Anyone muck around with DAW's for fun?

[Eddie Strohacker]

Despite playing for years. I never really got into recording other than a few sessions in mates' bands over the years in local studios. I was vaguely aware of things like Cubase & Ableton growing in popularity, but never felt they were for me, then I bought a copy of Mixcraft & and an ASIO soundcard did nothing with it for a couple of years & finally fired it up over the weekend to work out how to work the levers.

Anyhow, spent an hour or two on it tonight & ran this masterpiece off. Never fewer than 68 guitars at any one time, a few of them n time I've got a MIDI keyboard & with that, I'm starting to glimpse the possibilities to be creative with this stuff.


https://goo.gl/Qon2Gp

[Cupramax]

Excellent, I got a copy of Cubase 9 with my Yam keyboard, but it really isn't user friendly for the average joe. Frazzled my head well and truly.

[Eddie Strohacker]

There certainly are a few concepts to get your head around with these things. That particular bit of music is garbage really, no arrangement to speak of & five guitars all piling in at once on a three chord riff. However, with Midi, I can see how with a bit of time & care, it would be pretty easy to build up something very lush with more or less any instrument you can think of at your disposal. Incredible really, an orchestra in a box for fifty quid.

[sparks85]

I produce music as a hobby, I use Reaper as my DAW but they all do similar things, just with a different workflow.

Its a hobby that can eat time, you can never stop learning or run out of creative things to do.

Always happy to provide advice if anyone has any questions.

[Uncool]

A friend of mine runs a recording studio in London and as I've just bought a new Yamaha electric piano and am getting back into music after a many-year absence I picked up a copy of Cubase 9 Pro a few weeks ago after trialling just about all the DAWs I could get my hands on. My friend gave me some good tips of what to look for during this process (he's a ProTools user, but I couldn't get the PT demo to run on my PC).

When I get some time from the end of next week I'm looking forward to trying and getting some decent music down, and also use it as a 'backing' to my piano playing.

[singlecoil]

Speaking of backing, I used to like to download the various free midi files you can get on line, turn off the instrument I was trying to play, and play in my own version. I know Cubase can do a lot more than that sort of thing, but I can't.

[br d]

I've been messing with them for years but never seem to acheive anything. I recently bought the Helix Native plug-in (VST) which is wonderful, I now don't need bulky effects boxes cluttering the desk.

They can be a terrible time sink. I've lost count of the times I have a chord progression, melody worked out, ideas for Bass lines, string sections and effects only to boot up Cubase and spend the next 6 hours tweaking a 2 bar drum pattern!

I get very little done but as it's a hobby and my living isn't reliant on it I normally quite enjoy wasting the afternoon!

[DanoS4]

Yup, I mess about with DAWs... but not for fun.

It's my job!

Using Logic and ProTools...... have a messabout with Ableton Live, but my serious work is on Logic with Tools as a mix engine.

[languagetimothy]

I've use GarageBand on my Macs and have done for years. Im a guitarist but also have a full length midi keyboard. I can use that to (badly) play, but mostly use it for strings, brass and wind instruments.
I have in my iMac all the original extra packs so plenty to play with and great guitar sound options. I sometimes use it if I'm learning a song (I play in a covers band) and make my own backing track to figure it all out, or occasionally use guitar backing tracks website, which if you're not aware of, has tons of tracks with the guitar removed and download as MP3 to GarageBand. Hours of joy and frustration!

[Simes205]

Everyday in school, logic x.

[anonymous-user]

I do but only midi, can't play an instrument to save my life! I use logic, but have spent time on cubase and pro tools too. I always found cubase to be a bit clinical and logic more friendly to use, and for recording bands pro tools is absolutely awesome