It’s Not the DAW You’re Trying to Escape

I’d like to present a counterpoint to the hardware fetishism that dominates electronic music, because this has become a very dogmatic and one-sided discussion. To an unhealthy extent, because we’ve let vendors and instrument makers almost completely control the conversation. If you didn’t read this, you might actually have a hard time finding a counterpoint to the hordes of “anti-computer” folks out there. There are a lot of us who use computers or hybrid setups, we just don’t have as much to say. Strong opinions always stand out, and this is not a strong opinion.

Trying to make music without a DAW is often an exercise in frustration. It’s massively expensive, limiting(and not always in fun ways), distracting, takes up a ton of space, and can burn a ton of time you might be spending on more creative activities. MIDI controllers, plugins and a DAW have about 100x the musical potential per dollar as hardware does. Analog rarely sounds that different than emulations of it, and buying stuff seldom unblocks creative frustration in the way that learning technique, theory, and ideas does.

Lots of awesome music comes out of people using computers. Buying tons of stuff and switching to hardware is unlikely to fix a problem that you have not defined, to help you achieve a vision that you’re not making explicit, etc. Last year I wrapped up a years-long quest to replace FLStudio, only to discover that doing so was not only expensive, but nearly impossible. I also discovered quickly that sync issues aren’t limited to software, and that I was chasing my tail. It was frustrating, expensive, time consuming, unproductive, and I gained almost nothing from it. I got into the Eurorack black hole, I bought an MPC, rackmounted synths, I even built a lot of hardware for myself.

Today, I’ve kept the best little slices of hardware I got along that journey, but I could take or leave most of it. Most of what makes me keep these pieces is just feel of using them, but it’s not their sound, and they rarely make it into my work as a musician!

So if you’re frustrated right now and thinking about leaving the computer behind — ask yourself if you’re frustrated with the computer, or just frustrated at your own creative block. Are you “tired of looking at a screen” or are you just pissy because you’re STUCK and you’ve exhausted all your current ideas? Are you just braindead from the WFH developer job that got you the money to buy all this gear in the first place?

Think about what gives you ideas and inspires you. Maybe that’s “KNOB PER FUNCTION”… but it could also be “MOROCCAN FOOD” or “FOLK ART” or “PLUMBING”. Be brave, define the problem that you’re trying to solve before you charge into the gear videos. Even if that’s uncomfortable.