Looking for a beginner friendly DAW

Don't kid yourself - if you're getting AI to write your drum parts, AI is writing your music.

I don't like the intrusion of AI into music. It's entirely trained on information stolen from other musicians without permission. No musician should be supporting it's use.
You need help. I am looking to record music to form a band, find a drummer/other musicians to play with. I am not looking to record an album using AI drums.

The other option is for me to become somebody who never did anything with music like you while telling other people why they are doing it wrong on the internet like a fake tough guy.

Eff off.
 
most of ai/ml is based on stolen information
I'm aware of this. I am a copywriter by profession. My business has reduced by 80% since people and businesses have begun using chatGPT instead of hiring writers like me. It sucks. That AI was trained off portfolios such as mine and I received zero compensation and nobody is shedding any tears for me.

The AI age is inevitable. They are not going to stop just because it hurts our feelings. Accept it, adapt, and move forward. Stolen or not, there is nothing we can do about it now.
 
I love the integration with StudioOne. You can import directly into StudioOne and each drum gets its own track as if they were recorded in the studio.

Yep, there are plenty of options for people who can't drum.

It's pretty easy to just tap in a drum track with BFD drums and reaper using pads on a midi controller too (there are a variety of preset patterns as well if the tapping is too hard). Or if you like planning out songs beforehand, free software like hydrogen drum machine makes putting together everything from samples very easy - that's usually how I write the rhythm parts for tunes I'm working on.


The AI age is inevitable. They are not going to stop just because it hurts our feelings. Accept it, adapt, and move forward. Stolen or not, there is nothing we can do about it now.

If you don't like it and want to support it, there is absolutely no reason to buy what they're selling. I don't think anyone is going to listen to music and say 'damn, I wish that guy used more AI to generate parts of his tune'.
 
Yep, there are plenty of options for people who can't drum.

It's pretty easy to just tap in a drum track with BFD drums and reaper using pads on a midi controller too (there are a variety of preset patterns as well if the tapping is too hard). Or if you like planning out songs beforehand, free software like hydrogen drum machine makes putting together everything from samples very easy - that's usually how I write the rhythm parts for tunes I'm working on.

I am not going to use the drums on anything anyone outside of my band will hear. It is just to convey song demos and ideas to my band. The easier the better, and EZ Drummer scratches the itch. Back in the day, I used Casio drums in my 4-track for this purpose. It is nothing more than a fancy metronome for me.
 
I am not going to use the drums on anything anyone outside of my band will hear. It is just to convey song demos and ideas to my band. The easier the better, and EZ Drummer scratches the itch. Back in the day, I used Casio drums in my 4-track for this purpose. It is nothing more than a fancy metronome for me.

I was always curious about EZ drummer. The chopped down version of BFD is free though, which wins for me!
 
EZ Drummer does have a lot of expansion packs covering pretty much every style of music, and there are a ton of 3rd party tutorials out there.
 
I am still using Cubase. There is a prorated system of upgrade costs. It seems reasonable to me.

I have an old Win7 tower and am still running Cubase 8.5. When I upgrade everything in the next year or so, I will go with the current version of Cubase at the time. It is a good company, in use around the industry, it’s good software that feels mostly intuitive to me, and I get good music out of it.
Yeah Cubase definitely was the most comfortable environment for me as well. Very intuitive to get started in, yet powerful enough to take it all the way to pro level.

I've long ago abandoned Windows/MacOS though, so using Ardour for Linux these days. I haven't yet dived into its full features, so no idea how powerful it is compared to the proprietary offerings.
 
most of ai/ml is based on stolen information

Oh, no. We all sign away all the rights to our info right there in the EULA. It's learned helplessness. If you want access to most any useful gadget, you sign the damn thing. That's a whole can of worms...
 
I know nothing about DAWs, and I'm getting into them begrudgingly because the rest of the gang is afraid of computers. Is Fender Studio One Pro (the perpetual license version, no subscription) a good bet?
 
I know nothing about DAWs, and I'm getting into them begrudgingly because the rest of the gang is afraid of computers. Is Fender Studio One Pro (the perpetual license version, no subscription) a good bet?
I'd say to start with one of the free ones first, and find your way around.
 
Intellectual property is a benefit for a single individual and a detriment to everyone else

This is a tricky one.

IP laws can certainly go way overboard where they become detrimental to society, but without them it's entirely possible that someone with great ideas simply has those ideas copied and can't make enough money to live . . . so stops contributing those ideas. There's a balancing act to be had I think.



Most of human knowledge is based on "stolen" information.
AI is fundamentally different from humans. AI doesn't synthesize anything new, it combines things that are copied from other sources. When we look at AI works we're not able to understand and break down the hundreds or thousands of little copied bits so it can seem like something novel at first glance. People learn from each other sure. But even in the case where a person is trying to directly copy something, the nature of human memory introduces errors and deviations that tend to lead to the creation of new work. And the majority of people don't set out to just directly copy, they're trying to work to create something new.
 
The AI debate is so complicated. It's frustrating to me on so many levels, but I can also see how useful it can be at times.

My gut feeling says the long-term outlook is not good for humanity considering the current intentions behind developing most AI and LLM systems in existence. It's untenable on its current trajectory.

On the bright side, it made me pick up my guitars and basses again, just longing to create with my mind, soul, and hands, away from a computer for a while.
 
Don't get me wrong, my opinion about AI is more nuanced than my above post would have you believe.

The question of whether AI is good or bad kind of gets overshadowed by the fact that AI is not going away.
 
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