Is it overkill?

Ozmosis

Sound Tight Productions
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 201
From reading Fade's article of being a minimalist and the ability to do everything in one program these days. My process for most of my beats, 1) create in maschine, 2) arrange and filter in Ableton, 3) mix/master in Logic. Is it overkill to use more then one DAW? Each one done something a little diff, Its kinda like using a MPC and ASR10 next to each other.
 

Fade

The Beat Strangler
Administrator
illest o.g.
Thanks for reading my article! I think they all have their place obviously, but for me I base it on how much time it takes (and how frustrated I get). What I used to do before getting Maschine was:
  • Chop in Audition
  • Make drum loop in Reason
  • Put it all in Cakewalk
  • Chop more in Cakewalk then mix down
Before that, it was even worse. Right now I still do my beats in Maschine then mix in Cakewalk but I'm trying to lean more towards just Maschine.
Does it take you a long time with your current process?
 

thedreampolice

A backwards poet writes inverse.
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 21
I dont know that it is overkill, and I am working on becoming more of a minimalist. Sometimes working in different daws can bring some creativity to your brain. That being said I have moved to doing EVERYTHING in Reason, chopping, mixing, mastering. I do like keeping it simple. With R7 I am in chopping heaven!
 

Formant024

Digital Smokerings
ill o.g.
still chopping by hand most of time since soundforge 4.5 lol

I dont think theres an outspoken rule whether or not using 2 or more daws is overkill. I think it really depends what youre using each daw for aside from the outcome that would differ with each daw. I can do everything in each daw, but, for example, logic is mostly the endgame daw for me because the whole studio runs logic. So when it comes to mixing/mastering that would be logical to use. When im in there and i start a track, its in logic whether i use hardware sequencers like the mpc or just logic itb.

At home i just fire up fl and sometimes logic, theres no appearant reason why i use flstudio, since ive been using other means just as long. Sure i like the stretch/fix function and the sample properties interface but logic flex tool and stretching audio is just as convenient.

In the end you have to be rational because for most of us, each daw can do the same even though the outcome maybe different (one isnt guaranteed better than the other). For each daw you can achieve the swift workflow when you know the software well. I dabbled a bit with rewire, not a fan, it made things possible but at the cost of my workflow as i like to keep things simple so if i can do it in one daw, its a winner.

MPC + ASR is not hard to figure, mpc sequencer wins, asr converters wins (what does suck is you have to keep check on disks for each machine for each song but scsi could fix that, but not for emu's different file system).
 

Ozmosis

Sound Tight Productions
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 201
Thanks for reading my article! I think they all have their place obviously, but for me I base it on how much time it takes (and how frustrated I get). What I used to do before getting Maschine was:
  • Chop in Audition
  • Make drum loop in Reason
  • Put it all in Cakewalk
  • Chop more in Cakewalk then mix down
Before that, it was even worse. Right now I still do my beats in Maschine then mix in Cakewalk but I'm trying to lean more towards just Maschine.

Does it take you a long time with your current process?

Fade you and Formant024 ever hear of a program called recycle? (being sarcastic) LOL....

It slows me down a little but It really depends on the type of beat i make. A composed track ill stay in Logic from start to finish. Sampled track all 3 DAWs are used, and all 3 DAWs give a diff sound which is cool and weird. You would think using the same PC and same audio interface, you would get the same sound out of all 3 DAWs.
 

Formant024

Digital Smokerings
ill o.g.
ive had recycle like forever for my hardware samplers, in fact, its the first piece of software i bought because of my hardware samplers (dump over scsi). I followed mike @ midicase and since mpceditor could import apk files i was on it, but im so acustomed to cutting by hand/ear. Recycle is nice for slices but for some reason anything related to sample phrases is done in sound forge, even when i know flextool or any other auto-chop-shop can do it faster.

@osmosis; some stuff is the same but each daw utitlizes its own alghorhytmn. I like flstudio for its eq/filter for example, if i want to get stuff gritty ill be on those fl filters (logic's to clean unless we talking logic's tape delays).
I know the fastest chopshop to most daws, its not the point. The point is whenever im chopping i chop relentless but not random. I take 40-50 samples from something i sample from for which i take my time, if i want to do it quick i dont fuck with recycle or sound forge, but use flex tool/exs2 or slicer instead. When im using soundforge and chop manualy im adding something to my library, its prepared and works with everything. Anything else used instantly is bound to the project files of that daw. My way of doing things is to rather have a library/catalog of samples slices up to shits thats cut to bars and works in any daw, but this does take time.
 
^^^ why not skip acid pro and sync in cubase ?

every time i have tried to do it i come across some issue with cubase and reason rewired that i cannot figure out how to fix.
the one im stuck on now is i cannot record midi from the controller into reason while its rewired into cubase.
i also find the latency is affected a lot by rewiring reason into cubase.
and because doing it in acid pro is what im used to and it doesnt really affect workflow too much, ive been able to live with it.
I agree it would be really convenient if i can just stick with reason rewired into cubase.
 

Formant024

Digital Smokerings
ill o.g.
Well i dont know why you need the controller, if the track is finished in reason then print to cubase and import the printed trackfiles in a new cubase project and add the acapella's.
 

God

Creator of the Universe
ill o.g.
From reading Fade's article of being a minimalist and the ability to do everything in one program these days. My process for most of my beats, 1) create in maschine, 2) arrange and filter in Ableton, 3) mix/master in Logic. Is it overkill to use more then one DAW? Each one done something a little diff, Its kinda like using a MPC and ASR10 next to each other.

Sounds like overkill to me. I use one sequencer, whatever it is-- Cubase, Ableton, etc. to "create" the music. I have all the soft-synths slaved to the sequencer and build my shit in there. If I need to do sound-design, then I go into the synth itself and work on stuff, but everything is slaved to my sequencer.

Once that shit is done, unless I send that shit to a professinal mixer, I mix each track in the sequencer.

Then I master that shit in a wave editor like WaveLab, SoundForge... shit even CoolEdit/Audition.
 
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