Nice thread. I never touched a recording button for the first 25 years of being a musician, I wasn't really interested. I would come into a studio, play my parts, and leave it to the magicians behind the glass wall to come up with the end product. I would look at all those knobs and dials and think "I could never do, or afford, that", it was complete sorcery to me.
Now, over the last 17 or so years, I have a computer that brings that wizardry within reach, and I have 60 or more songs that I tinker with (and many more waiting to be started) and I'm having a ball. Some songs get put to CD or mp3, but none are considered finished or off limits to change if an idea strikes. I'm like a kid in a candy shop. Long live Sonar and may you all enjoy your journey.

I, too, have a ton of unfinished (just barely started ) projects and a few years back I decided that I would pick a project and work on it until it was done, or I was sick of it. Everything I've done in the last couple of years is a result of that.
 
I do allow myself a day or two a month to just experiment and play with stuff, which usually generates at least one or two new projects to be finished in the future.
 
I have found that really focusing on a single project at a time has really helped me to improve.
 
Regards,
Dan
 

Tunerman
 
With DAWs, as new studio engineering skills are learned, we have the ability to go back and change things. You couldn't do that back in the age of tape. 

You could, it was just more expensive.
 
You know, like, Fleetwood Mac didn't actually spend a whole year making Tusk. They spent two months making Tusk and ten months procrastinating and re-recording the hi hat. And they're the first to admit it.

That's a pretty useful distinction, yeah.

This comes under the heading........ when is an artwork Finished. ?????
When I say it is!!!!!
Sometimes its under baked, sometimes it is stewed to death!
The artist has the choice now a days!
We have way too many tools and not enough time to develop our ideas fully, like they did in the old days.
Are the recording tools giving us too many options? or are the tools wasting our time?? Making us too removed from the Music side of things.
I see both sides, playing live and jamming free form help me keep it in perspective, I think. I hope!!!
 
 
 
 

mettelus
He did drop an interesting perspective on me which was basically, "compose everything BEFORE you track anything."

 
This is something I used to agree with, but less and less as I become more proficient with computer-based composition.
 
For me, music is all about inspiration and speed of capture. I might be messing around on guitar and come up with some chord progression I really like, or a melody line. It used to be I would capture that inspiration by fleshing out the song on guitar or keyboard, but now I turn on the computer and capture it.
 
During the composition process, I lay down tracks as fast as possible, with as little "thinking" as possible. (This is why I use SONAR; for whatever reason, it lets me stay in right brain mode more easily than other programs.) This process is mostly about getting notes and ideas down, I'm not concerned about tone, plug-ins, etc. (That approach is what inspired me to come up with the CA-X amps and Pedalboards - I wanted something I could drag 'n' drop and at least get close to what I wanted.)
 
After the composition process is done, then I start replacing tracks with the "real" ones where I do pay close attention to playing cleanly and getting good sounds. But the pressure is off to be inspired; I've already been inspired and captured it. The song has a direction and shape. At this point I'm more like a studio musician coming in and lending my expertise to a project.
 
Finally there's the mixing, and that's the part where yes, you can take forever doing little tweaks and such. But the mix develops in parallel with the track replacement stage, so when it comes time to stop replacing and start mixing, I'm most of the way there. But I would never attempt to develop a mix during the composition process. For me, that's the quickest way to kill inspiration.

konradh
Maybe this is related and maybe not; but a lot of modern records sound huge and I think a lot of it is effects, layering parts several times, and other such tricks.  That said, early Beatles records with a 4-piece band and sometimes doubled voices sound "huger" than some of my 60-track songs. I think it was 1-musical arrangement, 2-superb vocal parts, 3-a great sounding studio space, and 4-engineers who knew how to select and place mics.  Some will say it is tape v digital and that may be a factor but I don't think it is the major reason.
 
Random thought: We used to tell people that a lot of things sound good but not everything sounds like a record.  I still test tracks that way.  I close my eyes and try to visualize a 45-rpm record turning while I listen.  I just finished a song last week and it was the first one in a long time that popped that image into my mind.  Sorry if I am getting too mysterious and Zen here.

Well, remember that The BEATLES played/worked like slaves in Hamburg. They would play 8+ hours a night, 6 and 7 days a week. They did that for over a year... SO, when it came time to record they could walk in and get it done right then, right there. Malcolm Gladwell put it well with the 10,000 hour rule. It takes it (the time and work) to get there. I will never have that much time or energy in this lifetime. There are musicians, and then there are MUSICIANS. There are bands and famous people, songwriters like Dylan or like Rich Mullins. Rich recorded his last album playing a piano and singing, in an abandoned church onto a cheap stereo cassette recorder. He died less that 2 weeks later, IIRC, in a car crash. His band and others got together and recorded the songs in the studio. The CD is a double, one CD is the recording of Rich in the abandoned Church, the other is the studio version and it is an incredible album. He absolutely got the songs recorded, though starkly and lo-fi, they are still good. It is The Jesus Album.
Then there are the people like The Wrecking Crew or The Atlanta Rhythm Section or The Memphis Horns. I got an up close look/listen at ARS as they developed. They were Roy Orbison's band and played on the side as The Candymen. They were and are the best band I have ever seen or heard. They would play The BOWL Teen Club in my hometown, Moultrie, GA. It was, of course a converted bowling alley. John Rainey Adkins on guitar (he is now in the Alabama Music HOF), he and his brother later played in Beeverteeth along with one of our own members here. Anyway, The Candymen would play the whole Sgt. Peppers album and Pet Sounds. They could perform both and sound exactly like the records, Good Vibrations... perfect. Besides Beeverteeth some of them left and started or joined the Classics IV, then they wound up in Atlanta as studio musicians, hence the name ARS. There was a god group in Macon at the Capricorn studio to, a good friend Al McDonald (RIP) was one of the guitarists.
These kind of musicians would never need a DAW except to mix and master because, well.. they just wouldn't need it. I'm sure it was the same with the Muscle Shoals studio musicians (Duane Allman was one of them for a time), The Wrecking Crew with it's stable of musicians... these kind of musicians just come in and play and the engineer mixes it and everyone goes home happy.
IDK, I guess I'm trying to say that a DAW can be a crutch for an accomplished. polished musician who is a master at the art, or it can be a tool if one is self controlled. On the other hand a DAW is a Godsend for someone like me who is a musician but not a MUSICIAN. I could always do a demo on a tape and get the general idea down but could never get it to sound anything approaching professional until just lately as computing power and the DAW became more powerful, faster, and affordable at the same time.
It is funny, I have been cleaning out a room and an attic space, going through boxes, throwing things out and getting out things I had forgotten about. I set aside a little booklet: "Recording to Hard disk" to look through when I went to bed last night. When I read this thread I thought it was really timely. It is from the 2000s, a Roland booklet and is pushing the BOSS BR-800 and another one, the BR-600 I think. It was comparing the pros and cons or the standalone BR to the ADAT recorders and making a big deal about the "virtual tracks", which were, I guess, a big deal. No DAW, just BR-800, MIDI sync, Computer, monitor.. etc. Now, if you remember, that was an EXPENSIVE setup. I still have a Cooper MIDI Sync unit if anyone is in need of one, LOL.
In any case, back then in order to run a DAW without mega headaches and get some pleasure out of it you had to have a LOT of money to invest or you may as well have just stayed with a Tascam or Fostex 4 or 8 track cassette recorder. I bought a Yamaha QY-70 sequencer. I am basically a singer/songwriter and can play electric guitar suitably well enough to fit in and I can play a little keys. I never could get a handle on the sequencer and finally sold it. MIDI, until recently has been a mystery to me. The new power and ease of Sonar and the affordable processing power have REALLY helped me to be able to do more than I could with a 4-track cassette.
So, a DAW for someone like me is a REAL help. I can see how it could sidetrack some more accomplished producer/engineer or musician though. This is an interesting thread and I'm glad it was started.
I cannot imagine what Jimi would be able to do with todays technology. He took what was available in his day and pushed it past it's ability.

Great thread, and it brings back a lot of memories.
My "hey-day" (after stopping playing/touring with a band after 14 years on the road) was in the early 90's to around 95 where I was most productive with only a master keyboard/synth, an AKAI sampler and initially a 286 Compaq, later a 386.  The tech has come a long way ... (good) ideas have become scarcer as I seem to be in "update" mode constantly !
Thanks Mettelus !

Best thread I have read in a long time.  Thanks to all contributors

I do keep coming back to this thread, although I spend more time thinking about comments rather than replying right away (for good reason).
 
I guess I should start with a simple summary, since both Tom ("the OP's friend") and I come from some of the most rigorous "engineering" backgrounds on the planet. Music is more of an "avid hobby" but I think that is really immaterial to the point at hand (if he joins the forums he can refute/corroborate this statement  (hint hint)). Regardless... I think that is not material to the discussion (epiphany), since a lot of this really focuses on workflow (something rarely discussed).
 
A little (more) background may be needed here (so please bear with me)...
 

1. During our discussion, I made the comment that "Gene Simmons has marketing down to a science... and regardless of what people think of him, people do not attend concerts to hear new "renditions" of music." He replied that his counterpoint was that he attended a concert where the opening act for Eric Clapton didn't show... then Eric proceeded to play (for two hours) then closed with a song which had been released (only that final song had been released). I simply responded that, "You paid $90 to attend a jam session??"
2. We (this forum) rarely share work flows... I think this is bad from the perspective of encouraging others to create. This alone treks down multiples paths, since 'one size' does NOT fit all.
3. The "death" of many 'one-hit-wonders' continues to loom in the background for me... Many spent years performing/perfecting tunes... then finally tracked it. Of course it was good; they had played it for years! Downside is they had 'taken the money and run' for a second album, and this has spelled their doom (Def Leppard is an example of a band who refused such a proposition).

Anyway, back to point...
 

1. I continue to get wrapped around the wheel from the perspective of "best sandbox" (and when to use it). Arguably, matrix view and looping help, but are no "answers." SONAR includes no "tools" to allow for seamless manipulation of a simple "chord progression," let alone something more.
2. Not to offend anyone (truly), but my delusion/affinity for "samples" has run its course.
3. What Tom has done is (far from) "generic"... Many of these songs are full-blown productions (at least the 31 (as of now) I have heard). Demo mode arguably, but "complete."

For me, I am first evaluating this "sand box," and "tools" for production. I think now (for me anyway) I am seeing the "sandbox" as the #1 value from A->B.
  

Wrong thread

markyzno
I work to deadlines, they are a glorious thing in that I could in theory continue to better a project ad infinitum but when a Director says "the sound needs to be done by such and such a date" then it has to be done.
 
All hail deadlines.
 
In my private audio world I have no deadlines and therefore my third album has been 3 years in the making. 35 tracks in and I still can't nail it.

Agreed, I can relate to that.
To get a bunch of songs 100% finished, with lyrics and recorded I committed to send a song every year to what we in europe have "Eurovision Song Contest". Song were not close that genre, but it helped having that deadline - and also figure out if that was something that I wanted to do, writing songs and make demos of those.
 
15 years ago I had a couple of Fostex portastudios, and eventually started to use a laptop for midi stuff and sync with porta - to get some of what computer daw can offer.
 
And then 10 years ago bought Sonar and went for daw all the way. Full history goes back to 80's and tape portastudios and even midi sequencing - but had to leave that idea since I wanted audio recording and that was tape only and Fostex 16-channels machine were out of my league. The planning required to do all on 4-track tape took so much out of creativity, not making too many sound-on-sound overdubs.
 
It is easy to get cought up by all options there are in daws in terms of plugins and instruments - but it would be wrong to blaim daw technology for that. Just commited to do something music related every day - like practising drums, bass, guitar, keyboards or whatever - read up on something - making a song closer to final mix, do some new takes on one mix etc.
 
So OP's friend got plenty recorded - well, I got plenty recorded using portastudio too, because that was all you could do. But the mixes I don't even listen to from that, horrific - I transferred and re-recorded in daw and aim to finish eventually, nothing wrong with the musical idea.
 
 
Also raising the bar quite a bit in making it sound professional - takes more work. I thought I spent a lot of time doing two evenings or a week with a mix, and now know this is nothing compared to what it takes.
 
Having all midi and audio abilities integrated like a daw is awesome. I did take a look a year ago on Tascam MC32 and some others - but still so limited if wanting midi abilities. If there were some loop based tools now, but not enough to make a swap, midi was still to sync with MTC to a daw.
 
So we mustn't blaim our tools for not using them, or using them in the wrong way. Practising on different instruments always bring another approach to notes and intervals and beats and create new embryos for songs too - nothing is wasted in terms of songwriting doing that. Just fooling around on instruments bring something new to work on - dictaphone always on reach distance.

Tunerman
deadlines..............If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done!
 
 

 
Agreed. Cant beat ultimate procrastination then that ARRGHHHHHH feeling before a deadline.