Before I do a real follow-up to my last post about the traditional DAW workflow, I wanted to take another stab at the workflow diagram (below).
This time, I’ve outlined what I’ll call the “recording workflow”. You start with the same boring setup procedure that you have with the regular “mostly MIDI” workflow, and then you need to hook up your instrument or MIDI keyboard for recording. (“Where’s my USB cable?”, “Did I plug my guitar into the right jack?”….)
After that, you end up in this new songwriting cycle where jam out an idea on your keyboard or instrument, and try to record it. This is usually pretty fun, but I don’t think it’s nearly as fun as it could be. There’s a lot of micromanagement going on when you do this, which I’ve tried to emphasize in the diagram.
When I try to play something that I want to record, it usually takes me a few tries to get it right. In a DAW, this means a lot of jogging back and forth with the transport, arming recording, waiting for the down beat, and trying to play the melody again. Did I mess it up? Darn, I have to switch back to my mouse and keyboard, delete the bad MIDI part, and try again.
It’s a lot of back and forth, and to be honest, I think half the reason it takes me 5 tries to record something is because I have to put down my synth every time I make a mistake, and it’s sort of difficult to really get a good groove going because of that. I lose my rhythm and timing, and have to frantically try to get it back within those next 4 count-in beats, otherwise… I have to repeat the cycle yet again.
This entire workflow is modelled after recording on magnetic tapes. Except if you were recording on tape, you probably had a dude in a studio hitting record and rewinding for you. It’s 2012. Does this recording workflow even make sense anymore?
What do you think about recording in DAWs? Is it just me?
Leave a comment and let me know how you think recording should work.
So easy, right?
Honestly, I’m not sure the DAW workflow is that bad at all! I do not generally experience “the boring part” of your diagram, as I have most of what I need templated out and generally leave my MIDI controller plugged in and set to channel 1 by convention – no muss, no fuss. It’s generally replaced by “sound design” which is much more fun for me.
You say it takes you all this time and overhead to switch from your synth back to the DAW whenever you rerecord a part, but why not use a loop-recording or multiple-takes DAW feature and not have to get up? Why not MIDI-map a command or two that drops you right back into the right spot so you don’t have to get up and hit your keyboard? Do it right from your synth or with a simple extra controller or footswitch.
It seems like the issue you’re running into isn’t that these problems are built into DAWs, it’s that it’s not clear at all how to use the DAWs to solve them because if it was they wouldn’t be problems anymore. Maybe it’s more an interface than a workflow problem? If you’re trying to create a specific progression of sounds over linear time, the “virtual tape recorder” metaphor does rather seem to make sense.
Using templates is a good trick that I haven’t gotten in the habit of, thanks for the pointer. That definitely explains part of my frustration. I like doing sound design as well, though I find I sometimes do it as a way of procrastinating instead of actually writing music.
Do you have any suggestions for a good MIDI foot pedal controller?
I do sometimes do loop recording in DAWs, though I still find that I end up doing a lot of transport juggling. (By loop recording, I mean the technique where you can continuously record a big linear MIDI sequence even though the transport appears to be looping. Afterwards, you can cut out the takes you didn’t like and trim it down.) I’ve never used a DAW with multiple takes though, or at least I’ve never found that feature.
These both sound like good suggestions though, and I think they’ll help speed things up for me. As you said, maybe I just haven’t found these features because the interfaces of DAWs tend to be pretty complicated. It sounds like I should do more reading and either spend more time trying to master the DAWs that I own or switch to one with better recording features. (Which DAW do you recommend?)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Sure thing! I think human interface is really interesting and fun to discuss.
I don’t know of a solid, inexpensive foot controller. There’s the Behringer FC1010 which is cheaper but supposedly has some firmware hiccups, and there are the much more expensive and very nice KMI controllers (SoftStep and 12Step). Personally, I use the transport section of an M-Audio Axiom MIDI controller with my hands, or I’ll rig up a quick keyboard macro if I’m out on my laptop somewhere.
Many DAWs have facilities for multiple takes at some level. Pro Tools has a nifty layers feature I don’t entirely understand, Reaper has an interface where multiple take ‘lanes’ show up in a single track, and Logic has one where several lanes can be composited together. I don’t have a ton of experience with them, but I did use Reaper’s for a while to useful effect. Currently I use Ableton Live, set my Arrangement cursor and loop brace where I want to start the loop recording, and then record into a Session slot over and over (never stopping, never triggering a new clip) until I have a take or two that I like. Then I move the start and end markers to the take I want and drop it in Arrangement. Very little transport fiddling. I generally always play through my mistakes instead of starting over, as I feel it improves my overall performance and keeps the ‘flow’ should I have that going.
As for which DAW I recommend, “the one you like best” is always going to be my answer. I honestly don’t think there are many “bad” ones and your choice should be based on how well it fits what you care about. In your case, it sounds like you want something with a decent control/scripting system and a great MIDI editor.
In many cases, you might have more features than you realize in the one you’ve already got (I don’t think you said which one). I can’t overemphasize the value of checking the manuals for interesting-looking features, and straight up asking people how they solve your specific problem with their tools – because sometimes the interface isn’t discoverable, and you’d never know about it if someone didn’t tell you what the feature was called.
Thanks for those suggestions! I’ll take a look at those foot controllers. Maybe now is the time to invest in one. 🙂
Maybe now is also a good time to start learning REAPER better. There’s so many features packed in there.
I’m all for keeping the flow going too – that’s what I’m really after!
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