Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
What constitutes a DAW?
What are the essential things that a DAW has giving it the bonefides as a proper DAW?
How many of them are in iOS?
For your laptop?
Have you finished more things using iOS or computer? (Ratio of start to finish completion percentage)
What do you feel is reason for the era of “DAW-less” artists?
Comments
DAWed artists are a very recent phenomenon- so I think the question is more what are the reasons for the Era of Dawed artists and has it ended ?
As software systems, DAWs are designed with many user interfaces, but generally they are based on a multitrack tape recorder metaphor, making it easier for recording engineers and musicians already familiar with using tape recorders to become familiar with the new systems. Therefore, computer-based DAWs tend to have a standard layout that includes transport controls (play, rewind, record, etc.), track controls and a mixer, and a waveform display. Single-track DAWs display only one (mono or stereo form) track at a time. The term "track" is still used with DAWs, even though there is no physical track as there was in the era of tape-based recording.
Multitrack DAWs support operations on multiple tracks at once. Like a mixing console, each track typically has controls that allow the user to adjust the overall volume, equalization and stereo balance (pan) of the sound on each track. In a traditional recording studio additional rackmount processing gear is physically plugged into the audio signal path to add reverb, compression, etc. However, a DAW can also route in software or use audio plug-ins (for example, a VST plugin) to process the sound on a track.
DAWs are capable of many of the same functions as a traditional tape-based studio setup, and in recent years have almost completely replaced them. Modern advanced recording studios may have multiple types of DAWs in them and it is not uncommon for a sound engineer and/or musician to travel with a portable laptop-based DAW, although interoperability between different DAWs is poor.
Perhaps the most significant feature available from a DAW that is not available in analog recording is the ability to 'undo' a previous action, using a command similar to that of the "undo" button in word processing software. Undo makes it much easier to avoid accidentally permanently erasing or recording over a previous recording. If a mistake or unwanted change is made, the undo command is used to conveniently revert the changed data to a previous state. Cut, Copy, Paste, and Undo are familiar and common computer commands and they are usually available in DAWs in some form. More common functions include the modifications of several factors concerning a sound. These include wave shape, pitch, tempo, and filtering.
Commonly DAWs feature some form of automation, often performed through "envelopes". Envelopes are procedural line segment-based or curve-based interactive graphs. The lines and curves of the automation graph are joined by or comprise adjustable points. By creating and adjusting multiple points along a waveform or control events, the user can specify parameters of the output over time (e.g., volume or pan). Automation data may also be directly derived from human gestures recorded by a control surface or controller. MIDI is a common data protocol used for transferring such gestures to the DAW.
MIDI recording, editing, and playback is increasingly incorporated into modern DAWs of all types, as is synchronization with other audio and/or video tools. Totally not pasted from wikipedia.
DAW=Digital Audio Workstation
I will limit my remarks to why I use a Non-Traditional DAW which I will define as an app that doesn’t use timeline tracks or grids of clips you can launch yet allows you to host other instrument, effect, and MIDI apps. Audiobus 3, AUM, and apeMatrix are examples of Non-Traditional DAWs under my definition. Why do I use them versus a DAW?
I enjoy creating setups which I can then treat as an instrument. I enjoy playing with these setups. I am not attracted to the idea of creating songs by stacking up tracks and going through the process of refining them. Modifying/creating setups to fulfill the urge to craft or shape the music may be in some ways similar to the urge some have to produce songs.
In its simplest form, I see my iOS devices and whatever I attach to them as a flexible modular instrument I play because I like playing with it. The ability to acquire, modify, and add different/new functionality to playing is fun for me. Along the way I learn about new musical concepts which I can play with.
I do not create music to play to or entertain other people. From time to time I may post something I’ve done but it’s the tip of the iceberg in terms of what I do and what motivates me.
As long as computer music has existed there's been a need to sequence the noises one makes with computers. Don't get hung up on the marketeese of manufactures and propaganda of different music technology tribes. These days the lines are all so blurred it really matters very little.
There was a classic moment at the end of a recent Why We Bleep podcast (highly recommended) where the host and guest Tom Whitwell realised that they'd spent most of the podcast singing the joys of the DX7 and Arturia Analog Lab (VST Rompler). The irony being, that they're leading figures on the Eurorack scene.
These days many things that you think are analog are in fact digital and the reverse is equally true (especially true of the Eurorack scene). Whether someone uses hardware sequencing with hardware only sound sources, or software only, or a mix of hardware, software and mobile/iOS (that would be me), doesn't matter one iota. It's still the musical end product that matters most.
I can say why I choose to swap DAW for hardware sequencer or even why I choose to swap software DAW for certain projects (I own and use a few). It's simply to mix things up. Creative constraints can be the most liberating thing, by that I mean that getting out of your comfort zone can be just the creative spark you need.
But to say we live in a post-DAW age (as I've heard it put by a few purveyors of hardware) is bunkum. I purchased a Digitakt, mainly for live use, but I'll often use it as a writing tool too. I'm thinking of picking up the new Model:Samples at some point for much the same reason (live use) as it looks even more 'beer spill' friendly than the Digitakt (I never use iOS devices in live rigs as they're neither hardy enough nor very friendly to sweaty fingers). But I'm sure I'll enjoy the constraints of the Model:Samples just as much as the Digitakt as a means to 'think differently'.
@audiogus, that is a great overview. I appeal again to @michael that we have some kind of info library category where an article such as this may be appreciated by many over a long period of time. There is no need for retroactive posts, tho many would be posted, I am sure. That audiogus’ Beautifully crafted explanation gets consigned to the equivalent of the archival dustbin is a real loss and a shame. Just my opinion, of course.
And Gus, would you not add a sound library, arpeggiator, media bay and effects collection to the commonly held idea of a DAW. At least all the DAWs I know of have these accoutrements.
And, of course, @InfoCheck, an article about non traditional DAWs would be equally helpful.
Sorry to hijack this thread temporarily for my oration, but it is in a good cause!
Well thank you! And as stated it was totally not pasted from wikipedia. Oh wait it totally WAS pasted from wikipedia... my bad.
@AudioGus 😂🔨🤕 and I thought you just loved me!
Great question
Primera pregunta!
Si
Next to happen is split between “club” and “festival “ dj or artists in more definitive way
IMHO
My thoughts on Model as well
LULZ
My opinion:
A Daw (Digital Audio Workstation) is a means to work on Digital Audio. Some people don't need as much " tools" in his workstation as other people to get the job done. I see a DAW as a collection of tools to work on Digital Audio. In the most simple form, even without a computer, this could be a workstation:
Or this:
It's about the tools to suit your needs. A producer need more tools than a performer. I see a "Bedroom Producer" as an in-between.
I don't see in the near future that iOS replace a Studio Producer setup. It stops at Bedroom Producer. The most "complete" DAW on iOS would be Auria Pro, but you could also use a modulair approach, based around Aum, Apematrix or Audiobus. Whatever suit your needs.
First DAW I ever used on the Mac was Bias Deck which was audio only didn't even support midi and cost over 300 bucks. I replaced it with the $89 Dollar Cubase beginners version (Can't remember the actual name. But have been using Cubase ever since well over 15 years now.
My ratio is 100% completion on Mac.
iOS isn’t there for me yet but that’s probably because I’m so used to Logic. I’ve been using it since before it was a DAW and so most of the things I want to do when making music are because I learnt them in Logic. Many of those things are impossible or frustratingly long winded in iOS.
If I was starting from scratch I’m sure things would be very different.
I am enjoying iOS for audio and it’s been a very important step in getting me back into making music after a few years off due to kids, life and stuff.
Many of the things I’ve finished on the Mac recently wouldn’t have started without iOS. I have revisited a few old tunes I never finished, some going back decades, and they have all started again in iOS.
But I’m only making music for my own enjoyment. I’m not in a band anymore (although technically my last bend never actually broke up!) and I haven’t even shared anything for years.
So it really doesn’t matter. Any time making sounds is a bonus.
I can’t see myself ever ditching the Mac. But iOS has taken an increasingly big role.
I like having the best of both worlds :-)
My personal definition is something (hardware, software, whatever) that arranges anything you want and then outputs digital audio. It can be audio clips or midi clips/sequencers driving plugins or plugins that self generate audio...but none of that is and, it’s or. As long as you are arranging whatever you want and the final output is audio that is rendered or an audio output, that’s a DAW.
One mans groovebox is another man's DAW
To me personally, coming from days of old, a DAW was always a modern replacement for a tape machine....record and edit audio digitally instead of on tape. In my eyes anything without the ability to record audio to a timeline from external sources is not a DAW.
+1
A workstation was originally what we'd call a PC today. A keyboard, screen and CPU rather than just being a dumb terminal to a mainframe.
Then the name was taken to describe keyboards like the Korg M1. They combined a sequencer with drums and synths, etc. Basically everything you need in one box to make a backing track.
The Digital Audio Workstation was the computer/hardware used to record digital audio along with the software and audio interfaces required.
ProTools, Logic Audio, Studio Vision, etc. were just a component of a DAW, not the DAW itself.
Anything that can work with audio in a workstation style situation, if it is just hard disk recording, it is a multitracker or multitrack hd recorder and akin to a modern tape machine, a workstation by its nature has a start to finish workflow.
Synth workstation will have the ability to synthesize sequence and mix, a digital audio workstation will have the ability to record arrange and mix digital audio.
Yes - and you mentioned the secret word: workflow, with an emphasis on flow
The most crucial and most neglected aspect of software design today...