Recommendation for the fastest workflow DAW

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Hey guys,
I was wondering if you could help me out with this one.
I’ve been making beats in FL for quite some time now and as much as I like spending some time on the production by adding little details, I found myself often in the studio with the artist while I’m trying to lay down a beat as quick as possible, so he can jump right into the booth.
Now I feel like the FL Studio doesn’t really fit me anymore in this task.
I’m used to jump super quickly even around Windows OS, knowing exactly where my files are and being able to get to them in the matter of seconds. What drives me crazy in FL is clicking through endless floating VST(i)s windows, clicking back and forth between playlist/piano roll, switching patrerns, finding the hi-hat rolls pattern, the smart browser is horrible for searching the samples and despite ~2 years of experience in this DAW, I just don’t feel comfortable while trying to tackle down the tasks in a short period of time. By the time of arranging the beat, I’m usually already like 30 minutes into the process of producing.

I saw the Kenny Beats YouTube show the other day and the way he uses Ableton with such ease just amazes me.
I feel like the nature of FL doesn’t simply allow to navigate around the DAW that fast, no matter the experience.

https://youtu.be/GWenb9Noq_A

My workflow is usually based on playing with samples and focusing on the beat structure and arrangement. I also like to play with the FL’s piano roll randomizer to add a little hi-hat velocity/pan/pitch bounce.

So far, I’ve tried Ableton and Studio One.

Before diving deeper into Ableton, I wanted to ask you guys for any recommendations or if any of you possibly produce on the spot during the sessions. What tools do you use to speed up the workflow and save time?

Thanks for the answers!

Ps: happy new year to y’all

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You need more screens so that one screen has pianoroll, one has mixer and one for playlist (for example).

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This is completely subjective. Your workflow will be fastest in the DAW that suits you best, and that you spend the most time learning. Period.

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Try Bitwig, floating browser is second to none, you can search, preview and add samples, plugins, presets and etc in matter of seconds, changing different views is also matter of key stroke (Tab, Shift+Tab, A, D, O, L, F1, F2 and etc), you can browse and audition samples in Sampler from floating browser while they are played in your project, there's so many things that makes workflow in Bitwig quite efficient and fast.

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If you like tracker workflow, go Renoise.
If you like samples, pick Ableton.
If you're into "beats", go Maschine software.

However, these are all good for sketches, but not much so for elaborate arrangements.
Blog ------------- YouTube channel
Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)

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Passing Bye wrote:A, D, O, L, F
It’s a Nazi DAW? :shock:
"I was wondering if you'd like to try Magic Mushrooms"
"Oooh I dont know. Sounds a bit scary"
"It's not scary. You just lose a sense of who you are and all that sh!t"

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Mushy Mushy wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2019 1:31 pm
Passing Bye wrote:A, D, O, L, F
It’s a Nazi DAW? :shock:
It's from Berlin, Germany :hihi:

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Passing Bye wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2019 1:37 pm
Mushy Mushy wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2019 1:31 pm
Passing Bye wrote:A, D, O, L, F
It’s a Nazi DAW? :shock:
It's from Berlin, Germany :hihi:
Wow, queue the conspiracy theories.
"I was wondering if you'd like to try Magic Mushrooms"
"Oooh I dont know. Sounds a bit scary"
"It's not scary. You just lose a sense of who you are and all that sh!t"

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DJ Warmonger wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2019 1:28 pm If you like tracker workflow, go Renoise.
If you like samples, pick Bitwig.
If you're into "beats", go Maschine software.
Fixed it for you :hug:

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frnsh wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2019 12:42 pm My workflow is usually based on playing with samples and focusing on the beat structure and arrangement. I also like to play with the FL’s piano roll randomizer to add a little hi-hat velocity/pan/pitch bounce.

Before diving deeper into Ableton, I wanted to ask you guys for any recommendations or if any of you possibly produce on the spot during the sessions. What tools do you use to speed up the workflow and save time?
Personally during the jamming/composing sessions I work in Clip Launcher view and there laid down all possible arrangement scenarios (verse, chorus, intro, outro and etc), when I have clear idea about song structure I laid it down to Arranger Timeline.

I'm coming from traditional linear DAW history and Bitwig speeded up my workflow immensely, I'm into composing pop music, jingles, commercials, trailers, but also have hip hop, progressive house and ambient side projects, it works for everything I do, wish there was comping in Bitwig, but sense it's not far away from happening at this fast development pace.

As I already stated before, floating browser and Sampler are huge time savers, also importing whole racks of effects and instrument from other projects and saving them for later use, also using stock racks for layering, multi band mangling and whatnot, there's much less routing with some MIDI stuff than with other DAW's, than there's that modulation side of Bitwig i'm really not that into and know so little about, but majority seems quite excited about, all in all, check out Bitwig.

Nice review of older version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGmnfntSgd8

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You can try waveform.. single window workflow, its fast once you get it but its slightly unstable.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVmlgT ... subscriber


Advocator of free and open source software.

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Passing Bye wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2019 6:06 pm
frnsh wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2019 12:42 pm My workflow is usually based on playing with samples and focusing on the beat structure and arrangement. I also like to play with the FL’s piano roll randomizer to add a little hi-hat velocity/pan/pitch bounce.

Before diving deeper into Ableton, I wanted to ask you guys for any recommendations or if any of you possibly produce on the spot during the sessions. What tools do you use to speed up the workflow and save time?
Personally during the jamming/composing sessions I work in Clip Launcher view and there laid down all possible arrangement scenarios (verse, chorus, intro, outro and etc), when I have clear idea about song structure I laid it down to Arranger Timeline.

I'm coming from traditional linear DAW history and Bitwig speeded up my workflow immensely, I'm into composing pop music, jingles, commercials, trailers, but also have hip hop, progressive house and ambient side projects, it works for everything I do, wish there was comping in Bitwig, but sense it's not far away from happening at this fast development pace.

As I already stated before, floating browser and Sampler are huge time savers, also importing whole racks of effects and instrument from other projects and saving them for later use, also using stock racks for layering, multi band mangling and whatnot, there's much less routing with some MIDI stuff than with other DAW's, than there's that modulation side of Bitwig i'm really not that into and know so little about, but majority seems quite excited about, all in all, check out Bitwig.

Nice review of older version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGmnfntSgd8
Thanks for the introduction. I’ll check Bitwig pretty soon for sure.

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Bitwig or Ableton for on the fly jamming.

Bitwig allows a deeper level of modulation than ableton does. However there is a bit of a learning curve to understand how to use Bitwigs modulation.
Demo both and decide for yourself
:borg:

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Yay another game. List every DAW known to man here. Go.....

To the OP - just pick a DAW you’re comfortable with and learn it inside and out 👍
I wonder what happens if I press this button...

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I tried several daws, but non of them had anything close to FL piano roll. It's really advanced, fluid, intuitive.
When comparing other features it's not hard to beat FL, most daws do better job in organizing stuff and in clicks-to-result ratio.
Bitwig/Ableton more suited for music production, while Cubase/Studio one style daws are for recording/mixing.

First try to improve your workflow in FL.
You can force your floating VST windows to be on top with the 'always detach plugins' option.
Arrange your layout for FL windows, for example my layout is - the mixer is tied to the bottom of the screen and above I choose between piano roll and the playlist.
Use keyboard's F buttons to switch between windows, use Tab to switch between plugins.
Free more space by auto-hiding Windows toolbar. Edit the FL top toolbar to be one line instead of two.

Also, if you have favorite VSTs that can't be replaced by Ableton/Bitwig internal tools, then they will still pop-up same way they pop up in FL studio, no difference here. Try to use Channel strips to reduce the amount of windows.

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