What Would Make DAWs (Not Just SONAR) Easier to Use?

I started a thread over in my Sound, Studio, and Stage forum called Why Is Learning a DAW So Difficult? There were some really thoughtful responses, and it got me thinking this forum would be a good place to inquire about specifics on what could be done to make DAWs more approachable. Here's an excerpt from a comment from Nat Whilk I found interesting:
 
"There seems to be this floating expectation, out there drifting into brains all over the place, that, since computers are so "smart" that they should be able to make all tasks easy for us not-as-smart humans.

"The advertising that software makers employ has a lot to do with this. Plus the fact that, yes, some software has been getting better at being user-friendly, easier to pick up. Like phones, readers, browsers.

"But there are two paths to user-friendly. One path is to add features such as wizards, setup guides, step-by-step routines to give the user a solid intro and a base from which to then venture into more complex aspects. The other path is to just dumb the software down so that it does a whole lot less, offers the fewest choices possible, and claims it can get you where to need to go with no prior experience or education.

"The deal is that DAW users develop their own working methods and pretty much stick to those once they're up and running. Take 20 moderately competent DAW users and you have 20 different methodologies at work. So it would be hard to impose a grid of "do it this way" except at the very beginning of the process.

"Sound recording, mixing, and mastering is just complicated. Just do the work, I say - and no, software is not here to make everything easy for you. It's to give you tools to expand the effectiveness of your own skills. Not to make those skills unnecessary."
 
While I agree that recording quality music requires skill, I do think there must be ways to make it easier for people to get started. SONAR did the Add Track thing; I don't use it (I'm into Track Templates) so I don't know if it would be helpful to beginners...and they'd still have to know that "+" means "Add Track."
 
To get the ball rolling...I think one of the main difficulties is hooking up a DAW to an audio interface, particularly if the audio interface has a relatively sophisticated application of its own for routing and such. The only easy way I see to fix this is with companies that make both the software and the audio interface, but there are still issues the user would have to specify - like sample rate and bit resolution.
 
Or maybe when you boot up a DAW, there could be an optional screen with questions like "Do you play guitar and need a direct input?" "How many tracks do you need for mics?" and depending on your answer, what's needed would be created. Maybe there would be ways to enhance the Start screen to make it easier to get started.
 
Given that everyone here uses a DAW, and the skill level ranges from newb to expert, perhaps there are some good ideas just waiting to be implemented...but if this is a dumb idea for a thread, I'll just delete it :)

The "problem" with DAWs is that it is a control room in a box.
Many individuals may not have fared well had you thrown them a guitar and locked them into an analog 48 track control room and left. Given an information resource in that room, they would eventually find out what all this stuff is and why and where everything is connected and used. Think gain staging for one.
 
One big nasty that doesn't exist in an analog control room that plagues a DAW is that need to crank up the buffer count and that track count mounts, introducing more and more  latency. This is because the computer runs out of steam. This then requires some knowledge of the how and why and some ingenuity to find away around that problem like separate synth computers and direct mic monitoring.
 
There is no real way to level out the learning curve whether you have been tossed your very own into a control room or buy your very own virtual one to have at home. Either way, it helps to be an engineer. That's why they were called such.
 
I for one think the DAW or studio in a box is the best thing since sliced bread. Having come from the patch bay analog world of yore.
 

Great question! I'm not sure "easy" and "powerful" belong in the same sentence. So you could dumb DAW's down not to do so much. Or perhaps using words instead of icons, so the "+" sign would say "add track". Maybe having a screen set that includes less options than it needs to perform that task. I mean like having a screen only for recording so it's less to "see". I don't know... I love sonar. An anti-crash button! ;)

I read through the thread on HC before you posted it here.  I find myself with the same attitude of Nat - I want the big challenges up front.  I could have started with a two input interface, a simple keyboard, and Sonar artist.  But I didn't - I went right for the Focusrite 18i20, a full fledged keyboard workstation, and SPLAT.  Why?  Because I don't want to miss out on anything, and I love the challenge.  I love learning things, and "figuring things out."  The software, no matter how complex, does not intimidate me. 
 
I'm only one year into this.  I'm an IT guy who deals with software every day.  Some of the the things that may trip up a beginner (installs, interfaces, cabling, routing, etc) I resolved in a decent amount of time (along with some great help from this forum - see Thank You To This Forum).   None of those issues were deal breakers to me.  
 
Now admittedly, I have spent very little time with Sonar (most of my work this past year has been learning about midi, getting things set up, etc.), but I have watched some Groove 3 videos and some Sonar University videos.  Sonar itself does not intimidate me - the terminology I can learn, and I can figure out where to "point and click."  But I am totally lost in the recording process - I have no background in that at all.    For example, it is easy to add a track, set the routing, etc. But what does it mean?  If I have the same synth, but with different sounds I want to use in different places, do I add two tracks?  Why or why not?  Why would you use a Midi track vs. a VST track?  Should I record my Moog as audio, or use a Midi track and route to it?  Why?  I know how to add a plugin to a track, but what does that mean?  What does "bouncing a track" mean?  What is "comping"?   All the Groove 3 videos, Sonar University videos, and documentation do not really answer these questions.  This is NOT the fault of Cakewalk or Sonar, I would have the same questions no matter what the DAW I would use.  
 
I don't ask those questions to get answers here in this thread, but more to demonstrate what I am personally dealing with.  I have actually searched for a book on DAW recording for beginners, but the closest thing I could find was Home Recording for Musicians for Dummies.  I dutifully purchased and read it, but it was more focused on types of microphones, how to record a guitar, etc.
 
Resonant Serpent makes the same point I am trying to, only more succinctly.  He knows what he is looking to do - he just needs to know how to do it.  I have no idea what I need to do.  I also understand I am an outlier with my extreme lack of knowledge;  because I cannot (as yet) use Sonar is no fault of Cakewalk.  
 
I believe someone on this forum once made a suggestion of a video series on "how to create your first song."  Something simple with some audio, midi, and VST tracks that shows how to record, bounce (whatever that means), and a simple mix and export.  That would be extremely helpful.
 
As always, I have forever grateful to this forum for all the help I have been given over the past year.
 
 

There's two things here - the how and the why.  The how is using DAW (tool).  For instance - how do I add a new track? or how do I edit in Melodyne?  Part of the learning curve for the how is identifying what button/icon/menu item does what.  Voice command is the next step in this evolution - to add an audio track - you say "Add audio track."  Terminology is key for this to work.
 
I would love to be able to sit 15 feet from my DAW keyboard/display and say "Start transport, record".  This would be differentiation in the market.
 
The why is much more complicated as this gets into the techniques of creating, recording and producing music. SOrt of the when do I use that (i.e. when do I use a compressor and what does it do?)   Unfortunately, experiential and/or tutorial learning is the only way to do this.  In the Abbey Roads and Record Plants, someone on their first day would never be asked to dial in a compressor, but that could very well be where the user is today.

The Sonar Groove3 Videos are excellent! They will get anyone up and running. I go back and review them often. I always pick up something I had overlooked or forgotten about.😎

This is a great thread idea. I hope somebody actually pays attention to it. As I see it:
 
Most DAW's do too much and become a bloated, confusing mass of menus. I find that it's harder to learn when there are numerous ways to do the same thing. Flexibility is nice, but sometimes there's too many features and options. I really feel that the addition of new features happens too often, and we all know about the unintended consequences that pop up in what seem to be unrelated areas of the program.
 
Another thing that would be good is software that works as documented. Workarounds annoy experienced users and can be very offputing to a novice. It's hard to learn when you follow the instructions and things don't work as described. I would guess that most Sonar users don't come to the forums for help, and most software doesn't have a forum to turn to. Cakewalk is using their user base as a primary means of customer support, so the quality of that support can't be controlled.
 
Working on a DAW is like accessing a huge recording studio through the keyhole in the front door. A tiny little window through which you have to manage hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment. It shouldn't be too hard.Too much energy gets expended just getting around and learning the complex system, while creative energy gets blown off. 
 

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.

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.
 
 
 

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.