voice control

rabeach
voice control

Just be careful about the lyrics......

Personally I find Siri, Cortana and their like both useless and annoying. Though I have taught both lots of interesting new words they didn't know while trying to get them to do something pretty basic. Out of the two I prefer Siri, "she" at least can be terminated and once off stays off.

personally wished all the software (Daw and plugins/instruments etc) were simular in how you use them.
fe take Windows/Microsoft programs....if you can use 1 fe Microsoft Word you'll find the same functions/controls in most other Microsoft software so if you know 1 you'll learn to use the next easier/faster.
If all Daws / plugins had implemented this standard people like me could use them easier.
Doing 1 specific task requires the user to do follow different steps in almost each Daw/Vst...even in different vst's from the same manufacturer.

Well to be frank..you should really buy into the level you're at. Hobbyist, Music artist or Professional to start with. All the DAW software I have used have a learning curve.
 
Acid Pro was the easiest to learn and Reason at a close second.
 
Cubase is a bit of a headscratcher at first but great once you get to grips.
I tried Samplitude which is great but not exactly the easiest for a beginner to comprehend. 
Sonar took me a while because I had to change my ways of routing however when I tried out Cubase again recently I found the whole routing thing a bit confusing now.
 
Bottom line is, learn your tools thoroughly instead of trying to be master of everything.
 
 

Thinking back I came to the engineering side of things back when I was a student in the early 80s. I managed to talk my way into helping out with the people who did sound for the student union gigs. Learn a bit about live sound, earn a bit and get to see bands for free, what's not to like? Other than heaving around the huge PA bins and 4x12 stacks of the time. But you can do that stuff when you're young.

So I learned my way around a mixer, gain, eq and stuff like that. Which made using a cassette portastudio easy.

My first experience with DAWs was based round that. Not too difficult getting stuff tracked, and access to a range of (virtual) equipment only high-budget studios had in any quantity which I then had to get my head around, but previous experience helped a lot.

In other words, a gradual learning process over years as technology changed. What I could not and can not do is be a real sound engineer of the kind who can whip up a suitably customised Baxendale eq circuit or a programmer who can code a software equivalent. Fortunately I don't need to be.

For an absolute beginner with no prior knowledge the learning curve when they first run a DAW is somewhere between steep and vertical. Apple have tried to make it easier, and to some extent have succeeded. Core Audio/MIDI is easier to deal with than picking the right ASIO driver, making sure there's nothing causing unwanted dpc latency and so on, but even then you still need to know about latency, you still need to at least know what MIDI does, including it's not audio.

Apple's answer I guess is the free Garageband. A mini-DAW I actually find hard to use, I suspect because I know more than I'm supposed to so find it's workflow and approach counter-intuitve. Logic Pro when installed defaults to a "Garageband on steroids" interface and workflow intended to make the transition from one to the other easier. Then when the user finds they want to do stuff that they can't in that environment, or feels brave, they can switch on "advanced preferences" and get into Logic as a DAW that's similar in many ways to Sonar and as complicated as all the other "front rank" DAWs.

But even then there's a heck of a lot to learn to get things working well and to understand what's going on. It's not a quick or easy thing to learn, and I guess you have to have a certain mindset not to give up and either hire a studio or decide the whole thing's too dificult and too expensive.

However, I think Apple's approach does have its strongpoints. There's no way around having to learn some stuff, but if the amount of stuff needed to be learned at any one time can be kept to managable chunks it helps a lot.

Consider software synths. Many/most of them have a huge number of parameters - multiple oscillators, wave-tabling, lots of different filters, complex modulation matrices, often on different pages or tabs and often a bunch of stuff that's unique to that synth. Compare that to a Minimoog or an MS-20 where every one of the limited number of functions has a dedicated control, the patch can be taken in at a glance, how any function changes the sound is easy to find out and experimental pot-turning and switch-throwing is rewarded by something obvious happening. And despite(?) the simplicity still sound really good.

Which is the better tool for learning about synths and getting to understand what the components do? I strongly suspect that many, maybe most soft-synth users rely heavily on presets, partly because the instrument is so huge and complex that patching it yourself is far from easy.

I guess what I'm heading towards is that maybe for beginners what's needed is a DAW that lets them learn a bit at a time. Or, better, a DAW that offers a "beginner's configuration" that can be turned off once the basics are learned. I can see no way to avoid some "book learning", because there are things you can't avoid needing to know in the same way you can't learn to play violin without knowing what the strings and bow do, why it needs to be kept in tune and tuned to specific notes etc. So accessible information about why there's a gap between playing a note and hearing it and what to do about that gap is essential. Which with PCs takes us into having to get to know a bit about how PCs work and do things, but again that's unavoidable.

I think Sonar's introductory tutorials are very good, but there's that saying about taking a horse to water.... Not everyone bothers with them, as shown frequently by questions to this forum. Which brings me to something else I think is essential (and almost unique to Cakewalk). A friendly, helpful and well-informed forum where no-one is made to look stupid for asking about something they don't understand, very little bull, they don't get told to "go use google" and no-one gets put-down for not using the latest, greatest and most expensive kit.

Base 57
Even a tool as simple as a hammer requires practice to achieve an acceptable level of proficiency (and I have purpled up my thumb enough times to know I will never be a good carpenter).
 
To expect a tool as complex as SPLAT to be easy for a beginner to use is absurd. People with years of studio experience who expect SONAR to be more user-friendly should get the old 286 out of the garage and synch Cakewalk 5.0 up with the 3340. Remember how easy that was?
 
Musicianship requires study, practice and a dedication to craft that will always defy the desire for instant gratification. So my suggestion to help with the learning curve is to publish some kind of book full of tips. Or maybe a sticky thread with similar tips and tricks. Or possibly an online manual? Oh I know, how about a dedicated user forum where people can get help with using the current toolset.
 
I wish I had a more productive answer but thank you for bringing this up Craig. Sorry for the sarcasm, I didn't realize how much I was bothered by this subject until I read your OP.
 
While I'm at it let me also thank you for all of your contributions to the subject of music oriented technology. I don't believe there is any individual I have learned more from than you.

Your hammer analogy could be extended.  If I gave you a nailgun, you wouldn't purple your thumb anymore and would be able to drive nails 10 (100?) times faster.  This is all about making the tool better.  it won't fix know when to use the tool (i.e. don't try to faster PVC water pipes together with a nail gun) but if you are framing your house, it makes it more efficient.

How many of us started with multi-track tape recorders? Once you mastered "arming" a track, it Just Worked.
So, in my opinion, I'd add a "tape recorder mode" whereby the only thing you could screw up would be accidently recording over an existing track.
 
Then I'd add busses and FX bins. And maybe punch-in recording.
 
Then... but I've lost most of you already. OK.
 
 
 

Software designers often put a bunch of people in a room and watch as they use the software for the first time to find out where the UI issues might be. A bunch of people familiar with Logic or some other DAW maybe - watch them try to record, mix etc with Sonar. That's a standard UX process to find out where things could be improved.
 
The DAW/Interface thing - most of the time the issues seem to be with digital I/O that is shared with other devices. I would never use USB, for example, knowing that it might be shared with keyboards, mice, disks, etc. When there is an interface used only for audio seems to be when things get easier, whether that's AES, Dante, maybe Thunderbolt.
 
Like many UIs, Sonar is obsessed with "things" as opposed to "tasks". I'm looking at the track view, and it says Clips with a drop-down menu. Ok, Clips what? Audio transients is a choice? And Automation is another list of things.  So you have go through a list of things and hope that at the end of the list you'll find the task you want to do. The Sonar menu (View etc) is another list of things that you go through hoping to find the task you want to do. I do think that the Tracks menu is a step in the right direction because at least it gives you a clue that it's related to doing something with tracks, but I remember thinking how odd it was that there wasn't a Record choice when one or more tracks are armed. So in general I'd say that when there is a large number of things to do the UI has to be a lot better at getting you to what you want to do. Most DAWS suck at it. When there are multiple ways of doing the same thing it's not helpful - it's just more clutter.
 
The main other thing is when things fail. As they say, anyone can write code assuming that nothing ever goes wrong. The tricky stuff is dealing with errors, not crashing, providing meaningful error messages, suggesting hints, above all not losing data. But this stuff is never as sexy as new features and pretty looking UI so it gets ignored.
 
Does any DAW builder have a tool that does a "optimize my system for audio" choice? Do any of them have a tool "why can't I hear anything from my DAW" or "why isn't record working?"

One thing I think would make any given DAW easier to use is to have a proper configuration routine.  This could even be a separate executable, specific to the DAW

Examples of the sort of things such a program would do if it came with the latest versions of Sonar are described in the following knowledgeable article:

https://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Knowledge-Base/2007013376/Windows-Optimization-Guide

Granted, these can be done by some users without assistance.  However, a complete beginner might struggle with some of these steps.  Such a configuration program would backup the current configuration settings, then suggest the above configuration changes.  Maybe this can be in table form:- on the left the current configuration, and on the right, the optimised, with a select box to implement.
 

Analogy extended.
 
In the hands of a well trained worker, a nail gun is much more efficient than a hammer. In the hands of someone who lacks the proper training, a nail gun is not just dangerous but deadly.
 
I am all for better tools. You still have to learn how to use them.