DAWs and Audio Editing As Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2016-05-06
·
843 words · ~4 min read
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DAW. It's a word you use when you see something adorable, like a box of
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puppies. No, that's wrong. DAWs are
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digital audio workstations and in no way adorable unless you know you're into
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that kind of thing. Well, either way, moving on. DAWs are used in production
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of basically everything from soundtracks for movies, albums, voiceovers,
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podcasts, and so on. Much like video editing, the first audio editing
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involved recording to and splicing tape. And unfortunately, that's really how it
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stayed. until the late 1970s. Before then, computers just didn't have the
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processing power or storage speeds needed to edit audio. Then, SoundStream
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stepped in with what they called the digital editing system. It used a
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special mini computer running custom software package and operating system.
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The system was capable of moving and cross-fading between audio clips, which
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for a time was pretty dang cool and significantly easier than splicing tape.
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Not long after this, in the 1980s, consumer computers were becoming
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powerful enough to run their own DAWs. Digi Design's sound tools and sound
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designer could be hooked up to a computer for editing audio samples. And
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yes, people were sampling back in the8s. This in fact started a huge dispute over
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copyright laws, over sampling. And shortly after this, major record labels
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all started going digital. Digit Design answered this digital revolution with
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their legendary software ProTools, which quickly became and is still to this day
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the industry standard DAW. This was however expensive because ProTools
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required dedicated hardware for audio processing. It wasn't until 1993 that a
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German company called Steinberg released the first DAW that broke away from
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dedicated hardware. But what kind of hardware do you need to mix and edit
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audio? You could have something as simple as an entry-level USB mic like
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the Blue Yeti connected to a computer, but studios usually have much larger
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mixing consoles capable of receiving a multitude of controllable audio sources.
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So, is there a benefit to this other than just being able to record lots of
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stuff at once? Of course, a recurring theme across many topics is the benefits
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of dedicated equipment. Just like having a dedicated graphics card in a computer,
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using a dedicated compressor, mic, amp, or mixer makes a big difference in sound
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and performance. So, by performance, you mean moving and cutting up sounds,
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right? Well, almost. Like video editing, there's lots of possibilities. And DAWs
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come in tons of different flavors. Many DAWs allow you to synthesize and create
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your own instruments from scratch, and in some cases break away from the
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timeline editing view we are so used to.
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Ableton Live is a perfect example since you store your ideas in blocks and can
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activate them with a controller. Each button playing a different segment of
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your song. Programs like FL Studio, a well-known DAW for PC, allows the user
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to store ideas and segments in a side bank as loops and pull them into the
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timeline whenever they're needed. Then there's programs like ProTools, Sonar,
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and Logic, which are more closely designed to emulate analog equipment,
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giving the operator similar set of controls to playing a physical mixing
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console. Ironically, that means the industry standard digital audio
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workstations are actually emulating the analog audio workstations that they
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replaced. So, what's next? And should we really expect many changes in the future
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for audio editing? Well, that's actually a pretty good possibility. Many smaller
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DAWs are moving towards modularity with third-party plugins that are there to
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make the creative process easier for the producer or artist. However, with the
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rate analog audio is changing, which is too slow for even a clever metaphor, I
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wouldn't expect the top dog industry standard DAWs to change up anytime soon.
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