Recording technology baffles me

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

This is where the "old school" approach to instructions really pays off. The DAW I use the most is still offered with a paper and ink instruction manual. . . .

I bought my DAW manual for $65, and it's incomprehensible.

What's the DAW you're using?

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

I've been having a terrible time figuring out my DAW.

My only advice comes from the years when I used graphic design programs almost every day — InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, PageMaker, Quark. One thing I learned was that if you don't use them all the time, you forget how.

Which means one key is to just be sure to keep at it and not turn your back on it for too long. (Which is exactly what I've done, because it's so frustrating. So do as I say, not as I do!)

Look into Reaper. Cheap and there are tons of Youtube how-to videos.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

I bought my DAW manual for $65, and it's incomprehensible.

What's the DAW you're using?

Steinberg Nuendo. It is Cubase's big brother. I do everything from music production to scoring for film and video to audo post-production and sound design. The video environment that Nuendo offers makes the job easier than most others.

Bob

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Chipotle

You can use a DAW just like an old tape recorder. You can ignore the measures and clips and just play. You can even set most DAWs to destructively overwrite your last take when you punch in, if you want. But that's not necessarily the best (or even easiest) way to do things in the digital world.

I agree that having a conceptual model of what's going on is helpful. As a teacher, I try to impart that to students, rather than just a checklist of "Do X, do Y, do Z". That way, if something goes wrong or they come upon a situation we didn't cover, they can better suss things out themselves.

My Reaper template that I load for any new project has the timeline set to minutes:seconds, no bars / measures displayed, snapping disabled by default, and a few other tweaks that DOES make it more "tape recorder" like.

As far as manuals go, the full Reaper manual in PDF form is available as a free pdf download from the Cockos website. Although it can be purchased as a hard copy printed manual, the PDF has a lot of things going for it that make it much faster to use. The search function, and particularly the use of clickable links within the text that instantly take you to the relevant information.

I keep a single page listing for my most often used edit commands, including the keyboard shortcuts, handy so I don't have to look them up.

Another popular Reaper feature is to enable "contextual help" (I believe it's called...). It's basically "pop ups" that display a quick explanation of any feature your mouse pointer hovers over.

[runamuck]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

I bought my DAW manual for $65, and it's incomprehensible.

What's the DAW you're using?

I use Nuendo. Like you, I at first found the manual to be almost useless and to make sense only after I figured out on my own how to do something.

If the manual writers wrote along side someone with no experience it would be an improvement.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

I've been having a terrible time figuring out my DAW.

My only advice comes from the years when I used graphic design programs almost every day — InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, PageMaker, Quark. One thing I learned was that if you don't use them all the time, you forget how.

Which means one key is to just be sure to keep at it and not turn your back on it for too long. (Which is exactly what I've done, because it's so frustrating. So do as I say, not as I do!)

Again...I'm available to help if anyone is so inclined. I'd think it's better than wallowing in the muck or jut plain giving up. Then again, that's just me,

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

I haven't found that. Far from it, in fact.

Again, it comes down to workflow and the instructions you first learned. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, as Doug mentions, that lots of beginner instructions are aimed at virtual recording with loops and beats. If the first video you pull up says "Okay, set your project tempo, now make an item that is 4 measures long..." you'll be headed down a different path than if you got a video that said "Make a track, arm it, and hit Record...". As a beginner, sometimes it's hard to know what to ignore, as well as what to pay attention to.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

I haven't found that. Far from it, in fact. I should probaby just sell my interface and use the money to pay someone else to record me.

Humm I do not know which DAW you are using but most DAW can definitely be used almost like an analog tape machine

Here are some snap shots of me doing basically that
Here you see I have recorded 3 tracks all at the same time , all in one pass start to finish of the song

2 mono guitar tracks (for the two mic's I'm using on guitar) and 1 mono vocal track BUT as you can see they are not showing in separated clips based on grid or tempo etc. They are basically 3 full lengths continuous clips as if recorded on a multi track analog tape machine .
Also note the transport at the bottom with a record (red) , play (green) , and stop (blue) , buttons much like you might see on an analog tape machine




Here you can see (even though I have bars and beats selected as my main counter and there are graph lines that reflect that. And those graph lines are based on the default 120 BPM in the transport setting for tempo . But I am not using a click and I am just playing what feels right to me , and nothing is snapping or syncing to that 120 tempo so none of those features is affecting what is going on, because I am just playing to my internal sense of rhythm ---again like I might be doing with an analog tape

So yellow lines show the 120 BPM tempo grid lines and magenta lines show my verbal count in and playin not on that grid which is also very much like what might happen with analog tape




And here is the video from the above session

[Doug Young]

He's using GarageBand, Kev. And yes, it also looks much like yours as far as the tracks, timeline, etc. There is a measure grid, but there's nothing to force you to use it. This is showing 2 audio tracks, both of which totally ignore the tempo and grid.

Screenshot 2024-03-08 at 10.50.03 AM.jpg

Where GarageBand gets weird is in the mixing controls. There is no mixer view, you just look at individual tracks, and have to individually view each plugin. This may be the source of the OPs problem - they've dumbed it down to the point that it's pretty awkward. it's not at all like using a real mixing console.

[AcousticDreams]

Tyeetime , you are not alone. I also had a very hard time learning how to use a DAW. And even after several years I am going to need some more personal one on one help.
My problem stems from thinking in Real time/ analog structures. I have always been a hands on person. Previously working with tape machines it was so easy to see the electronic flow. Line out goes to line in. It was that simple.

While it might be hard to believe, a DAW still is....Mostly that simple. It still operates on a basic level. The problem lies in the confusing nature of which the DAW is laid out. For instance there are usually Three areas of which you can see the input levels. They are basically the same except they can also be used to help routing and or mixing levels. Unfortunately I have seen no videos that explain this in the most basic way. Most videos assume that you already understand the basics. And there in lies the problem.

Among most of us teachers. We forget to include the Basic reasons and details of why we do something. I have taught one on one subjects in several fields. Currently I am teaching a small class of 5 people how to temper wood arrows so they can be almost as straight as Carbon or aluminum arrows. Unfortunately, even I forget to add some of the basic details of why and how when teaching. I had a good friend who was a world recognized knife maker. He had been making knives for 50 years. I would call him and ask him how he did a particular function. His answer " Let me call you back...I have to go to the workshop and do that function. It is automatic to me and I am not really sure what it is I am doing, until I do it ".

In the past I use to teach the basics of photography to people who had taken a six month college course and still did not understand how a camera worked. I would first say to them....Please forget everything you think you know or learned. Leave all of that out of your mind. Do not ask ...just listen as I will explain in detail what is happening. I am going to talk to you as if you were a baby. At the end the student would always say the same thing. " in fifteen minutes you explained to me what I did not understand in six months "

Unfortunately, recording today, is much more difficult than so many other subject matters. But the rewards are also much higher than most everything else as well. In the past I spent huge amount of money to buy a Chamberlain/Mellotron. A very complicated tape/keyboard instrument of the 60's & 70's that could play cello, violins, trumpets, trombones, oboe & bassoons. Now you can emulate just about every instrument on this earth for a fraction of what I paid back then...and it will do it a lot better.

Learning the DAW can be a bit frustrating...but with a little time you will see the rewards are sky high. Back in the 70's a great recording studio with the mics, consoles and outboard gear would have cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now you can have better gear and sound at a fraction of the cost.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

He's using GarageBand, Kev. And yes, it also looks much like yours as far as the tracks, timeline, etc. There is a measure grid, but there's nothing to force you to use it. This is showing 2 audio tracks, both of which totally ignore the tempo and grid.

Where GarageBand gets weird is in the mixing controls. There is no mixer view, you just look at individual tracks, and have to individually view each plugin. This may be the source of the OPs problem - they've dumbed it down to the point that it's pretty awkward. it's not at all like using a real mixing console.

Humm no mixer view I guess forgot because I have not even opened GB for years , actually since before Apple stoped including it in the OS download And before that I likely opened it once fiddled around a bit closed it, and never look back , given I have used Pro Tools since day one of my home recording journey

Now while I do use the PT edit window (for editing) and also to do "clip gain " edits to help fine tune the levels to hit the -14 db You Tube mark
I use the mixer window much more than the edit window . For initial level setting via the track faders and for plugin instantiation and routing etc .

Here is the my PT mixer widow for the above mentioned session, and as mentioned the GUI was specifically designed to be the digital version of a large format mixing console

[b1j]

A decade ago I was fortunate to stumble across Studio One — version 2. It was immediately clear to my newbie eyes that they had amateur home recordists in mind.

Now, with Version 6, it has caught up with most of the pro DAWs feature-wise, but it’s also still accessible to those starting out.

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Humm I do not know which DAW you are using but most DAW can definitely be used almost like an analog tape machine

Here are some snap shots of me doing basically that
Here you see I have recorded 3 tracks all at the same time , all in one pass start to finish of the song

2 mono guitar tracks (for the two mic's I'm using on guitar) and 1 mono vocal track BUT as you can see they are not showing in separated clips based on grid or tempo etc. They are basically 3 full lengths continuous clips as if recorded on a multi track analog tape machine .
Also note the transport at the bottom with a record (red) , play (green) , and stop (blue) , buttons much like you might see on an analog tape machine




Here you can see (even though I have bars and beats selected as my main counter and there are graph lines that reflect that. And those graph lines are based on the default 120 BPM in the transport setting for tempo . But I am not using a click and I am just playing what feels right to me , and nothing is snapping or syncing to that 120 tempo so none of those features is affecting what is going on, because I am just playing to my internal sense of rhythm ---again like I might be doing with an analog tape

So yellow lines show the 120 BPM tempo grid lines and magenta lines show my verbal count in and playin not on that grid which is also very much like what might happen with analog tape




And here is the video from the above session

You make a great point here Kev. As several posts in this thread have mentioned: the "modern, all (or mostly) done in the box based on beat-sync'ed loops" approach is featured in a lot of tutorials. That's another way to approach recording (or composition) -- but you can just ignore it if you are going to more or less "just roll tape" with recording to your hard drive in a DAW.

BTW, I liked your example performance there.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

You make a great point here Kev. As several posts in this thread have mentioned: the "modern, all (or mostly) done in the box based on beat-sync'ed loops" approach is featured in a lot of tutorials. That's another way to approach recording (or composition) -- but you can just ignore it if you are going to more or less "just roll tape" with recording to your hard drive in a DAW.

BTW, I liked your example performance there.

Thanks Frank..

Yes and I do realize how frustrating for beginners trying to find internet tutorials on DAW recording can be. Mainly because as you say it is a hunt an peck situation as to if , say the YouTube video will even address what any person is trying to find out about . And then there is the added frustration that many DAWs have different words/nomenclature describing features and workflow items . And often if some one is not already fairly well versed in DAW basics it can difficult to decipher how those different words/names can be applied to your specific situation

But my point and all I am really trying to say is,,, that DAW recording can be as simple and straight forward as any other method. BUT because it can also be very complex and feature rich and that is why there is a myth/perception that is inherently complex or difficult when it does not have to be

[DCCougar]

Originally Posted by Chipotle

If you are going to edit, it certainly is easier to set up a project with a tempo grid. Then you can slice and dice snapped to the grid and everything will line up. You can still do the same without a grid, it's just more difficult.

^^^^ This! VERY helpful when cutting/copying/pasting. Then you can record a few takes and pick out the best sections to put into a final combined track....