realm, with some rando gear
Then there’s others that just sound incredible because they went down the rabbit hole, with all the best gear.

At this point I’m choosing somewhere in between, more low end fer sure

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Wait a minute! My dad’s actually really cool. And super helpful. He’s more like my Digitone. But all jokes aside, you make a good point. Daws are convenient, but are they necessary? Depends on the individual.

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OK - here’s an attempt at staying focused and jamming a techno track on the Analog Rytm and then doing some other stuff to it in Ableton

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DAWs are probably not cool as One-Ring-To-Rule-Them-All (where «rule» easily transforms into «mess» :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: )

but they are cool to do what they were invented for — mixing and mastering for conventional release.

(doing things where reel-to-reel tape recorder metaphor works good.)

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You might not think your dad (DAW) is cool when your growing up, and don’t want the cool kids (hardware) to see them picking you up from the happening. But later in life you realize how much they did for you and you want to hang out with them more and be nice to them. They were actually cool the whole time but you were being uncool by trying to be cool…

What did your DAW ever do to you that makes you cast them away? You should love your DAW for all the good things they do…

All things are reconcilable, don’t judge a sequencer by its cover, equal rights for hardware and software…

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For me, the max number of boxes I can control in a jam is 3. Past this number, my control gets sloppy.

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i can tell that a MIDI control surface (like, say, Novation ReMOTE Zero SL) rocks when it comes to multiple devices.
when jamming, i don’t touch synths directly. to address certain device, i switch either MIDI channel or template. even patterns are switched this way (SysEx rocks).

I literally never save anything on my Elektrons. I work on one song idea until I feel like either recording it or moving on. no need to save, they recall where you were when you last powered off.

out of your setup, the Mother32 should be the only thing you need to save sequences in, right?

anyway, I’m in the hybrid camp. use things for what they’re good at. jam on your hardware and sketch out ideas. record 'em into DAW. edit. if the “record 'em into DAW and edit” part is a pain but you like the hardware jam part, maybe there’s something else going on with your setup that’s making it difficult…?

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I prefer hardware interfaces but mainly because I am so stuck in the past computer wise that I never used one musicaly (or for much else) in the first place, If I had things may well be different. Using a DAW for me would be like learning two new languages.

A very interesting thread.

When it comes to music, I’ll admit it is in my nature to look at what is missing from a piece of hardware rather than what it can actually do. So, most hardware is doomed to disappoint when in my hands. I love hardware, I just can’t get particularly productive with it. I’m fairly ok with the OT and getting up to speed quick on the OPZ though but my A4 and Voyager have been gathering dust for a wile now.

I also hate clutter and wires everywhere! So really, in many ways I should just bite the bullet and admit hardware aint for me haha.

We all write music different though. I think there is a musical utopia out there for me that has a clearish desk, some choice gear (OT, OP-Z and something else) along with Push and Touche. I don’t want to waste too much time thinking about it just now. Just want to enjoy my music again and thanks to the OPZ I’m getting back into the swing of things.

This year, I plan to spend more time on music. While I will never release anything cohesive like an album, I do like structured tracks so whether that’s making sure I build songs on the OPZ or within Ableton that’s one of my goals - focus and finish the best of my ideas.

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I wouldn’t say that DAWs were invented, it is more a case of a progression. First there were MIDI only sequencers, then digital audio recorders, then MIDI plus audio with real time audio manipulation.

This progression was basically aligned to advances in hardware, i.e. more powerful CPUs, more RAM and bigger and faster hard drives.

The modern day DAW offers way more than the functionality provided by a reel to reel tape recorder. A DAW can also replace the mixer, the FX racks and all the instruments if you so wish.

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only buy rack hardware. then you can hide all the wires. :+1:

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I just jam all the time, and record immediately after I’ve found a riff that I want to jam for a while because it keeps grooving.

So once I find that groove, and whatever patterns enhance it, I just practice a few times and then record the live take. Song done, move on.

You gotta just do what makes the music come out. Thats what works for me, and as long as I don’t buy impulsive distracting gear, I’m good.

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Fun to see this thread getting so much traction, interesting topic for beginners and seasoned pros alike! I do believe there’s some value in the “Hemingway method”. There are already many suggestions above on similar approach. In some text editors you can find this function. It basically disables the back space, so you just CANT erase what you have written, it makes you produce and not edit. The value/lesson here is to not go in to the edit phase just yet. So you can focus on just creating things. Much like when you sit with a piano or guitar and start writing/practising.

As suggested above, I think it’s important to have the two processes separated. Like the traditional way of recording a band. The band writes the music and gets real good at performing it. The producer later comes up with a trick or two, some suggestions maybe, and then it gets recorded, mixed and mastered. It has so many stages! I don’t think they all need to be fully separated, but it’s easier on the one-man-operation to take some of this into practise. IMO ofc.

I usually have some idea of what I want to do. Usually I start with a synth or rhodes and just write something, a foundation, a hook or a melody, or just a sound I like. Then depending on the track I try to make a few variations. Still just on hardware, most of them have sequencers so it’s all there if I need to leave! If it’s an acoustic I try to record the idea, maybe even just on the phone. After I’m starting to get satisfied with the foundation and some variations, I record all instruments on separate tracks and go into a producing stage, that’s when I try to embellish(?) the track, edit, add some basic effects like reverb/basic eq and so on. Often I want to add a new section or just scrap some parts (THIS is the hardest thing though!). When I feel I’m getting close, I go the final arrangement/edit phase, and after that it’s just polish. It’s all a hybrid method, but more focused on what the goal is. I too have a final destination with songs. I have played guitar on the side of my bed all my life, that is more of a nice therapy thing, to just play. To finish songs is something more fulfilling to me. When the tracks finally get finished I take the stems I want as samples and recreate the rest in hardware when I play live. The preparation is almost as fun as the actual gig, it never sounds the same as the recording and to me, that’s the charm of live sets.

I don’t know why this became such a long post lol, but it was nice to share :slight_smile:

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The freedom of a DAW is invaluable, for sure. But Youtube Videos get quite boring if you can only show Tracks with tons of automation and boring Level Meters … :slight_smile: Thats why we use Hardware - after we’re over the fun Part of using Hardware of course and when we finally wanna do something real :wink:

And lets be honest: The world is saturated with Music. Music on its own (sadly) has lost its value for most people out there. So its only Youtube where you can still grab at least a couple of Cents for the Tracks you make due to the Video you deliver. Everything else doesnt really work for a small Artist anymore.

that‘s an honest but sad perspective. I don‘t want to make music solely for youtube. Though making videos is also fun, I love creating albums or eps where the tracks have a certain connection and where I have them in package that reflects a certain period of my life

I don‘t earn a cent for my videos anyway :wink:

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