The evolution and future of the DAW

studios became daws. personal computers further democratised the tools.

More rigid daws evolved into Ableton Live, the production studio, but also the performing equipment.

One possible future (due to the accessibility of learning software thanks to general digital literacy and UI/UX) is that the daw becomes the listening platform. Much like going to a gig and peering at the pedal board, those who are interested in the source/production of the sound. Maybe with an open-source/donation-ware mentality, this would allow for the deconstruction of music. maybe you’d get people basically copying the music because if its ease, however this might also make people more experimental and actually reduce the amount of music that sounds similar to others.

The smartphone would likely be the best device. I have used touchOSC a little as the multitouch nature of touchscreens allows for lots of expression, I also used the recently released Ableton Note what is full of features. I struggled with both applications due to the user interface limitations and so would need to spend time learning them (where as I found Ableton Live quite accessible when I first started using it.) This might just be as I don’t use my phone all that often, other than for listening to music, reading websites/the news and a small amount social media for idle moments.