"One who asks questions of himself will always find more answers than one who asks questions of others!" ~Sylent,  circa today lol

Very interesting thread.... this strikes a chord with just about anyone who has had to decide what to spend their time on (software or making music) and struggled with feeling overwhelmed by the complexity and sheer options of modern DAWS.
 
I realize there is + as well as - in having so many options etc.  But it gets to be a bit like always eating at those gigantic "buffet" type places:  lots of stuff but difficult to sort thru and nothing that really stands out!
 
And of course the users are to blame as well as the mfg - *everyone* seems to be competing to have the fullest and most selections.
 
Anyway ... like I said interesting and I have one final comment:  I still feel most productive at actually getting songs down (at least composed) in Cakewalk P5.  Yes it is hugely limited.  Yes its maybe, what, a decade old?.  Still love it.
 
 
 
 

An obvious thought, but for the record (no pun intended), a great deal of it is about efficiency.  If I can copy and paste a vocal from Chorus 1 into Choruses 2 and 2, that lets the singer go home earlier and lets me go on to creating another song.  (I was first able to do this with my trusty old VS-1680, but it was a little clumsy, and the resolution was not perfect: sometimes things were a few ticks off.)  Despite all the debate about Melodyne, from a practical and human standpoint, it makes more sense to fix a note than to wear a singer out punching in and redoing parts, possibly losing the feel along the way and maybe breaking note B in the process of fixing note A.  (A little imperfection live is OK, but on a record, it is memorialized forever.)
 
This same logic applies to many other functions and tools.
 
You guys may have different goals as artists and that is not only OK, it is highly desirable: we shouldn't all be in the same bag.  For me, though, it is about songwriting; and anything that helps me focus on writing and arranging instead of mixing and fixing is good.  If I were super rich, I'd spend all my time with a notepad and let my loyal minions tend to the tedious parts.
 
As always, thanks to all my Sonar buddies for these thoughts.  It sparks my creativity to read ideas from my valued peers.

An interesting update to this... I got an email from my friend asking if it would be okay to visit, and he is intending to drive 1200 miles (18 hours) so he can bring his gear! In preparation for this I am struggling to get SONAR ready to give it the most thorough "stress test" I have imagined.
 
Luckily the time window also give me the ability to prep him for what I need before he gets here. His goals are fairly tame, but mine are always aggressive, so will see where the middle ground pans out.
 
On a (funnier) side note, I couldn't resist forwarding that email to people who live within 40 miles of my house that are too lazy to drive! As I have commuted 200+ miles/day in the past, I have always had little "sympathy" for them. I just forwarded it with the subject, "Not to give you immense GUILT, but..."

Interesting thread but appears to be biased towards the composers rather than the musicians.
it appears that most here work alone or occasionally collaborate which to me is the greatest asset of any DAW.
Recording live is another thing-the focus shifts from design and composition to performance and the moment,with only mic choice,placement and volume to worry about.
I am a dinosaur though and only record live,i like to get a set together,polish it and record it ,a tad of Boost 11 and maybe some LP64 on the main and move on and let someone else re-mix and master if it`s worth it.
Sonar to me is just an unbelievably robust 16 track recorder.
nothing more.
Unfortunately most of the incredible technology in the software is way beyond my ability and needs and a quick listen to the Songs forum usually confirms that.
I reckon half the challenge of Sonar is becoming proficient with all its functionality and it must be satisfying to be able to create music,exactly as you hear it.
cheers  
 
 
 

mettelus
An interesting update to this... I got an email from my friend asking if it would be okay to visit, and he is intending to drive 1200 miles (18 hours) so he can bring his gear! In preparation for this I am struggling to get SONAR ready to give it the most thorough "stress test" I have imagined.
 
Luckily the time window also give me the ability to prep him for what I need before he gets here. His goals are fairly tame, but mine are always aggressive, so will see where the middle ground pans out.
 
On a (funnier) side note, I couldn't resist forwarding that email to people who live within 40 miles of my house that are too lazy to drive! As I have commuted 200+ miles/day in the past, I have always had little "sympathy" for them. I just forwarded it with the subject, "Not to give you immense GUILT, but..."

1200 miles to jam.... That's rock n roll! lol
The effort alone should make it turn out well.
Best of luck!

sylent

Anderton

konradh
 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.

I think it's that the fewer notes you have, the more importance each one has. Just ask Miles Davis 

This is true, every color of silence has it's place in music.

I believe this is the Miles quote (my brother is named after him btw). And it kind of marries up both you comments.
 
"The space between the notes are just as important as the notes".

webbs hill studio
Sonar to me is just an unbelievably robust 16 track recorder.
nothing more.

That is actually the sentiment that got this thread started. Too many bells and whistles, not enough rubber meeting the road.
 
@Sylent, yeah, he caught me sort of offguard with his email and since he likes to use his rig and "wants a road trip anyway," I caved in with his reasoning (I wouldn't let aircraft personnel near my gear either!). He has not done any DAW recording at all, so a chunk of this will be prepping him for more collaboration, but he threw out wanting to "complete two songs." Some things I have to show him firsthand, but if I can get him up to speed with preparations (things I need in hand before he ever arrives), we should have a good tracking session when all is said and done (my personal goal is to track more, since he doesn't need to be near to mix/master). I will probably walk him through the mixing/mastering just so he sees it, but the "ultimate" goal is to let him see things and prep him for what he needs to collaborate effectively.

Grem
I also have lots of uncompleted songs.
 
However, when I play them for people, they ask what am I still working on?
 
Last year I said I would complete an albums worth of song this year. I have about four or five close to complete, about that many in demo/construction mode and about that many in idea mode. I work on a different bunch to keep it fresh.
 
I worked on one song for over five years. Kept telling myself i was learning the software. Get close to finishing it and then start over because I'd tell my self I could do it better now that I have more knowledge. Yep that went on for five years!! The best version by the way was the one I did about year three!!

This is the way for me as well. As soon as I start to see the end of a project (after months or years), I feel the need to do it again, with my "better knowledge / techniques". It is a never ending cycle I think I have over a hundred unfinished songs / projects. I hope one day I will be able to finish at least half of them.
But hey, I am having fun

Completing work is in the mind of the artist.  It may not have mattered that he took a simple approach or not.  Some people have the focus needed to finish what they start and some don't.  I know MANY people with simple setups who never finish anything and others, like myself, with very complex setups who finish almost everything and use the huge variety and unreal functionality of Sonar (or whatever is used) to find a way to produce what I hear in my head. I am not a less is more person at heart and tend to start with more and pare down to less so my mixes tend to be more involved than many so less is more is great for some and not others.  Recordings, even for great songs need stand up to repeated listenings and some modest amount of production is ALWAYS there even when you think its not which somehow keeps the listener interested over and over.  Tools are only a crutch if you allow them to be, otherwise, they are TOOLS to make your work and vision come alive.   I'm a proponent of "do what say and say what you do".   Some people are talkers and others doers.   It just is what it is.