I’m realising, when I’m putting songs together in the 1010 blackbox, I’m more or less using it as a daw in that part of the songwriting process. Full audio clips, moving them around along a timeline, trimming their beginning and end points, copying and pasting sections to reuse them again.
So I was eyeing the Zoom R20, thinking this part of my workflow, the song writing, that can be done better than how I’m doing it in the blackbox. I felt, yep, the Zoom R20 seems an interesting option.
But then, I’m still mixing and mastering through my outboard gear (SiX and Fusion), so the final mix still goes through those.
And then I was thinking - well, if that’s the case, then what does the R20 bring to the table that an iPad won’t? For the song writing, specifically? If I got a sound card with enough outs to go through the SiX, wouldn’t that just be a hell lot better than getting a R20, seeing as I wouldn’t be using the onboard mixing features anyway, and I don’t need multitrack recording, I just need a good place where I can write my songs with my recorded audio clips?
No idea. I’ve identified that my workflow for song writing on the blackbox can probably be done better in a context designed for the purpose. But I want to keep the multiple outs from the blackbox, since I want to keep mixing and mastering in my current setup.
Really, just all the audio clips dropped into an environment where putting them together into a song is smooth and pleasent, is what I’m looking for. I mean, that’s a daw for sure, but daws can do so much and I really don’t need all that much. Just the song writing part. The rest, I already got covered.
I went away from sequenzing on gear into sequenzing in bitwig, because I record, mix and arrange there anyway. And it’s easier to edit there too.
I do not see anything wrong with hybrid setups.
Be clear about what exactly you want. You get good results with your current set-up; what’s the pain point? DAWs are different enough that some will probably be an improvement over your current process and others not.
Yeah, I’ve not stayed away from daws on principle, they just haven’t contributed to what I need. But now, I’m thinking, the way I write songs, I could really just use a more mature environment for that part. Screens are pretty hard to beat in that context.
Pain point is that it’s a pain to work this way, for song writing.
I believe the speed and precision gained from a mature song writing environment, would make my songs even better since I’m quite picky about details such as no “No, that clip came one second too late” and “No, I want this one to run across all the other ones, independently” and “I want to repeat this five times, but not in sync with the clock, but scattered ad lib across the timeline” and “Oh, I just came up with a better idea for the opening - let’s just move everything 30 seconds to the right and I’ll add my new opening before.”
You know, copy paste stuff, moving about, details on fade ins and outs, being flexible to change larger chunks when the better ideas pop up.
Ah yep, I do. Yes, that’s a good point. I could drop some pre-recorded stuff into it and just give that a go. Garage Band is easy enough to get a vibe if this might work. Good idea, mate, thanks.
imo Garageband is also one of the best usable daws on ios. They managed to make it enjoyable to arrange with the touchscreen.
I didn’t have that smooth experience with cubasis for example.
Loopy pro is more about looping and performing, the arrangement window feels more like a bonus.
I arranged quite a few tracks in both apps, it feels ok, but in my humble opinion, the usability still doesn’t come close to a DAW on a PC or laptop.
Arranging, cutting and mixing works still better with a mouse I strongly feel.
Still, garbageband is super nice for quick arrangements on the couch And it generally is much more powerful than its price suggests
Yup, that’s a DAW. Pain in the arse in anything else, that’s why they exist.
I’m thinking of getting a black box for live performance with my Rytm, (top-line duties) but an iPad could definitely do all of the same things pretty much, and for less money, aesthetically just less inspiring, but gotta get over that as my incentive…
DAW or DAWless doesnt really matter. Its more on how you use the DAW. If you like to use hardware, you can still implement a DAW without loosing anything. But have the choice to take something further in DAW if needed.
I multitrack in Cubase. So if i record a jam i record all tracks individual together with the master out of my mixer. If everything sounds ok, i just export the 2 track master i recorded. If i want to do some further polishing or fixing, i can do that. And do a new mix later.
But this workflow requires you to have enough in and out to be able to do this.
I can take it 
And it generally is much more powerful than its price suggests