Stream my Music: ►hyperfollow.com/lkmusic Other Related Videos: ►Discussion with Midlife Synthesist:ua-cam.com/video/J3a85i1m4H4/v-deo.html ►More about the Digitakt: ua-cam.com/video/SBnT9bfMH0I/v-deo.html ►How to deal with GAS: ua-cam.com/video/PPtDW2f6aVM/v-deo.html ►Pioneer RMX-1000 in action: ua-cam.com/video/OP2qYP-CxSA/v-deo.html ►More about DistroKid: ua-cam.com/video/OGrT-jA-XPo/v-deo.html
DAWless is okay, using DAW is okay, being productive is okay, not creating music at all and just collecting gears also okay, whatever bring happiness and pleasure to yourself through music or musical instruments 🖤
I definitely mainly use music making as therapy these days, helping me survive the day job etc. For me the thing that makes me power up Protools is compositional control, and this would explain why you can do more elaborate drops etc as mentioned. Compositional control was something I realised I was lacking during my music education, and so I actually reverted from fully DAW based (with some hardware) to making ideas 'DAW less' because that is creative for me, and then reaching for the DAW if I think 'yep this is a track that deserves to be polished', so essentially, a lot of age and gear swapping about later, I've found my creative space in my modular and drum machines but almost 'project manage' the tune in a DAW when its gone as far as it can. Main caveat here, is that Ive definitely ruined some good ideas using a DAW, but me being rubbish shouldn't put others' off :)
I used to make music in a daw, but my main issue with that was 'too many options'. I found myself going through endless presets and plugins without actually making something. Also, I have to stare at a computer screen all day for work. I don't want that when I'm decompressing from all of that. I love the limitations of a dawless setup. It forces you to commit to a set of sounds. Does it get me commercially viable pieces of music? No, but that's not why I'm doing this.
This is what discouraged me and ultimately chased me away from making “electronic music” in the late 90’s/early 00’s. The endless presets and mouse clicking of a DAW ended up being soul crushing. I just went back to DJing which was much more interactive and immediate. Ironically, DAWs and laptops slowly took over the average DJ’s workflow too lol.
THIS. but what i like to do sometimes i put limitation on myself in the daw, like only use a certain 5 instruments/vsts to give the limitation effect, but in all honesty i just feels good to turn knobs and faders (tho yes you can get midi controllers with them)
Camp 2 here... I work all day as an analyst in front of a computer with 2, sometimes 3 monitors all day everyday at a global manufacturer company. The LAST thing I need when I go home and relax in music making is a 4th monitor to watch. Dawless is my happy place, my state of zen, my refuge.
I understand also your POV. As a 50+ career changer coming from a 20+ year career as a photographer (a great job on an unreliable market) having recently invested 2 and a half years into a Computer Science associate degree and not being hired after 2 years and 225+ job applications sent in the hope of starting my new career into IT at entry-level, I probably spend as much time in front of a computer looking for a job as a person working in the industry. I love making music in my free time and lacking the economy to go totally DAW-less, I still rely on my DAW to record my demos. Choosing to go DAW-less is some kind of luxury, but if I had a well-paid job in the IT industry, I'd give it a try, since my goal is to give small live performances. Gear / technical limitations surely can lead to finding creative solutions but being creative is not about the tool, it's about imagination. Making music gives me as well some inner peace, in this crazy world of making profit, greed and conflicts, no matter what the cost for the majority of humanity is as a consequence.
I like Bos take on this. Dawless should be about performance and playing live. I think of myself as a one man band, not a DJ or producer. I like to watch people perform dawless in the same way as I like to watch guitarists, bassists and drummers. Part of the problem is that electronic music is thought of mainly as DJ music and performance is not really considered outside people who are already sold on the dawless jamming thing.
I played a small 4 track set for an event at my workplace a few months ago. It was my first gig, and do you know how many of the 200-ish people realized my music was original? Only 2, and they were other performers. Literally everybody else thought I was just spinning songs someone else had created. It made me realize the DAWless is more of a thing I do for me, rather than to impress others.
So sad 😢 But the truth is that audience is formated to watch DJ's "playing" electronic music, and not making live music has any musician in other styles. This is the victory of the industry.
Did you have a keyboard in your set or did you just push buttons and twist knobs? Cos if there's no sort of musical input device people are gonna just think you're a dj, cos you're literally doing the same thing that dj's do...
Dawless, i.e. using hardware to create and produce music, is a physical process, where once you master (learn) the movements of the flow, they can become second nature and can be performed through muscle memory and not require processing power from your brain. On a computer, you're always processing via the mouse and keyboard which require brain process power, i.e. a mouses position is not in a fixed location, it is a virtual location, it can be anywhere at anytime preventing you from developing the muscle memory. Ableton Live is not really a live performance tool until you add a controller, like the Push, giving you the fixed location for physical interaction. We need structure, both physically and mentally, to be creative, even if the goal is to breakout of the structure. Thanks for the enlightened look at dawless.
I use both. DAWless is for enjoyment of making music. A DAW is for a targeted effort. My day job pays the bills more than adequately. Music is for a release. If it’s a job for you, do what you got to do. I spend enough time in front of a computer.
a 4-track recorder and a sequencer capable of sequencing full songs are two things that turned DAWless into a complete viable workflow for me instead of just a fun time-waster. My workflow is not very smooth by most standards, but with the right attitude what a lot of people might see as "friction" can actually give you "traction" in the music making process. also, beyond the technical limitations, the change in mindset required to accomplish anything with a tape machine has been helpful even when i do venture back into the DAW, like writing complete completely ahead of time before you record anything, and planning things out on paper before you start, and the general willingness to leave "mistakes" in and edit as little as possible.
About making music more interesting and less loop-based, the easiest way I've found to solve that is to hum a song idea into a voice recorder first, like a phone or something, to work out the overall song structure and progression. Then use that as a framework on which to actually build the song. I end up with a lot of the song composed before I ever touch any gear, and this gives me much better results overall. Instead of a looping pattern, each section flows into the next and the song actually goes somewhere.
For me creating music is all about getting into “flow state”. It’s much easier for me to achieve that with tactile gear. The only DAW environment I’ve found that I can reliably find “flow state” with are some iOS apps in which I can live trigger and tweak on the fly through the touchscreen. I also see a pretty clear distinction between “creating” and “producing”. I mainly create in a DAWless environment and produce a finished product on a DAW.
I never intended to go dawless, I've always been a guitar/bass player and it was a very gradual shift. First it was a synthesizer to record some keyboard parts. Then a couple years later it was e-drums so I could write drum parts. Then another year later it was a drum machine so I could jam on my own. Then I realized my old looper pedal had a midi input and could be synched with the drum machine. Then I realized I could connect the e-drums to the synth and arrange the pads as a controller. That's where the GAS really set in. Then it was a bass synth with a foot controller, a POLYsynth with a keyboard controller, a synth a disappointing synth with a vocoder (looking at you JD-XI). Then I got a dedicated sequencer which FINALLY let me pump the brakes. That's the main advice I can give a dawless jammer, get a dedicated sequencer and write SONGS. If you're just using the unit sequencers you'll be looping the same few bars forever.
Your points on dawless pros v. cons were like you were reading my mind. On gearlust, I have a loose rule: make sure I max out my gear before buying new gear. What helps is only watching demo videos about stuff I ALREADY HAVE. It's the greatest failure (for me) sell or ditch something and then realize it's more than capable for my needs, I just got impatient. The most creative solutions come from trying to making gear do something it wasn't designed to do. The DJ turntable for one.
I'm an unapologetic noodler. I've spend tens of thousands of dollars over the last 3-4 years building a nice little home studio that I can mess around with my gear in. I enjoy it. I enjoy deciding to tear it all down and set it back up again in a different configuration. I enjoy the challenge of trying to come up with the "perfect" cabling setup that gives instant access to every device from the master device (currently a Force). I enjoy NOT having the pressure of finishing music, or releasing music, or being on a timetable to create music. I do not enjoy using a computer for any of this stuff. My day job has me in front of a computer for 10 hours a day, the last thing I want to do when I get home and have an hour to spare is to open a computer up. Home is a computer free zone for me. It wasn't always like that though. When I started making music ~99/2000, it was all on computer. Then I bought some hardware and used that via the computer too, but it never really felt right to be honest. It felt like I was wasting the hardware by pushing a cursor around a screen. During this period I became a qualified sound engineer, had some releases, did some DJing, and then grew to dislike the fact that if I wanted to do it for a living, I would need to go down the "creative for a living" approach with music, and I hated it, so I decided to look elsewhere for my career. Now I'm in a position where I can comfortably afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars on gear that I use 3 times a month, and I get so much more enjoyment out of it than I ever did when I was releasing things and DJing. Some people spend that on booze, smokes, pot and working on cars. I spend it on providing myself with the opportunity to engage my tired brain in a different way, without pressure for results, and without a computer screen in front of me. It's worth every penny.
I work in tech. I’m drowning in tech. I love tech almost as much as I love music. Learning to build sounds and create a generative ambient piece that almost has a life of its own makes my life at the intersection of analog synths and music nearly perfect.
The main drawback of dawless is the neck pain from looking down all the time. But most people who grew up with DAWs don’t have a full appreciation that music is an aural medium, not a visual one. It’s important to experience music without the visual feedback of piano rolls and audio clip timelines and spectral depictions of the frequency band. Your eyes often mislead your ears. So a sore neck and shoulders is the cost.
This can be true but a DAW can have similar drawbacks. I once had a very bad repetitive strain injury that ran from my shoulder right into my hand from using a mouse. I do need to be careful looking down when working dawless, but at least I've never had RSI from working this way.
I have never heard of this myth. Anyone with a brain will set up their gear to be comfortable, for hours and hours. That goes for hardware and computers..
I enjoy DAWless jamming because it is tactile, allows me to interact more immediatelywith the sounds I'm creating, and especially lets me be creative outside my home. I want to level up my DAW skills, too, but I see them as different pursuits as Bo Beats said. Once I've mastered my gear I'll get around to figuring out how to record/produce the results.
The way how I see is that in the 'dawless' world you are essentially connecting everything with MIDI and/or CV. There is nothing wrong with these methods, but the "APIs" of the devices itself can be a limitation. In a fully integrated digital environment the level of control and integration of components is simply magnitudes higher.
"Going DAWless" is (generally speaking) just gear addiction. A never-ending pursuit to acquire the perfect setup. The perfect setup is always one or two purchases away. Until you get there and realize it's not perfect yet, and you start craving the dopamine hit that comes with buying a new toy again. First step to recovery is to admit you have a problem...
For me, the prospect of sitting at a computer to make music, is a real turnoff. You can totally make releasable tracks DAWlessly. The Deluge, for example, is an absolutely superb song in a box device.
@@DavidDeLuge except it lacks any mixing tools and you can’t flexibly route the effects not to mention the very dull synth engine. There’s also lots of MIDI interfaces that give you a tactile hardware feel like the Push 2 or Maschine… It always seems like people paint this picture that making music on a computer is this very tactless, soulless process that has you staring at a computer monitor with a mouse and keyboard and it’s only that way if you make it that way.
Another thought provoking video. You are good at making us think. I just now realized that I have spent over 40 years (on and off) making music for myself as a way to develop various skills and give me a space to have absolute focus and control. My goal going forward is to ‘show my work’ more and skim the best bits to share. Thanks for another round of electronic music therapy! 😂 🙏🏾
This video was so helpful for me. I am 52 and shifting my life focus from writing to music. Your point about how long it takes to learn a new piece of gear compared to learning to play a new instrument you already know how to play was informative. I'll stick to learning to play and hopefully get into some good collaborations later.
Can’t even say what it is exactly, Liam, but over the last year you became my favourite SynthTuber :) Really like your personal and open take on things. And that you don’t need to pretend that you know things better, rather that you’re just on that journey like all musicians :) Keep it up mate!
Such a real and honest take on this whole dawless realm. As a 1,2, and 3, I find it endlessly entertaining. I personally feel it adds a certain magic and that's why I collect. It's therapeutic and feels like what I wanted music in the future to be composed on. That's why I've spend $6000 on gear in the past 6 years hahaha
After being out of the game for 13 or more years of making music, I've made my come back and started out by planning to run DAWless based on finance. We live in a day and age where it can be great to do so. Funny to think that at some point having a good DAW program and serious rig will be an added bonus! All the music I have put up on my channel is DAWless production and have to say I am impressed at how well it has worked out so far. Great vid brother! 👊🧡👍
All three camps, I find myself more in the experimental sound design space when I am left without guardrails especially in a limitless DAW set up. Going DAWless and maintaining your initial intention is most important. It is very easy to find yourself not making music in all situations especially when you start chasing technical understanding and pushing the limits of something. Lastly presets and general midi sounds don't suck, wont kill your mix and do not brand you as unoriginal.
Really great video, and Bo’s philosophical musings added a great layer of depth to this piece. Funnily enough, it was through long lockdowns that I purchased a small selection of hardware (a synth, a sampler and an electric keyboard). It was very much driven by complete burnout from working on a computer all day (in the same room!) and then having zero motivation to sit in that same chair and look at that same screen and try to be ‘creative’ after a full day of work. Just that small differentiation between the screen and using hardware meant that I at least was interacting with music, playing and exploring. Ultimately I haven’t really fleshed out any of my hardware jams into finished tracks, but I’m ok with that. The option exists to always track them into a DAW, and this maybe the eventual workflow. anyway, thanks for the thought provoking video.
BoBeats: you said it so perfectly. I would add, from my experience, that going on these weird & wonderful sonic journeys of "dawless jamming" is closer to what a one feels sitting on the couch nooding with their guitar and getting lost in it, versus feeling dead/empty staring at a screen, clicking with a mouse, wading through a sea of plugins on a DAW. And after a long day at the office clicking through emails, I think that's what draws many of us to the wild/unpredictable, hands-on, playful world of hardware when we come home.
I’m a li’l mad that the algorithm didn’t bring me to your channel, but I’m extremely pleased that Mattoverse getting me interested in OB-4 DID BRING ME TO YOUR CHANNEL. I’ve been doing this kind of stuff to some degree for over a couple decades, and I feel nice and comfy (and entertained and educated) hanging out here, with your vibe and videos. Thanks, Liam 🇨🇦 ✌️
P.S. Glad to hear you’re hosting events in your area; fostering IRL (or online) community with likeminded gear aficionados, etc. is super. Some synth meetups in the Philadelphia, PA, USA area ca. 2017-2019 got me through some tough times and helped me get reinvigorated creatively and socially; helped me to expand, and share from, my experience and knowledge; helped me meet new people, make new friends, and connect; helped me to satisfy the urge to jam and feel like I was performing music with other people (even if it was more laidback and hanging out than “performing”); and helped me try a bunch of gear, only to be able to go home feeling content with only what I already had and not wanting more! 🥰
DAW-less, when you play Push or alike with computer screen OFF is best :) DAW stays out of your sight/mind, but all material stays there. Easy to save, develop, or keep jams collecting dust … those are fun to revisit, which is impossible to do with pure DAW-less, unless you are UA-camr.
This was great and i agree wholeheartedly. I have quite a lot of hardware but also have a DAW setup. The hardware is down in my studio in my garden, whereas the DAW setup is in the house. I still spend at least a third of my time in the studio getting some piece of gear to communicate with a different piece. It's for this reason that i spend more time sat in front of my DAW, it's so frustrating - but once the hardware starts communicating, it's a lot more fun than tapping keys and moving mouses. The point you make about it being a lot more expensive is also true. I bought a lot of my hardware from e-Bay or secondhand stores and a lot of it for really good prices. It's hard to find bargains now that everyone has wised up and so i rarely buy gear anymore, VST's are so much cheaper.
Thanks for a great and honest video. For whatever it may be worth, DAWless can sometimes be more kid friendly. My 5yo doesn’t have the patience to learn a traditional instrument right now but he’ll happily make loops on a groovebox (if it isn’t too abstract / menu heavy). And that’s great, just great. My kid likes banging out a songs on random objects and I cannot wait to introduce him to sampling into his groovebox experiments.
I am dawless and I have the perfect live portable set up where everything is plugged in and adhered to a briefcase. So I pull up to shows in one trip and it takes me 2 minutes to set up and sound check. MC 101 MC707 sending midi to TD3 and NTS1 And RC202 looper for guitar and vox.
Great points! Gear lust can definitely cause a lot of financial pain. One “positive” to hardware is that certain bits of gear tend to hold their value (and in rare cases even increase). If something doesn’t work anymore you can sell and it’s not entirely money down the drain. VST’s and plug-ins can rarely be resold if you find yourself not using them. Do your research, buy used, and pay cash (not debt)!
Big uP, You hit herds nail on the head, with the theme! That's why I'm learning to master 2 additional instruments, i.e. in combination with DAWles setup.
Exactly ! If you're looking to to focus more on the music making part - I think that's just the way to go. PS you might feel right at home in my Discord community! Here's the invite link: discord.gg/xj8J2xJuBP
Bobeats take on this is so perfectly SPOT ON! ❤ For me, dawless was something inspired by a need to make music when away from my computer. What i have discovered about dipping my toes into the dawless experience is a more carefree and playfull experience. I only have a Microfreak and a Circuit Tracks for now, and it very fun for me. For me its like picking up my guitar and goofing around and having fun. For more complex composition, and complete songs i still prefer using the daw. But i now use my synths with that too. So for me the gear is both something to play with on the go, AND its additions to my musical palette in a daw setup.
For me, as a Sample Based Beat maker and after messing with that Dawless for 3+ years, Ain't gonna lie' it was fun, but I ended up going to a hybrid set up simply because of desk space and workflow I got tired of waking up, heading to the office/studio and re-arrainging everything like every week LMAO. Purged like 4 times then bought something else, end up with something that takes a little longer learn than usual mainly because of my work schedule (shout out to all my warehouse beat makers lol) Tried to grab stuff with smaller footprint, ended up selling them because I have big ass hands. Can't hit the knobs right. I've owned so many OG samplers and synths it's Nuts.. like why do I need 3 Roland/boss SP's, 2 MPCs and 4 Synthetisizers?? 😂 When I went back to a daw, I had to relearn it cause I went all in on g.a.s. so much( and upgraded to Ableton 11 from 10.1) I forgot some of my usual workflow 😂😂 In conclusion. I'm happy I tried it out for that long, but there's a lot of headaches with trying to keep up with G.A.S. I'm happy I settled somewhere. Everything I have now has an important role in my set up. I'm now a minimalist
This was great. Very new to music making in general, but can already relate to a lot here…especially the addictive nature of the gear. It’s like someone pulled back a curtain to a whole new world of information that I just want to learn about and have fun with. Glad I found your channel. And shout out to KiNK for sharing a little jam on an S-1 mid flight, really lit the fire
I like DAWless because it gets me away from my laptop and a screen. I stare at a screen at work from 8 to 12 hours a day. I also feel it's easier to be musically creative on a physical instrument such as a groove box, drum machine, or sampler.
So. I come from a band background and so when we eventually got into performing electronic music live we are already dawless. Albeit we do a lot of background work before performing live we do everything without a DAW. I've found our biggest setback is just being shit at hitting stuff properly and/or on time. I'm a terrible keys player so that doesn't help. I will say your videos help a great deal. Please keep it up Liam. (as an aside, I don't know exactly where I'm going with this. I'm pissed and blah blah blah blah)
I think you are totally right on the fact that audiences / friends does not really care about how you play/produce the music, rather focusing on the entire feeling of your piece. Therefore, I also feel that how ever you would like to feel comfortable on making music, you should proceed, and do not need to stick in DAW- or DAWLESS categories. There should not be any force to anyone or feeling shame if you use computer etc. I love the process of learning through dawless set-up but its time and money consuming. Hope to find a way soon.
Setup 1) DAW studio : Can feel like work, but yes! I get to finalise "the product" (score!) Setup 2) Digitakt+Digitone combo : Feel like programming & DAW-less jamming & in the end you have made patches where you can always come back to & tweak them & then transform into a song in your DAW (score!) Setup 3) My DAW-less setup, feels so nice and creative to be jammin', but I listen to the recorded jams & stems and haha yeah it's kind of useless sadly. Or I need to practice more. Or I'm more of a DAW / Programmer person 🙂 Then again, it's all a journey & it's fun.
I work as a sound designer so I'm staring at a DAW 90% of my everyday life. The last thing I want to do when I get home is get on my computer and look at reaper all night. Starting to build a Dawless ambient setup. Feels more expressive and creative and I really resonate with what bo was saying. Dude hit the nail on the head there. But indeed bye bye money
Yeah this is the sentiment of so many DAWLESS folks. By the way if you want to have this discussion in more of a community environment - hit up my Discord! Here's the invite incase you're interested: discord.gg/xj8J2xJuBP
Thanks for sharing your story .. journey .. always nice to get to know the essence of the person you are tuning into .. as you share more details of some of the things that make you tick .. inspire and keep you on track .. thanks as well to Bo for your comments .. your videos are always informative Liam .. cheers to everyone ... !
Love your content! Camp 2 here (a bit of camp 3, but I guess that's part of the DAWless joy). Sequencing everything in Ableton, anyways, it allows for more dynamism.
Very interesting video!! I love being dawless! When you are just using your ears and vibing magical things happen that just don’t happen for me on a daw. Staring at a grid and clicking a mouse doesn’t inspire me at all and loses the vibe. I have however been using a hybrid workflow, where the daw is used for mixing, adding some finishing touches and stuff. Some of the greatest electronic music was created with very minimal equipment back in the day.
@@LiamKillen ... are you showing us that you don't know you can edit / delete your own comments ? If so , click on the 3 dots next to your own comment, then select option. 👍✊
I make music "dawless" since the time before there actually were DAWs. Because I enjoy these vintage original machines; they sound and groove perfectly imho. Nudging the cursor around on a computer screen gives me nothing but boredom and fatigue.
Yes! I use Ableton Live since Version 0.8b, but I only use it when I want to sketch some quick ideas and am on the road or run. It's just not what I enjoy over a longer timespan. It's not that I dislike Ableton Live, the opposite is true. I also know it inside and out because I went along with all the iterations/versions... I just enjoy using hardware instruments way more.
I'm a mostly retired semi-professional musician. I make music for friends and you tube. I'm not trying to be famous and I don't have G.A.S. but I learned how to play electronic music in college in the early 80's on a Buchla recording to tape. we had an 8 track analog studio and a 16 track analog studio. the first DAW I ever saw was on a Commodore 64. and our teacher picked up a Yamaha DX7 in Japan because they weren't out in the states yet. that was the first digital synth I'd ever seen. These days I have a Microfreak, Hydrasynth, Typhon and Drumbrute Impact. It is unlikely my set up will change again for a long time, Except maybe some processing gear. No one will think I'm a DJ though. My background is free improvisation acoustic jazz and electronic music. I'm make soundscapes and sometimes my music is kind of danceable but I care about telling stories, not dancing.
It’s funny to think about the concept of DAWLESS since all music prior to 90’s was “Dawless”. I guess ten years from now it will be “hey check out my Not-AI jam. I did everything in the DAW myself. No AI used at all.
@@LiamKillen I hope I’m wrong too. It’s hitting visual arts pretty hard already. I’ll always appreciate the human connection in the arts myself though.
@@Sikt you know, I disagree. As a listener I care VERY much about the stories of the artists and what is human about what they create. I have ever since I was a teenager. Will others care about that? Yeah, I think we all do on some level. Because that’s what Art is. It’s a human connection. Will we like robot music? Sure. But we will connect the most deeply from things we know came from a human being. We can mass manufacture things now, and look how much people pay for something hand made and human. It does matter. It’s everything. It’s what being human and alive is all about. That connection.
I'm quite new to dawless, and just spent a lot of very frustrating days trying to get my Blackbox and Sp404 to play nice together... it was quite the nightmare for both me and the delivery guy who had to bring my various cables, connectors and adapters. But, getting there in the end was like solving a tricky maths problem.. very satisfying and I probably learned more about the two instruments along the way than I otherwise might. Having said that, if I didn't have my acoustic guitar to strum out the frustration... who knows what asylum they'd be locking me up in now!
I want to learn and improve my skills, to make songs I like, and to enjoy the process. So I settled on using a hardware DAW (Akai Force) and one nice synth. This has been a very effective solution for me, so I'm really happy with it and don't feel a need to get more gear.
thankful for this video. coming at a perfect time for me. the obsession with gear acquisition can come on quick and stealthily. and this can easily dive into unhealthy financial habits that dig us into deeper money holes and create financial stress, especially if you are relying heavily on credit cards or "pay later" to acquire dear. i noticed that workflow is tough for me and it may be because i have too much gear to work with and toggle together. also, i'm generally feeling pulled to return to analog, acoustic instrument learning and focus in on music craft rather than tech intellect..
Yo your video production is really good, love the thoughts offered here too, it's surprisingly hard to find broader information videos on Analog/Digital music hardware that aren't about a specific device.
Lately I've been thinking that I don't like the term "dawless". It defines what you're doing "negatively". Of course, we're all aware of DAWs, and so there must be a conscious decision at some point about how or whether to engage with them. But for me, what I enjoy is interacting with, "playing", instruments. I like the sense of music unfolding in real time before me. Thanks for the great video!
Amazing timing of this video. Sometimes I wonder if I should spend all my money on this gear but there’s just an indescribable thing that truly is a “IYKYK” feeling. I’ve got XONE-px5, RD8, drumbrute impact, J-6, 404 mk2 and thinking about the Syntakt next.
I've been a musician for 25 years and have been slowly making my way into a dawless setup over the past 6 months. The whole thing is really attractive to me as someone who uses a computer all day for work (and sometimes more than all day, ugh). I was always turned off by the clips/scenes paradigm and the DJ thing doesn't appeal to me whatsoever. Everything BoBeats said was super on point, and you provided some great context here. Definitely just subbed your channel and will be checking out some of your videos on gear I have my eye on. I am familiar with the gear lust, nothing new to me, and I feel that has been a strength on my journey. I do enjoy the research and just catching a vibe with some gear. I feel myself landing with the MC707, and I think that will fit what I'm trying to do at least to get started, and what's within my price point. If you have tons of cash it's honestly kind of easy to sound clean and epic, but for me? Well, I don't have tons of cash. lol. At the same time, that does create a kind of grassroots DIY vibe challenge that is wholesome and indie, which to me is where the purest inspiration and innovation comes from. This is also true historically. Anyway, thanks for going for it with this. I bet for some people these truths are "uncomfortable" but honestly I found them to be reaffirming with the whole set of reasons I have been attracted to this musician subset.
Like it! I'm playing with DAWless - so I can just play & goof off.. That being said, it's kinda sad when I stumble into a great 'groove' for a couple of hours... but didn't capture all the patches, settings etc... And poof, moment is gone.
I decided to get into DAWless because I thought it would be a more impressive way to perform live than just using a laptop. But it is a complicated thing to put together an interesting live set, and in the end, yeah - most people think you are just DJing anyway. But I love collecting and learning different gear, and still use small varied DAWless setups for creative inspiration, and then use a DAW to expand on any of those ideas I want to turn into something more interesting/polished.
I'm not that far into my solo project yet, but I'm thinking adding visuals on a projector would provide something interesting for the audience to watch. Turning a few knobs on a midi controller isn't a very attractive live experience.
Really good topic and video, your channel is a gem. I'll always remember going into a shop and getting a groovebox demo and the guy said to me: this is great but it doesn't do everything, I like working with the limitations of the machine. I did not understand at that moment what he meant, but really it is what it is, you have to be creative to make things work in a dawless set up, and that's why I love it... As long as you don't buy all the gear to solve that problem 😄
I'm 47 years old. When I started making music in high school it was just hardware. In my early teens my bedroom was mostly taken up with gear. It's funny to me that dawless is a thing. I feel like I've gone the other way, moving from gear only to everything being in Ableton or Reason and on a laptop. Dawless just feels like going back to the start for me.
Yeah i'm like right between both worlds. The thing about today's "DAWLESS" gear is that it's much smaller and way more capable than it was a few decades ago - that being said, it's still easy to fall into that category of just having way too much gear that you don't need lol.
I make music in the DAW, and also have a DAWless rig. I use a computer at work, but not Ableton! But I get the best results starting off ideas in the groovebox/with DAWless gear, then adding layers/finishing off the song in the DAW.
everybody should make music the way they want to and both commenters here make valid points. The one point I would like to make is that most of the UA-camrs in the Dawless community who often get free gear - and those who don't - the ones with lots of views know tons about the instruments but I simply don't like their music, practically without exception. And I want to stress that this is not a criticism of the value of their music or if it's good or bad, it's just my personal taste. The one exception is @AnalogKitchen, he gets right to the point on a pedagogical level and I really like his music. It's kind of like the modular synth world. A lot of hardcore modular heads seem to me to be more sound designers or sound engineers rather than musicians in the sense of creating art. And again that is a value statement on my part. Music is simply arranging noise in the time-space continuum, intentionally, or less so. Is there good or bad music? Most people would say so, while disagreeing on what is good and what is bad. Respect to all humans who want to arrange sound waves in space-time. More power to all of you. If you can make a living doing it, great! If you don't, that doesn't necessarily make you less of a musician. This is a comment that comes from a place of respect and good faith. Keep rocking!!
Fantastic video! I think I fall in all 3 camps LOL. When I need to produce something for a client on a deadline, I think it's silly not to use a DAW. However... When I'm making music for myself, I feel really inspired by my favorite pieces of hardware. I don't care that it takes way longer to finish a track because I'm having a blast the entire time. Having started out DAWless on a crappy 4 track tape deck as an 8 year old, it kind of feels like getting away from my work environment and going home to play with a friend :3
I'm a Reason user for 16 years and its devices are designed to function and look like gear and alot of My experimental stuff sounds identical to Dawless gear, literally identical. I own a Navation peak and MiniNova and a cupple of pedals and I dont intend to get anymore physical gear.
Spot-on in your assessment. And your video is very aesthetically pleasing. I could do without the comedic cut ins , But tastes are different. Personally I’m constantly in between finishing songs on a Daw vs having fun dawless
This topic deserves even further investigation. I am in this hobby for three years now, and I am still searching my setup/workflow even genre sweet spot. I have come to realize just recently that I want my DAW as late as possible in the whole chain, ideally only for mastering. Because for me, oddly perhaps, I find getting into a whole hybrid DAW setup for live playing/performing/recording is such a pain. There are so many elements you need to take care of: your computer, Windows, Ableton, plugins and chains, the audio interface... There are so many steps, obstacles, things to figure out, things intermittently working... Of course hardware can be complicated too, but they at least have a coherent and consistent philosophy (usually). So to me the whole journey of electronic-music making is something of discovery, whether DAWless or not, or a hybrid. Especially because the upside of DAW complexity is of course the unlimited flexibility. Lastly I will say that what I find difficult in researching for my journey, is that two things are overrepresented, so to speak: Performance over just composition and producing to release online, and beatmaking and classic pop/rock over other genres, like ambient. In both cases I am into the latter, so I have to sift through a lot of stuff, even within video's and channels, just to get to the things that are applicable to what I am after.
From someone who doesn’t plan on being an artist, having a gig or share with anyone else. I’ve d*icked around for 20 years and it wasn’t till last month when mimeophone and angle grinder produced the noise I’d always been searching for - true I swear - so all is good. I haven’t made a song longer than a couple minutes and maybe 5 of those. Most of the time I have an agenda to try and test out… sit down and see where I end up. There was a time when the DAW and the plugins ruled me and it killed my desire to do anything creatively for a couple years. Picked up an MPC to record my jams this go round and sometimes I’ll make something in Reaktor or XO and bring them into the MPC as samples. But usually I wire up a eurorack patch, think of 4 different ways to go with it, pass out and unplug the patch the next AM with no regrets. This approach came from accepting my limitations and enjoying the creative part - always. I do improv performances alone and sometimes they get me all fired up. And sometimes I get so relaxed I’ll just pass out with an oscillator oscillating in my headphones.
This topic of DAWless always amuses me. I came up in the mid 90’s and there was no such thing as a DAW back then. So if you wanted to make electronic music you HAD to use ‘live’ instruments. I was an early user of ableton I think I started at v2.x when it was a midi sequencer and 2 audio channels. It took so long for computers to become a viable solution. Now that we have stuff like ableton/logic/DAW X and all the crazy VSTs, there’s a whole anti-DAW or DAWless crowd. Makes me giggle🤓
@@LiamKillen oh yes! I’m currently using an octatrack as a hub for live performance and couldn’t live without it🎶but I bought a year after it came out, so going on 10 years now and still scratch my head from time to time with it.
I'm just doing a mix of both. Sometimes I need a VST for what I want, but with Ableton I can just make it work with my DAWless setup. On top of that I've stopped buying hyped gear and started discovering some old gear people either never knew about or just forgot, or thought of as toys. They're still mostly cheap. I recently got some yamaha keyboards for $20-$30 and let me tell you, they slap. At that price point I can't find any plugin that sounds as good and lets me tweak so many parameters. Yes, there are noise issues, or sometimes components that are defective, but that's all part of the fun. For me it's mostly a hobby, it's a way to unwind like any other hobby, but somehow when it comes to music people expect you to make money with it because to actually make music you need to have spent a lot of time and energy getting to know the basics.
I make music every day on my dawless gear. I started this year and I’m in love with it. I’m creative with it and it’s very therapeutic. I like toys and I like collecting them. I love gear like I loved my toys as a child. I can now buy the toys I never could have. It’s a dream come true and I can afford it.
Quite often, we're presented with a polarising choice of 2 solitary options, when, in reality, it's not so black and white. I like gear. I like the hands on of physical gear. I also like making music in a DAW. Working in a DAW is so much easier, for me. You can hook up your physical gear to a PC and combine both. I also believe that many "advocates" of DAWless are becoming quite snobbish, looking down on those that use a DAW in a PC; yet, many of these "advocates" use MPC-style devices, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a DAW in a box. So, here's what I think: if you're happy being DAWless, that's great. If you're happy working totally in the box, that's great. If you're happy combining hardware and DAWs, that's great. It's the end result that's important, not medium; whether you're just jamming with yourself or trying to create and publish music or somewhere in between, being creative is what it's all about, not the gear.
I've been dawless for many years now. Like you, I started as a bassist/keyboardist. I still am first and foremost, but I too got into production and electronic music. Although I do use Ableton, FL Studio, and GarageBand for outside projects, I mainly like the hands on approach of dawless. Also, when I'm dawless jamming, usually have a iPad running recording whatever I'm doing.
I have a Volca FM, Volca Sample, and Drumbrute Impact and I intend on building a live set with them and a VST as a sort of hybrid setup. If I wanted to make songs with the intent of finishing them and releasing them, I would do that in a DAW, because software gives me a level of control that hardware cannot. I use the hardware just to see if I can perform with them and maybe incorporate them in a DJ set.
The fourth camp is people who simply hate computers, although you might find that hatred a common element. Some people just hate them, but others hate the interface - keyboard and mouse, or keyboard and trackpad, or even touchscreens. They all suck compared to faders and knobs. The irony is that a lot of "synths" are mini-computers built into a keyboard case with hardware controls attached. There's a massive market for some type of hybrid idea here...
Using gear means you've accepted its limitations while making creative solutions in the pursuit of your craft. Gear can do a lot but it can't do everything. Limitations make you try harder. Using DAWs are fine; you've got the power of the universe at your fingertips. There's not much they can't do. Both have learning curves. Both can be amazing.
Camp #1: I cannot justify the expense of hardware, and i am super slow at learning tech. I use ableton and Akai40 MK2 + launchkey. I do use ableton as-if it was a hardware instrument. 8 tracks and they all do the same thing, the macros are fixed. So it is like hardware, but i design it. Then i have the muscle memory and can play it like an instrument. No technical considerations, i hate "thinking" when i want to be feeling * i love your "reason" for doing this. people need music, it gives the wings to the soul right? it took me 20 years to accept this is a valid reason 🤷♂ my illumination was when i saw this guy who has a "tuna fish cans", and he explained how essential his work was, and proved it in a few ways... music is essential
So funny story, I know you know loop daddy...I had been playing bass and guitar for about 15 years and I was starting to lose my passion for those instruments but not making music. Then I found loop daddy a few years back. I ended up grabbing the boss rc505 mark 1 looper and also an analog synth...thinking I'd be able to use it with a vst...nope. I ended up buying the wrong synths but took a nose dive into sound design and discovered how much I love it. Now I have a few synths and drum machines, I'm able to program patches pretty quickly if I need something or I can dig into exploring sound for a while. It turned into the heat blunder buy I ever did lol and now I am able to play all parts of my music and complete songs or just jam as the feeling comes. The best thing so far has been my kids getting behind me. I found out one of my kids videogame name is HiFiHumanoidFan and it made me so proud. Now when I create sounds or music, as long as my kids are dancing along or enjoying it (and my wife) then I'm in the best place. Once their heads are done bobbing to the music,I know it's time to change it up haha but great video! I would say I'm mostly camp 2 with some parts camp 1 as I've published a bit over two albums worth of songs and it's been a blast. Also publishing you songs and then listening to them in different places like the car or work truck or whatever is a great way to learn mixing/mastering.
DAWless all the way! If I had to use a DAW, I simply wouldn't make music. Yes, I've bought and sold several devices in my pursuit of the perfect setup FOR ME and I'm OK with that because I am lucky enough to have the disposal income to buy and sell stuff and take the hit. Correction, I've worked bloody hard to have that disposal income. I'm left with a Deluge, a Verselab MV-1, an SP-404MKII, a Dirtywave M8 and, more recently, a Polyend Play, which is great. There's little I can't do with that combo. DAWless is totally possible.
@@stephenroldan5107 jajaj totally true!. How many times i thought "...if I'd recorded this" while exploring, but I'm just enjoying myself tweking knobs
Camp 2 for me - One rule - Never record....For me it's about the exploration and stumbling on something cool...might take 5min may take 3 hours....or might be a bust....That's what I love.
I went into DAWless, because it allows me to be more in the process. Your music hasn’t to be the most complex stuff to compete , if you’re trying to sell it in the market. The most simple and minimalistic tracks could beat any komplex one, if it’s unique and wonderful enough. For me, DAWless is more joyful and joy ignites passion, creativity and perfection.
Long ago I tried to do music and got lost into Ableton and the VST sea of plugins and libraries. A few years later I'm starting to stay in touch with music again, but this time I want to try and go dawless and center on music and creativity in a dawless place where maybe less is more. If you have tons of virtual plugins and synths, you end mastering none of them sometimes. If I buy some gear, I will try to master that one. Loved the video and people thoughts on this. Keep the good work in the channel.
@@LiamKillen Yeah, anyway I feel like if you don't know just a b8t about playing some instruments (keyboard or guitar for example), is a lot more difficult to make nice music. Its easy to fall on buying a lot of gear_toys without sense and thinking that will let you create music like by magic.
For me it is pretty clear. If you wanna just jam, have fun with devices and play around with at home it is worth it. If you think they will give you a solid producing Plattform and get real production value - forget it. You will not finish a single song to release level, except you switch over to a daw at some point. Don’t fall for the illusion that it will make you produce actual songs.
I'm from camp 3 transitioning into camp 2, it just takes time to realize that I don't need all those boxes and start creating with just a few of them :)
I really couldn't agree more with you! ..... Also get the RMX1000. This was the piece of gear that released me from DAWless monotony. You can also load a few samples on it... Yes I know you're already using a sampler, but having a few vox adlibs on the RMX is very fun.
Are we gonna get a build ups n drops vid? Great video! I’m in the dawless jammer/trying to record here and there and full fledged gas camp lol….(huge tip; don’t get into eurorack)
10:00 I agree - I think the biggest benefit of having hardware gear is that its simply not being associated with your work computer or personal stuff, period. But for that purpose it's perfectly fine to maybe have two computers, one for work, and the other maybe have ONLY music apps. :)
Great video Liam, im getting back into creating music just for me, i was fully DAW around 2000, but now im thinking with all these new bits of kit and a lack of space i just need some sort of groove box, but small form and preferably runs on batteries (ive been watching alot of mc-101 and NUCircuit videos), so i gurss my question to you is this. What is your desert island one peice of kit, that would give someone like me enough options and interest without having to build a huge setup? Im off to watch more of your content 👍🏼😁
Great question. Right now I’m really into the digitakt but I’m also going to be receiving an octatrack which I think will be taking over in terms of capabilities
I've thought about this a little after this popped up on my feed yesterday. it really doesn't matter as long as some sense of outlet is achieved. DAW, DAWless, GAS. if it makes one happy then its already good. I personally landed in DAWless as I work in tech and feel like I wanted a break from screens for a hobby. Then I am doing this just for some kind of creative outlet while also satisfying the mind-over-tech habits i have. Finally, i definitely have a couple of boxes too many, a few POs, a couple of thrift store whatevers , but nothing I'd consider an S (in GAS) . so. a bit from camp 1, 2 and 3. :-) that said...... I recently got Ableton and I can see why people like it. it's still maybe too much rope... but I can see myself using it too as a tool.
I think dawless is more about performance and spontaneity. Do I want to sit down an create a song or do I want to sit down and perform one? Putting four random kick drums in a patterns on one of my Elektron boxes can pull me in instantly and I didn’t have to wait for a computer to boot up and make sure all my sound settings were correct. I also love the feel of connecting my gear together…MIDI chains and sound chains. The ka-thunk of plugging in patch cables. Making a complete song in Ableton requires more commitment. Of course Ableton has session view which can perform the duties of what a dawless set-up provides, especially if you have the Push 2…but then you’re throwing away the comfort of limitations…which can lead to paralysis. It’s amazing to me what so many UA-camrs seem to know exactly which one of their 500 plugins they’re going to use for any given task…or is that the illusion of video editing? :)
First world synthesizer problems. It’s nice that you scripted these videos to support your agenda, and how you understand the environment around you to be. However thank you very much for breaking everything up into the 3 groups. The situation depends on a persons workflow. If the end result of that session is to create enough motifs for a finished product into whatever post processing method, then so be it. On the other hand if the end result is to have a workflow and a session to only focus on the technology and the inner workings of such technology in the current workflow and or using the technology to make certain motifs sounds, custom sound design, which is just as relevant. So it’s a person having multiple workflows and with a goal every time they use the equipment of what time management and projected outcome is supposed to be. I’m not going to spoonfeed everyone but I think you’re on the right path if you understand these words.
Stream my Music:
►hyperfollow.com/lkmusic
Other Related Videos:
►Discussion with Midlife Synthesist:ua-cam.com/video/J3a85i1m4H4/v-deo.html
►More about the Digitakt: ua-cam.com/video/SBnT9bfMH0I/v-deo.html
►How to deal with GAS: ua-cam.com/video/PPtDW2f6aVM/v-deo.html
►Pioneer RMX-1000 in action: ua-cam.com/video/OP2qYP-CxSA/v-deo.html
►More about DistroKid: ua-cam.com/video/OGrT-jA-XPo/v-deo.html
Checkin it out.
verified danko. Nice dude. grooving vibes.
DAWless is okay, using DAW is okay, being productive is okay, not creating music at all and just collecting gears also okay, whatever bring happiness and pleasure to yourself through music or musical instruments 🖤
In the end that’s exactly right
Give this one a gold medal
I definitely mainly use music making as therapy these days, helping me survive the day job etc. For me the thing that makes me power up Protools is compositional control, and this would explain why you can do more elaborate drops etc as mentioned. Compositional control was something I realised I was lacking during my music education, and so I actually reverted from fully DAW based (with some hardware) to making ideas 'DAW less' because that is creative for me, and then reaching for the DAW if I think 'yep this is a track that deserves to be polished', so essentially, a lot of age and gear swapping about later, I've found my creative space in my modular and drum machines but almost 'project manage' the tune in a DAW when its gone as far as it can. Main caveat here, is that Ive definitely ruined some good ideas using a DAW, but me being rubbish shouldn't put others' off :)
This wins the musical internet.
I agree. 😊
I used to make music in a daw, but my main issue with that was 'too many options'. I found myself going through endless presets and plugins without actually making something. Also, I have to stare at a computer screen all day for work. I don't want that when I'm decompressing from all of that.
I love the limitations of a dawless setup. It forces you to commit to a set of sounds. Does it get me commercially viable pieces of music? No, but that's not why I'm doing this.
I totally agree. I simply wouldn't make music if I had to use a DAW. DAWless all the way.
That’s exactly it- it pushes you into the experimental realm
This is what discouraged me and ultimately chased me away from making “electronic music” in the late 90’s/early 00’s. The endless presets and mouse clicking of a DAW ended up being soul crushing. I just went back to DJing which was much more interactive and immediate. Ironically, DAWs and laptops slowly took over the average DJ’s workflow too lol.
THIS. but what i like to do sometimes i put limitation on myself in the daw, like only use a certain 5 instruments/vsts to give the limitation effect, but in all honesty i just feels good to turn knobs and faders (tho yes you can get midi controllers with them)
That's what I love about the vintage classics; you turn them on and you'll get instant gratification. No firmware updates, no crashes. Pure fun.
Camp 2 here... I work all day as an analyst in front of a computer with 2, sometimes 3 monitors all day everyday at a global manufacturer company. The LAST thing I need when I go home and relax in music making is a 4th monitor to watch. Dawless is my happy place, my state of zen, my refuge.
Yeah that's fair.
+1 !
I understand also your POV. As a 50+ career changer coming from a 20+ year career as a photographer (a great job on an unreliable market) having recently invested 2 and a half years into a Computer Science associate degree and not being hired after 2 years and 225+ job applications sent in the hope of starting my new career into IT at entry-level, I probably spend as much time in front of a computer looking for a job as a person working in the industry. I love making music in my free time and lacking the economy to go totally DAW-less, I still rely on my DAW to record my demos. Choosing to go DAW-less is some kind of luxury, but if I had a well-paid job in the IT industry, I'd give it a try, since my goal is to give small live performances. Gear / technical limitations surely can lead to finding creative solutions but being creative is not about the tool, it's about imagination. Making music gives me as well some inner peace, in this crazy world of making profit, greed and conflicts, no matter what the cost for the majority of humanity is as a consequence.
I like Bos take on this. Dawless should be about performance and playing live. I think of myself as a one man band, not a DJ or producer. I like to watch people perform dawless in the same way as I like to watch guitarists, bassists and drummers. Part of the problem is that electronic music is thought of mainly as DJ music and performance is not really considered outside people who are already sold on the dawless jamming thing.
Absolutely
100%
Yeah, people come and see my studio: ah you are a DJ!!? 😓
@@el_dani drives me nuts.
Totally agree. It’s much more satisfying to see people play real instruments, turn knobs, and use learned piano skills.
I played a small 4 track set for an event at my workplace a few months ago. It was my first gig, and do you know how many of the 200-ish people realized my music was original? Only 2, and they were other performers. Literally everybody else thought I was just spinning songs someone else had created. It made me realize the DAWless is more of a thing I do for me, rather than to impress others.
Haha sounds about right lol
@@LiamKillen I guess the positive is that I was good enough to convince people that I was legit 😂
Yeah
So sad 😢 But the truth is that audience is formated to watch DJ's "playing" electronic music, and not making live music has any musician in other styles.
This is the victory of the industry.
Did you have a keyboard in your set or did you just push buttons and twist knobs? Cos if there's no sort of musical input device people are gonna just think you're a dj, cos you're literally doing the same thing that dj's do...
Dawless, i.e. using hardware to create and produce music, is a physical process, where once you master (learn) the movements of the flow, they can become second nature and can be performed through muscle memory and not require processing power from your brain. On a computer, you're always processing via the mouse and keyboard which require brain process power, i.e. a mouses position is not in a fixed location, it is a virtual location, it can be anywhere at anytime preventing you from developing the muscle memory. Ableton Live is not really a live performance tool until you add a controller, like the Push, giving you the fixed location for physical interaction. We need structure, both physically and mentally, to be creative, even if the goal is to breakout of the structure. Thanks for the enlightened look at dawless.
I like this take! And thank you for watching! :-)
I use both. DAWless is for enjoyment of making music. A DAW is for a targeted effort. My day job pays the bills more than adequately. Music is for a release. If it’s a job for you, do what you got to do. I spend enough time in front of a computer.
Fair assessment
a 4-track recorder and a sequencer capable of sequencing full songs are two things that turned DAWless into a complete viable workflow for me instead of just a fun time-waster. My workflow is not very smooth by most standards, but with the right attitude what a lot of people might see as "friction" can actually give you "traction" in the music making process. also, beyond the technical limitations, the change in mindset required to accomplish anything with a tape machine has been helpful even when i do venture back into the DAW, like writing complete completely ahead of time before you record anything, and planning things out on paper before you start, and the general willingness to leave "mistakes" in and edit as little as possible.
About making music more interesting and less loop-based, the easiest way I've found to solve that is to hum a song idea into a voice recorder first, like a phone or something, to work out the overall song structure and progression. Then use that as a framework on which to actually build the song. I end up with a lot of the song composed before I ever touch any gear, and this gives me much better results overall. Instead of a looping pattern, each section flows into the next and the song actually goes somewhere.
Yesss great idea!
Check out Beardyman
@@2silkworm Have been following Beardyman since 2007. He's fantastic.
Ima try this
Exactly the way I use to compose my stuff!
For me creating music is all about getting into “flow state”. It’s much easier for me to achieve that with tactile gear. The only DAW environment I’ve found that I can reliably find “flow state” with are some iOS apps in which I can live trigger and tweak on the fly through the touchscreen. I also see a pretty clear distinction between “creating” and “producing”. I mainly create in a DAWless environment and produce a finished product on a DAW.
That’s a really good point- man so many comments in this video. Thank you!
I can totally relate to this comment. Well said.
I never intended to go dawless, I've always been a guitar/bass player and it was a very gradual shift. First it was a synthesizer to record some keyboard parts. Then a couple years later it was e-drums so I could write drum parts. Then another year later it was a drum machine so I could jam on my own. Then I realized my old looper pedal had a midi input and could be synched with the drum machine. Then I realized I could connect the e-drums to the synth and arrange the pads as a controller. That's where the GAS really set in. Then it was a bass synth with a foot controller, a POLYsynth with a keyboard controller, a synth a disappointing synth with a vocoder (looking at you JD-XI). Then I got a dedicated sequencer which FINALLY let me pump the brakes. That's the main advice I can give a dawless jammer, get a dedicated sequencer and write SONGS. If you're just using the unit sequencers you'll be looping the same few bars forever.
Thank you for this addition! :-)
Your points on dawless pros v. cons were like you were reading my mind. On gearlust, I have a loose rule: make sure I max out my gear before buying new gear. What helps is only watching demo videos about stuff I ALREADY HAVE. It's the greatest failure (for me) sell or ditch something and then realize it's more than capable for my needs, I just got impatient. The most creative solutions come from trying to making gear do something it wasn't designed to do. The DJ turntable for one.
Yes to all of this!! Thanks for watching :-)
I'm an unapologetic noodler. I've spend tens of thousands of dollars over the last 3-4 years building a nice little home studio that I can mess around with my gear in. I enjoy it. I enjoy deciding to tear it all down and set it back up again in a different configuration. I enjoy the challenge of trying to come up with the "perfect" cabling setup that gives instant access to every device from the master device (currently a Force). I enjoy NOT having the pressure of finishing music, or releasing music, or being on a timetable to create music.
I do not enjoy using a computer for any of this stuff. My day job has me in front of a computer for 10 hours a day, the last thing I want to do when I get home and have an hour to spare is to open a computer up. Home is a computer free zone for me.
It wasn't always like that though. When I started making music ~99/2000, it was all on computer. Then I bought some hardware and used that via the computer too, but it never really felt right to be honest. It felt like I was wasting the hardware by pushing a cursor around a screen. During this period I became a qualified sound engineer, had some releases, did some DJing, and then grew to dislike the fact that if I wanted to do it for a living, I would need to go down the "creative for a living" approach with music, and I hated it, so I decided to look elsewhere for my career.
Now I'm in a position where I can comfortably afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars on gear that I use 3 times a month, and I get so much more enjoyment out of it than I ever did when I was releasing things and DJing. Some people spend that on booze, smokes, pot and working on cars. I spend it on providing myself with the opportunity to engage my tired brain in a different way, without pressure for results, and without a computer screen in front of me.
It's worth every penny.
Appreciate all of your input here! 😊
Very insightful stuff here, thanks for writing all of this!
I work in tech. I’m drowning in tech. I love tech almost as much as I love music. Learning to build sounds and create a generative ambient piece that almost has a life of its own makes my life at the intersection of analog synths and music nearly perfect.
The main drawback of dawless is the neck pain from looking down all the time. But most people who grew up with DAWs don’t have a full appreciation that music is an aural medium, not a visual one. It’s important to experience music without the visual feedback of piano rolls and audio clip timelines and spectral depictions of the frequency band. Your eyes often mislead your ears. So a sore neck and shoulders is the cost.
Haha it’s true eh!? Gotta do your stretches!
This can be true but a DAW can have similar drawbacks. I once had a very bad repetitive strain injury that ran from my shoulder right into my hand from using a mouse. I do need to be careful looking down when working dawless, but at least I've never had RSI from working this way.
I have never heard of this myth. Anyone with a brain will set up their gear to be comfortable, for hours and hours. That goes for hardware and computers..
I enjoy DAWless jamming because it is tactile, allows me to interact more immediatelywith the sounds I'm creating, and especially lets me be creative outside my home. I want to level up my DAW skills, too, but I see them as different pursuits as Bo Beats said. Once I've mastered my gear I'll get around to figuring out how to record/produce the results.
I’m going hybrid myself 😏
@@LiamKillen There's a time and a place for everything, right?
The way how I see is that in the 'dawless' world you are essentially connecting everything with MIDI and/or CV. There is nothing wrong with these methods, but the "APIs" of the devices itself can be a limitation. In a fully integrated digital environment the level of control and integration of components is simply magnitudes higher.
I see your take
"Going DAWless" is (generally speaking) just gear addiction. A never-ending pursuit to acquire the perfect setup. The perfect setup is always one or two purchases away. Until you get there and realize it's not perfect yet, and you start craving the dopamine hit that comes with buying a new toy again. First step to recovery is to admit you have a problem...
I think there’s a lot of truth to this.
I'm not listening...LALALALALA
For me, the prospect of sitting at a computer to make music, is a real turnoff. You can totally make releasable tracks DAWlessly. The Deluge, for example, is an absolutely superb song in a box device.
@@DavidDeLuge except it lacks any mixing tools and you can’t flexibly route the effects not to mention the very dull synth engine.
There’s also lots of MIDI interfaces that give you a tactile hardware feel like the Push 2 or Maschine… It always seems like people paint this picture that making music on a computer is this very tactless, soulless process that has you staring at a computer monitor with a mouse and keyboard and it’s only that way if you make it that way.
@ClemFandango People resell VSTs all the time. I've bought several "used" VSTs, what the fuck are you on about?
Another thought provoking video. You are good at making us think. I just now realized that I have spent over 40 years (on and off) making music for myself as a way to develop various skills and give me a space to have absolute focus and control. My goal going forward is to ‘show my work’ more and skim the best bits to share. Thanks for another round of electronic music therapy! 😂 🙏🏾
Always appreciate you watching! :-)
This video was so helpful for me. I am 52 and shifting my life focus from writing to music. Your point about how long it takes to learn a new piece of gear compared to learning to play a new instrument you already know how to play was informative. I'll stick to learning to play and hopefully get into some good collaborations later.
So glad that it's helped! :-)
Cheers-
Can’t even say what it is exactly, Liam, but over the last year you became my favourite SynthTuber :)
Really like your personal and open take on things. And that you don’t need to pretend that you know things better, rather that you’re just on that journey like all musicians :)
Keep it up mate!
Wow I really appreciate that- yes! Still lots to learn and loving the process
Such a real and honest take on this whole dawless realm. As a 1,2, and 3, I find it endlessly entertaining. I personally feel it adds a certain magic and that's why I collect. It's therapeutic and feels like what I wanted music in the future to be composed on. That's why I've spend $6000 on gear in the past 6 years hahaha
It's def an investment! Haha.
After being out of the game for 13 or more years of making music, I've made my come back and started out by planning to run DAWless based on finance. We live in a day and age where it can be great to do so. Funny to think that at some point having a good DAW program and serious rig will be an added bonus! All the music I have put up on my channel is DAWless production and have to say I am impressed at how well it has worked out so far. Great vid brother! 👊🧡👍
Thank you and good luck on your journey!
@@LiamKillen Thx so much. It feels good to be back at it again. Great channel! ✌
All three camps, I find myself more in the experimental sound design space when I am left without guardrails especially in a limitless DAW set up. Going DAWless and maintaining your initial intention is most important. It is very easy to find yourself not making music in all situations especially when you start chasing technical understanding and pushing the limits of something. Lastly presets and general midi sounds don't suck, wont kill your mix and do not brand you as unoriginal.
Yes to all of this!
Really great video, and Bo’s philosophical musings added a great layer of depth to this piece.
Funnily enough, it was through long lockdowns that I purchased a small selection of hardware (a synth, a sampler and an electric keyboard). It was very much driven by complete burnout from working on a computer all day (in the same room!) and then having zero motivation to sit in that same chair and look at that same screen and try to be ‘creative’ after a full day of work.
Just that small differentiation between the screen and using hardware meant that I at least was interacting with music, playing and exploring. Ultimately I haven’t really fleshed out any of my hardware jams into finished tracks, but I’m ok with that. The option exists to always track them into a DAW, and this maybe the eventual workflow.
anyway, thanks for the thought provoking video.
My pleasure- thanks for your take as well!
BoBeats: you said it so perfectly. I would add, from my experience, that going on these weird & wonderful sonic journeys of "dawless jamming" is closer to what a one feels sitting on the couch nooding with their guitar and getting lost in it, versus feeling dead/empty staring at a screen, clicking with a mouse, wading through a sea of plugins on a DAW. And after a long day at the office clicking through emails, I think that's what draws many of us to the wild/unpredictable, hands-on, playful world of hardware when we come home.
Thanks for your addition here ! :-)
I’m a li’l mad that the algorithm didn’t bring me to your channel, but I’m extremely pleased that Mattoverse getting me interested in OB-4 DID BRING ME TO YOUR CHANNEL. I’ve been doing this kind of stuff to some degree for over a couple decades, and I feel nice and comfy (and entertained and educated) hanging out here, with your vibe and videos. Thanks, Liam 🇨🇦 ✌️
P.S. Glad to hear you’re hosting events in your area; fostering IRL (or online) community with likeminded gear aficionados, etc. is super. Some synth meetups in the Philadelphia, PA, USA area ca. 2017-2019 got me through some tough times and helped me get reinvigorated creatively and socially; helped me to expand, and share from, my experience and knowledge; helped me meet new people, make new friends, and connect; helped me to satisfy the urge to jam and feel like I was performing music with other people (even if it was more laidback and hanging out than “performing”); and helped me try a bunch of gear, only to be able to go home feeling content with only what I already had and not wanting more! 🥰
Thanks for tuning in Keith! Always appreciated
DAW-less, when you play Push or alike with computer screen OFF is best :) DAW stays out of your sight/mind, but all material stays there. Easy to save, develop, or keep jams collecting dust … those are fun to revisit, which is impossible to do with pure DAW-less, unless you are UA-camr.
Yeah I see these integrated tools as more and more valuable because it takes you off the screen and brings you more into the music.
This was great and i agree wholeheartedly. I have quite a lot of hardware but also have a DAW setup. The hardware is down in my studio in my garden, whereas the DAW setup is in the house. I still spend at least a third of my time in the studio getting some piece of gear to communicate with a different piece. It's for this reason that i spend more time sat in front of my DAW, it's so frustrating - but once the hardware starts communicating, it's a lot more fun than tapping keys and moving mouses. The point you make about it being a lot more expensive is also true. I bought a lot of my hardware from e-Bay or secondhand stores and a lot of it for really good prices. It's hard to find bargains now that everyone has wised up and so i rarely buy gear anymore, VST's are so much cheaper.
Use midi controllers with your DAW and minimize the use of keyboard and mouse? That's the route I'm going.
Thanks for a great and honest video. For whatever it may be worth, DAWless can sometimes be more kid friendly. My 5yo doesn’t have the patience to learn a traditional instrument right now but he’ll happily make loops on a groovebox (if it isn’t too abstract / menu heavy). And that’s great, just great. My kid likes banging out a songs on random objects and I cannot wait to introduce him to sampling into his groovebox experiments.
Yes it's true - it's a much more tactile approach for sure !
I am dawless and I have the perfect live portable set up where everything is plugged in and adhered to a briefcase. So I pull up to shows in one trip and it takes me 2 minutes to set up and sound check.
MC 101
MC707 sending midi to TD3 and NTS1
And RC202 looper for guitar and vox.
Yoo I just did the briefcase thing too!!! I got mine with a circuit tracks, volca keys and fm2 with the Aira J6,E4 and T8
@@88Fitzy88 oh wow great line of units!
Master!
What a very nice discussion of DAWLESS topics and a great commentary from BoBeats. Excellent.
Thanks Jeff!
Great points! Gear lust can definitely cause a lot of financial pain.
One “positive” to hardware is that certain bits of gear tend to hold their value (and in rare cases even increase). If something doesn’t work anymore you can sell and it’s not entirely money down the drain.
VST’s and plug-ins can rarely be resold if you find yourself not using them.
Do your research, buy used, and pay cash (not debt)!
Very true about software! If you’re smart about reinvesting you can save a lot of money and time
Great video - agree with the train of thinking and points. Really agree with Bo's comments on product and creativity.
I think that the 2 perspectives are just perfect
Big uP, You hit herds nail on the head, with the theme! That's why I'm learning to master 2 additional instruments, i.e. in combination with DAWles setup.
Exactly ! If you're looking to to focus more on the music making part - I think that's just the way to go.
PS you might feel right at home in my Discord community! Here's the invite link: discord.gg/xj8J2xJuBP
Bobeats take on this is so perfectly SPOT ON! ❤
For me, dawless was something inspired by a need to make music when away from my computer.
What i have discovered about dipping my toes into the dawless experience is a more carefree and playfull experience.
I only have a Microfreak and a Circuit Tracks for now, and it very fun for me.
For me its like picking up my guitar and goofing around and having fun.
For more complex composition, and complete songs i still prefer using the daw. But i now use my synths with that too.
So for me the gear is both something to play with on the go, AND its additions to my musical palette in a daw setup.
Yes I think he tapped into something there for sure
For me, as a Sample Based Beat maker and after messing with that Dawless for 3+ years, Ain't gonna lie' it was fun, but I ended up going to a hybrid set up simply because of desk space and workflow
I got tired of waking up, heading to the office/studio and re-arrainging everything like every week LMAO.
Purged like 4 times then bought something else, end up with something that takes a little longer learn than usual mainly because of my work schedule (shout out to all my warehouse beat makers lol)
Tried to grab stuff with smaller footprint, ended up selling them because I have big ass hands. Can't hit the knobs right.
I've owned so many OG samplers and synths it's Nuts.. like why do I need 3 Roland/boss SP's, 2 MPCs and 4 Synthetisizers?? 😂
When I went back to a daw, I had to relearn it cause I went all in on g.a.s. so much( and upgraded to Ableton 11 from 10.1) I forgot some of my usual workflow 😂😂
In conclusion. I'm happy I tried it out for that long, but there's a lot of headaches with trying to keep up with G.A.S.
I'm happy I settled somewhere. Everything I have now has an important role in my set up. I'm now a minimalist
Thanks for your input!
This was great. Very new to music making in general, but can already relate to a lot here…especially the addictive nature of the gear. It’s like someone pulled back a curtain to a whole new world of information that I just want to learn about and have fun with. Glad I found your channel. And shout out to KiNK for sharing a little jam on an S-1 mid flight, really lit the fire
Thank you for watching! K!nk is dope!
I like DAWless because it gets me away from my laptop and a screen. I stare at a screen at work from 8 to 12 hours a day. I also feel it's easier to be musically creative on a physical instrument such as a groove box, drum machine, or sampler.
Totally
So. I come from a band background and so when we eventually got into performing electronic music live we are already dawless. Albeit we do a lot of background work before performing live we do everything without a DAW. I've found our biggest setback is just being shit at hitting stuff properly and/or on time. I'm a terrible keys player so that doesn't help. I will say your videos help a great deal. Please keep it up Liam. (as an aside, I don't know exactly where I'm going with this. I'm pissed and blah blah blah blah)
Yeah DAWLESS is more or less better for live IMO.
I think you are totally right on the fact that audiences / friends does not really care about how you play/produce the music, rather focusing on the entire feeling of your piece. Therefore, I also feel that how ever you would like to feel comfortable on making music, you should proceed, and do not need to stick in DAW- or DAWLESS categories. There should not be any force to anyone or feeling shame if you use computer etc. I love the process of learning through dawless set-up but its time and money consuming. Hope to find a way soon.
Exactly, whatever calls you really
Dude, im really getting in love with the excellent audiovisual product you made. Jaja. I learned a lot from you. Thanks
Awesome, thank you! Thanks for watching :-)
Setup 1) DAW studio : Can feel like work, but yes! I get to finalise "the product" (score!)
Setup 2) Digitakt+Digitone combo : Feel like programming & DAW-less jamming & in the end you have made patches where you can always come back to & tweak them & then transform into a song in your DAW (score!)
Setup 3) My DAW-less setup, feels so nice and creative to be jammin', but I listen to the recorded jams & stems and haha yeah it's kind of useless sadly.
Or I need to practice more. Or I'm more of a DAW / Programmer person 🙂
Then again, it's all a journey & it's fun.
Your system is flawless
I work as a sound designer so I'm staring at a DAW 90% of my everyday life. The last thing I want to do when I get home is get on my computer and look at reaper all night. Starting to build a Dawless ambient setup. Feels more expressive and creative and I really resonate with what bo was saying. Dude hit the nail on the head there. But indeed bye bye money
Yeah this is the sentiment of so many DAWLESS folks.
By the way if you want to have this discussion in more of a community environment - hit up my Discord!
Here's the invite incase you're interested: discord.gg/xj8J2xJuBP
Thanks for sharing your story .. journey .. always nice to get to know the essence of the person you are tuning into .. as you share more details of some of the things that make you tick .. inspire and keep you on track .. thanks as well to Bo for your comments .. your videos are always informative Liam .. cheers to everyone ... !
Thanks as always for watching!
Love your content! Camp 2 here (a bit of camp 3, but I guess that's part of the DAWless joy). Sequencing everything in Ableton, anyways, it allows for more dynamism.
Appreciate you watching! 😊
Very interesting video!! I love being dawless! When you are just using your ears and vibing magical things happen that just don’t happen for me on a daw.
Staring at a grid and clicking a mouse doesn’t inspire me at all and loses the vibe. I have however been using a hybrid workflow, where the daw is used for mixing, adding some finishing touches and stuff.
Some of the greatest electronic music was created with very minimal equipment back in the day.
True! Look at J dolls and the sp 303
Lol I dilla
God damn…j dilla *****
@@LiamKillen ... are you showing us that you don't know you can edit / delete your own comments ?
If so , click on the 3 dots next to your own comment, then select option.
👍✊
I make music "dawless" since the time before there actually were DAWs. Because I enjoy these vintage original machines; they sound and groove perfectly imho. Nudging the cursor around on a computer screen gives me nothing but boredom and fatigue.
Yeah it must be an interesting transition to have seen!
Yes! I use Ableton Live since Version 0.8b, but I only use it when I want to sketch some quick ideas and am on the road or run. It's just not what I enjoy over a longer timespan.
It's not that I dislike Ableton Live, the opposite is true. I also know it inside and out because I went along with all the iterations/versions... I just enjoy using hardware instruments way more.
I'm a mostly retired semi-professional musician. I make music for friends and you tube. I'm not trying to be famous and I don't have G.A.S. but I learned how to play electronic music in college in the early 80's on a Buchla recording to tape. we had an 8 track analog studio and a 16 track analog studio. the first DAW I ever saw was on a Commodore 64. and our teacher picked up a Yamaha DX7 in Japan because they weren't out in the states yet. that was the first digital synth I'd ever seen. These days I have a Microfreak, Hydrasynth, Typhon and Drumbrute Impact. It is unlikely my set up will change again for a long time, Except maybe some processing gear. No one will think I'm a DJ though. My background is free improvisation acoustic jazz and electronic music. I'm make soundscapes and sometimes my music is kind of danceable but I care about telling stories, not dancing.
This is all awesome!
It’s funny to think about the concept of DAWLESS since all music prior to 90’s was “Dawless”. I guess ten years from now it will be “hey check out my Not-AI jam. I did everything in the DAW myself. No AI used at all.
I hope you’re wrong on that one lol
@@LiamKillen I hope I’m wrong too. It’s hitting visual arts pretty hard already. I’ll always appreciate the human connection in the arts myself though.
@@Sikt you know, I disagree. As a listener I care VERY much about the stories of the artists and what is human about what they create. I have ever since I was a teenager. Will others care about that? Yeah, I think we all do on some level. Because that’s what Art is. It’s a human connection. Will we like robot music? Sure. But we will connect the most deeply from things we know came from a human being. We can mass manufacture things now, and look how much people pay for something hand made and human. It does matter. It’s everything. It’s what being human and alive is all about. That connection.
I'm quite new to dawless, and just spent a lot of very frustrating days trying to get my Blackbox and Sp404 to play nice together... it was quite the nightmare for both me and the delivery guy who had to bring my various cables, connectors and adapters. But, getting there in the end was like solving a tricky maths problem.. very satisfying and I probably learned more about the two instruments along the way than I otherwise might. Having said that, if I didn't have my acoustic guitar to strum out the frustration... who knows what asylum they'd be locking me up in now!
😅
I want to learn and improve my skills, to make songs I like, and to enjoy the process. So I settled on using a hardware DAW (Akai Force) and one nice synth. This has been a very effective solution for me, so I'm really happy with it and don't feel a need to get more gear.
Glad that you’ve found a sweet spot 😊
thankful for this video. coming at a perfect time for me. the obsession with gear acquisition can come on quick and stealthily. and this can easily dive into unhealthy financial habits that dig us into deeper money holes and create financial stress, especially if you are relying heavily on credit cards or "pay later" to acquire dear. i noticed that workflow is tough for me and it may be because i have too much gear to work with and toggle together. also, i'm generally feeling pulled to return to analog, acoustic instrument learning and focus in on music craft rather than tech intellect..
Some gear is ok but when you’re asking questions about whether or not it’s a problem- chances are that it is
Yo your video production is really good, love the thoughts offered here too, it's surprisingly hard to find broader information videos on Analog/Digital music hardware that aren't about a specific device.
I appreciate that and i'm glad to help :-)
Lately I've been thinking that I don't like the term "dawless". It defines what you're doing "negatively". Of course, we're all aware of DAWs, and so there must be a conscious decision at some point about how or whether to engage with them. But for me, what I enjoy is interacting with, "playing", instruments. I like the sense of music unfolding in real time before me. Thanks for the great video!
Interesting take - and I appreciate you watching! :-)
Amazing timing of this video. Sometimes I wonder if I should spend all my money on this gear but there’s just an indescribable thing that truly is a “IYKYK” feeling. I’ve got XONE-px5, RD8, drumbrute impact, J-6, 404 mk2 and thinking about the Syntakt next.
Syntakt seems great! Haven’t really checked it out yet
I've been a musician for 25 years and have been slowly making my way into a dawless setup over the past 6 months. The whole thing is really attractive to me as someone who uses a computer all day for work (and sometimes more than all day, ugh). I was always turned off by the clips/scenes paradigm and the DJ thing doesn't appeal to me whatsoever. Everything BoBeats said was super on point, and you provided some great context here. Definitely just subbed your channel and will be checking out some of your videos on gear I have my eye on. I am familiar with the gear lust, nothing new to me, and I feel that has been a strength on my journey. I do enjoy the research and just catching a vibe with some gear. I feel myself landing with the MC707, and I think that will fit what I'm trying to do at least to get started, and what's within my price point. If you have tons of cash it's honestly kind of easy to sound clean and epic, but for me? Well, I don't have tons of cash. lol. At the same time, that does create a kind of grassroots DIY vibe challenge that is wholesome and indie, which to me is where the purest inspiration and innovation comes from. This is also true historically. Anyway, thanks for going for it with this. I bet for some people these truths are "uncomfortable" but honestly I found them to be reaffirming with the whole set of reasons I have been attracted to this musician subset.
Sounds like you fit right in 😏
Like it! I'm playing with DAWless - so I can just play & goof off.. That being said, it's kinda sad when I stumble into a great 'groove' for a couple of hours... but didn't capture all the patches, settings etc... And poof, moment is gone.
I know the feeling
I decided to get into DAWless because I thought it would be a more impressive way to perform live than just using a laptop. But it is a complicated thing to put together an interesting live set, and in the end, yeah - most people think you are just DJing anyway. But I love collecting and learning different gear, and still use small varied DAWless setups for creative inspiration, and then use a DAW to expand on any of those ideas I want to turn into something more interesting/polished.
I’m seeing that hardware/software mic might be the way
I'm not that far into my solo project yet, but I'm thinking adding visuals on a projector would provide something interesting for the audience to watch. Turning a few knobs on a midi controller isn't a very attractive live experience.
Fantastic video. I agree with many of your points. Best video I've watched from you honestly.
Hey I appreciate it 🤝
Really good topic and video, your channel is a gem. I'll always remember going into a shop and getting a groovebox demo and the guy said to me: this is great but it doesn't do everything, I like working with the limitations of the machine. I did not understand at that moment what he meant, but really it is what it is, you have to be creative to make things work in a dawless set up, and that's why I love it... As long as you don't buy all the gear to solve that problem 😄
Very well said- thanks for being here!
I'm 47 years old. When I started making music in high school it was just hardware. In my early teens my bedroom was mostly taken up with gear. It's funny to me that dawless is a thing. I feel like I've gone the other way, moving from gear only to everything being in Ableton or Reason and on a laptop. Dawless just feels like going back to the start for me.
Yeah i'm like right between both worlds. The thing about today's "DAWLESS" gear is that it's much smaller and way more capable than it was a few decades ago - that being said, it's still easy to fall into that category of just having way too much gear that you don't need lol.
Thanks for inviting me 🙏
Thanks for doing it Bo! Really appreciate it 😊
I make music in the DAW, and also have a DAWless rig. I use a computer at work, but not Ableton!
But I get the best results starting off ideas in the groovebox/with DAWless gear, then adding layers/finishing off the song in the DAW.
Exactly - I like this sort of hybrid approach as well :-)
Funny how it was the other way around 25+years ago & before MIDI it was no picknick either.
Right!?
everybody should make music the way they want to and both commenters here make valid points. The one point I would like to make is that most of the UA-camrs in the Dawless community who often get free gear - and those who don't - the ones with lots of views know tons about the instruments but I simply don't like their music, practically without exception. And I want to stress that this is not a criticism of the value of their music or if it's good or bad, it's just my personal taste. The one exception is @AnalogKitchen, he gets right to the point on a pedagogical level and I really like his music. It's kind of like the modular synth world. A lot of hardcore modular heads seem to me to be more sound designers or sound engineers rather than musicians in the sense of creating art. And again that is a value statement on my part. Music is simply arranging noise in the time-space continuum, intentionally, or less so. Is there good or bad music? Most people would say so, while disagreeing on what is good and what is bad. Respect to all humans who want to arrange sound waves in space-time. More power to all of you. If you can make a living doing it, great! If you don't, that doesn't necessarily make you less of a musician. This is a comment that comes from a place of respect and good faith. Keep rocking!!
Thank you for your addition! :-)
Thank you! Now I am gasing for a good studio chair because I'll be sitting in front of my Daw a lot more.
Clutch chairs are pretty dope
Fantastic video! I think I fall in all 3 camps LOL. When I need to produce something for a client on a deadline, I think it's silly not to use a DAW. However... When I'm making music for myself, I feel really inspired by my favorite pieces of hardware. I don't care that it takes way longer to finish a track because I'm having a blast the entire time. Having started out DAWless on a crappy 4 track tape deck as an 8 year old, it kind of feels like getting away from my work environment and going home to play with a friend :3
I totes get that!
I'm a Reason user for 16 years and its devices are designed to function and look like gear and alot of My experimental stuff sounds identical to Dawless gear, literally identical. I own a Navation peak and MiniNova and a cupple of pedals and I dont intend to get anymore physical gear.
Awesome! Novation stuff still hasn’t clicked w/ me yet
@@LiamKillen I dont buy online, I buy used gear from popular UK Thrift store, they where in good condition.
Spot-on in your assessment. And your video is very aesthetically pleasing. I could do without the comedic cut ins , But tastes are different.
Personally I’m constantly in between finishing songs on a Daw vs having fun dawless
DAWs are also a great way to create something- in many ways better than DAWLESS!
This topic deserves even further investigation. I am in this hobby for three years now, and I am still searching my setup/workflow even genre sweet spot. I have come to realize just recently that I want my DAW as late as possible in the whole chain, ideally only for mastering. Because for me, oddly perhaps, I find getting into a whole hybrid DAW setup for live playing/performing/recording is such a pain. There are so many elements you need to take care of: your computer, Windows, Ableton, plugins and chains, the audio interface... There are so many steps, obstacles, things to figure out, things intermittently working...
Of course hardware can be complicated too, but they at least have a coherent and consistent philosophy (usually). So to me the whole journey of electronic-music making is something of discovery, whether DAWless or not, or a hybrid. Especially because the upside of DAW complexity is of course the unlimited flexibility.
Lastly I will say that what I find difficult in researching for my journey, is that two things are overrepresented, so to speak: Performance over just composition and producing to release online, and beatmaking and classic pop/rock over other genres, like ambient. In both cases I am into the latter, so I have to sift through a lot of stuff, even within video's and channels, just to get to the things that are applicable to what I am after.
I always love hearing people's takes on this. Thanks for adding yours :-)
WUDDUP LIAM!
✌️ 👋
From someone who doesn’t plan on being an artist, having a gig or share with anyone else. I’ve d*icked around for 20 years and it wasn’t till last month when mimeophone and angle grinder produced the noise I’d always been searching for - true I swear - so all is good. I haven’t made a song longer than a couple minutes and maybe 5 of those. Most of the time I have an agenda to try and test out… sit down and see where I end up. There was a time when the DAW and the plugins ruled me and it killed my desire to do anything creatively for a couple years. Picked up an MPC to record my jams this go round and sometimes I’ll make something in Reaktor or XO and bring them into the MPC as samples. But usually I wire up a eurorack patch, think of 4 different ways to go with it, pass out and unplug the patch the next AM with no regrets. This approach came from accepting my limitations and enjoying the creative part - always. I do improv performances alone and sometimes they get me all fired up. And sometimes I get so relaxed I’ll just pass out with an oscillator oscillating in my headphones.
I’m glad you landed somewhere you’re happy with!
This topic of DAWless always amuses me. I came up in the mid 90’s and there was no such thing as a DAW back then. So if you wanted to make electronic music you HAD to use ‘live’ instruments. I was an early user of ableton I think I started at v2.x when it was a midi sequencer and 2 audio channels. It took so long for computers to become a viable solution. Now that we have stuff like ableton/logic/DAW X and all the crazy VSTs, there’s a whole anti-DAW or DAWless crowd. Makes me giggle🤓
Hey it’s true eh!?
DAWLESS is necessary in certain live instances though
@@LiamKillen oh yes! I’m currently using an octatrack as a hub for live performance and couldn’t live without it🎶but I bought a year after it came out, so going on 10 years now and still scratch my head from time to time with it.
I'm just doing a mix of both. Sometimes I need a VST for what I want, but with Ableton I can just make it work with my DAWless setup. On top of that I've stopped buying hyped gear and started discovering some old gear people either never knew about or just forgot, or thought of as toys. They're still mostly cheap. I recently got some yamaha keyboards for $20-$30 and let me tell you, they slap. At that price point I can't find any plugin that sounds as good and lets me tweak so many parameters. Yes, there are noise issues, or sometimes components that are defective, but that's all part of the fun. For me it's mostly a hobby, it's a way to unwind like any other hobby, but somehow when it comes to music people expect you to make money with it because to actually make music you need to have spent a lot of time and energy getting to know the basics.
For me at this point DAWS = composing DAWLESS = performing 😏
I make music every day on my dawless gear. I started this year and I’m in love with it. I’m creative with it and it’s very therapeutic. I like toys and I like collecting them. I love gear like I loved my toys as a child. I can now buy the toys I never could have. It’s a dream come true and I can afford it.
Yes! Good for you!
Quite often, we're presented with a polarising choice of 2 solitary options, when, in reality, it's not so black and white. I like gear. I like the hands on of physical gear. I also like making music in a DAW. Working in a DAW is so much easier, for me. You can hook up your physical gear to a PC and combine both. I also believe that many "advocates" of DAWless are becoming quite snobbish, looking down on those that use a DAW in a PC; yet, many of these "advocates" use MPC-style devices, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a DAW in a box. So, here's what I think: if you're happy being DAWless, that's great. If you're happy working totally in the box, that's great. If you're happy combining hardware and DAWs, that's great. It's the end result that's important, not medium; whether you're just jamming with yourself or trying to create and publish music or somewhere in between, being creative is what it's all about, not the gear.
Yeah and overtime it’s ok to morph in and out of any of these workflows
SERIOUS wisdom contained herein - thank you!
It’s a pleasure thx for watching!
I've been dawless for many years now. Like you, I started as a bassist/keyboardist. I still am first and foremost, but I too got into production and electronic music. Although I do use Ableton, FL Studio, and GarageBand for outside projects, I mainly like the hands on approach of dawless. Also, when I'm dawless jamming, usually have a iPad running recording whatever I'm doing.
Good move with the I pad props
I have a Volca FM, Volca Sample, and Drumbrute Impact and I intend on building a live set with them and a VST as a sort of hybrid setup. If I wanted to make songs with the intent of finishing them and releasing them, I would do that in a DAW, because software gives me a level of control that hardware cannot. I use the hardware just to see if I can perform with them and maybe incorporate them in a DJ set.
Yeah you’re spot on here
my idea is that its usually best to dedicate your time to learning a piece of hardware thoroughly, and then hook it up to a DAW
It’s true that hybrid is unstoppable
The fourth camp is people who simply hate computers, although you might find that hatred a common element. Some people just hate them, but others hate the interface - keyboard and mouse, or keyboard and trackpad, or even touchscreens. They all suck compared to faders and knobs. The irony is that a lot of "synths" are mini-computers built into a keyboard case with hardware controls attached. There's a massive market for some type of hybrid idea here...
Sometimes I hate computers too lol.
Using gear means you've accepted its limitations while making creative solutions in the pursuit of your craft. Gear can do a lot but it can't do everything. Limitations make you try harder.
Using DAWs are fine; you've got the power of the universe at your fingertips. There's not much they can't do.
Both have learning curves. Both can be amazing.
I think that combining the two is the way to go honestly.
Camp #1: I cannot justify the expense of hardware, and i am super slow at learning tech. I use ableton and Akai40 MK2 + launchkey. I do use ableton as-if it was a hardware instrument. 8 tracks and they all do the same thing, the macros are fixed. So it is like hardware, but i design it. Then i have the muscle memory and can play it like an instrument. No technical considerations, i hate "thinking" when i want to be feeling
* i love your "reason" for doing this. people need music, it gives the wings to the soul right? it took me 20 years to accept this is a valid reason 🤷♂
my illumination was when i saw this guy who has a "tuna fish cans", and he explained how essential his work was, and proved it in a few ways... music is essential
Yeah I’m the end it’s all about the music
Awesome video Liam … you literally made a video applicable to any flavor of artist … well done
There’s a spot for all of us 😊
So funny story, I know you know loop daddy...I had been playing bass and guitar for about 15 years and I was starting to lose my passion for those instruments but not making music. Then I found loop daddy a few years back. I ended up grabbing the boss rc505 mark 1 looper and also an analog synth...thinking I'd be able to use it with a vst...nope. I ended up buying the wrong synths but took a nose dive into sound design and discovered how much I love it. Now I have a few synths and drum machines, I'm able to program patches pretty quickly if I need something or I can dig into exploring sound for a while. It turned into the heat blunder buy I ever did lol and now I am able to play all parts of my music and complete songs or just jam as the feeling comes. The best thing so far has been my kids getting behind me. I found out one of my kids videogame name is HiFiHumanoidFan and it made me so proud. Now when I create sounds or music, as long as my kids are dancing along or enjoying it (and my wife) then I'm in the best place. Once their heads are done bobbing to the music,I know it's time to change it up haha but great video! I would say I'm mostly camp 2 with some parts camp 1 as I've published a bit over two albums worth of songs and it's been a blast. Also publishing you songs and then listening to them in different places like the car or work truck or whatever is a great way to learn mixing/mastering.
DAWless all the way! If I had to use a DAW, I simply wouldn't make music. Yes, I've bought and sold several devices in my pursuit of the perfect setup FOR ME and I'm OK with that because I am lucky enough to have the disposal income to buy and sell stuff and take the hit. Correction, I've worked bloody hard to have that disposal income. I'm left with a Deluge, a Verselab MV-1, an SP-404MKII, a Dirtywave M8 and, more recently, a Polyend Play, which is great. There's little I can't do with that combo. DAWless is totally possible.
I’m loving your take!
I love DAWless jamming, there is no end product, it’s just creating and jamming
The exploring part is one of my favourite aspects of making music in general
If you record it you may have one of the best songs ever made.
@@stephenroldan5107 jajaj totally true!. How many times i thought "...if I'd recorded this" while exploring, but I'm just enjoying myself tweking knobs
I bought my daughter who is soon to be two. PO 33 A akai mini play and a 25 dollar mixer and malwakiee m18 speaker. CASIO AINT GOT NOTHING ON THAT😅
@@ricporter3710 Parent of the year 100%
Camp 2 for me - One rule - Never record....For me it's about the exploration and stumbling on something cool...might take 5min may take 3 hours....or might be a bust....That's what I love.
All about that process
I went into DAWless, because it allows me to be more in the process. Your music hasn’t to be the most complex stuff to compete , if you’re trying to sell it in the market.
The most simple and minimalistic tracks could beat any komplex one, if it’s unique and wonderful enough.
For me, DAWless is more joyful and joy ignites passion, creativity and perfection.
I agree! It's also often times more fun for performing.
Long ago I tried to do music and got lost into Ableton and the VST sea of plugins and libraries.
A few years later I'm starting to stay in touch with music again, but this time I want to try and go dawless and center on music and creativity in a dawless place where maybe less is more.
If you have tons of virtual plugins and synths, you end mastering none of them sometimes.
If I buy some gear, I will try to master that one. Loved the video and people thoughts on this.
Keep the good work in the channel.
This is ia great approach! Master one before moving onto the next at least.
@@LiamKillen Yeah, anyway I feel like if you don't know just a b8t about playing some instruments (keyboard or guitar for example), is a lot more difficult to make nice music.
Its easy to fall on buying a lot of gear_toys without sense and thinking that will let you create music like by magic.
For me it is pretty clear. If you wanna just jam, have fun with devices and play around with at home it is worth it. If you think they will give you a solid producing Plattform and get real production value - forget it. You will not finish a single song to release level, except you switch over to a daw at some point. Don’t fall for the illusion that it will make you produce actual songs.
Yeah it’s more for exploration + performance IMO
I'm from camp 3 transitioning into camp 2, it just takes time to realize that I don't need all those boxes and start creating with just a few of them :)
💯
I really couldn't agree more with you! ..... Also get the RMX1000. This was the piece of gear that released me from DAWless monotony. You can also load a few samples on it... Yes I know you're already using a sampler, but having a few vox adlibs on the RMX is very fun.
I saw that! I did a quick review on it as well- I can see how useful it is!
That review will be out soon…ish
Are we gonna get a build ups n drops vid? Great video! I’m in the dawless jammer/trying to record here and there and full fledged gas camp lol….(huge tip; don’t get into eurorack)
I’ve got a video about the RMX 1000 in the q!
10:00 I agree - I think the biggest benefit of having hardware gear is that its simply not being associated with your work computer or personal stuff, period.
But for that purpose it's perfectly fine to maybe have two computers, one for work, and the other maybe have ONLY music apps. :)
True!
Have you ever tried turning your WiFi off?? 🤣🤣
@@Heathcliff_hensel I'm using Ableton to make music, I have no issues with DAWs at all.
Great video Liam, im getting back into creating music just for me, i was fully DAW around 2000, but now im thinking with all these new bits of kit and a lack of space i just need some sort of groove box, but small form and preferably runs on batteries (ive been watching alot of mc-101 and NUCircuit videos), so i gurss my question to you is this.
What is your desert island one peice of kit, that would give someone like me enough options and interest without having to build a huge setup? Im off to watch more of your content 👍🏼😁
Great question. Right now I’m really into the digitakt but I’m also going to be receiving an octatrack which I think will be taking over in terms of capabilities
I've thought about this a little after this popped up on my feed yesterday.
it really doesn't matter as long as some sense of outlet is achieved. DAW, DAWless, GAS. if it makes one happy then its already good.
I personally landed in DAWless as I work in tech and feel like I wanted a break from screens for a hobby. Then I am doing this just for some kind of creative outlet while also satisfying the mind-over-tech habits i have. Finally, i definitely have a couple of boxes too many, a few POs, a couple of thrift store whatevers , but nothing I'd consider an S (in GAS) . so. a bit from camp 1, 2 and 3. :-)
that said...... I recently got Ableton and I can see why people like it. it's still maybe too much rope... but I can see myself using it too as a tool.
Thanks Neil for this addition! :-)
I think dawless is more about performance and spontaneity. Do I want to sit down an create a song or do I want to sit down and perform one? Putting four random kick drums in a patterns on one of my Elektron boxes can pull me in instantly and I didn’t have to wait for a computer to boot up and make sure all my sound settings were correct. I also love the feel of connecting my gear together…MIDI chains and sound chains. The ka-thunk of plugging in patch cables.
Making a complete song in Ableton requires more commitment. Of course Ableton has session view which can perform the duties of what a dawless set-up provides, especially if you have the Push 2…but then you’re throwing away the comfort of limitations…which can lead to paralysis. It’s amazing to me what so many UA-camrs seem to know exactly which one of their 500 plugins they’re going to use for any given task…or is that the illusion of video editing? :)
I’m sure there’s some editing involved there lol
First world synthesizer problems.
It’s nice that you scripted these videos to support your agenda, and how you understand the environment around you to be.
However thank you very much for breaking everything up into the 3 groups.
The situation depends on a persons workflow. If the end result of that session is to create enough motifs for a finished product into whatever post processing method, then so be it.
On the other hand if the end result is to have a workflow and a session to only focus on the technology and the inner workings of such technology in the current workflow and or using the technology to make certain motifs sounds, custom sound design, which is just as relevant.
So it’s a person having multiple workflows and with a goal every time they use the equipment of what time management and projected outcome is supposed to be. I’m not going to spoonfeed everyone but I think you’re on the right path if you understand these words.
Not super coherent but it sounds like you’re pretty much just trying to sum up the content in this video