What was your first ever DAW?

[selig]

@Adam:
I totally missed the Tracker phase, having adopted Pro Tools/Studio Vision by the early 90s to allow audio tracks to be included in my productions. I don't know if it resonates with my mental approach to sequencing (I tend to prefer piano roll), but it sure looks like something that would have been super interesting to work with if just because it pushes you to work differently (which is always interesting if not inspiring).

[HeavyViper]

Mario Paint.

[ljekio]

Fasttracker2

[jappe]

My first DAW was a machine code program I made on ABC800 in the 80's and memorized . Poked it into the memory byte by byte every time I wanted to run it (always just to show off for class mates), some 50 instructions or so. It played a PWM tone.

[raymondh]

My first DAW was a machine code program I made on ABC800 in the 80's and memorized . Poked it into the memory byte by byte every time I wanted to run it (always just to show off for class mates), some 50 instructions or so. It played a PWM tone.

very cool!

[dhruan]

Reason 2.5. Got into digital music making fairly late for my age (late 20s).

[Periwinkle]

Notator
Cubase SX
Reason
Logic
Then (just recently) back to Reason.

[Mylor]

My start was with Scream Tracker in the early 90s.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scream_Tracker

[gullum]

now I remember the name of my first DAW voyetra digital orchestrator pro

[w1pl0c]

MixMan Studio Pro

[dezma]

Emagic logic platinum 5.5 on pc in 2003 after some years of Roland MC-505

After that:
Cubase after apple bought emagic
Reason (+ Cubase in rewire)
Ableton + Reason (rewire)

Current:
Studio One (reason only used as VST)

Logic 5.5 and the cubase version (I believe it was SX) both had curved automation. It's funny/sad to see this being promoted as one of the major improvements while being 15 years overdue.

[VariableX]

I had a tracker on the Amiga. Can't remember its name.

[kitekrazy]

Voyetra Digital Orchestra

Next up was wasting $500 on a Yamaha SW1000XG.

[gullum]

Voyetra Digital Orchestra

Next up was wasting $500 on a Yamaha SW1000XG.

I sure had much fun with Digital Orchestra

[Oquasec]

Mixcraft fl studio and reason in that order, 2010.

[miyaru]

Magix Music Maker in 1996, then Cubase soon after that. Two years back I switched to Ableton Live Suite (now 10) - had Reason 4 inbetween at the same time as Cubase 5.5 and since saturday Reason Suite 11!!!!

[orthodox]

Reason, though it was not a DAW in the classical sense at the time, it could not do audio editing.
Cakewalk Sonar for the audio.

[fullforce]

Commodore 64 Rock Monitor. I was actually in the same class as the guy who did most of the assembly for it. He was a member of the cracking/hacking group "The Dutch USA-team" in which USA stood for "United Software Antiprotection".



I never really got much out of it because I was 15 and had a very short span of attention for such things at the time.

Then came the Commodore Amiga and I got my hands on a program called SoundFX and some drum samples and that's where I made my first beats on, and also got some compliments from a DJ (who was a real DJ back then, this was around 1987) that they were pretty tight.



This was all done on a friends Amiga, I didn't have one yet. When I bought one, I got Mugician from a guy who used to visit the same coffeeshop in Amsterdam (I lived there at the time) as I did. This is where it got interesting, I made some stuff, recorded it on tape and brought it to the shop to play it. Most of it was a bit meh, but things were picking up because I did some interesting things with melodies. The beats were quite lame but that was because of the available samples I had. It also had a pretty strange workflow.



All this changed when I got my hands on Protracker 2. I got Protracker along with 2 floppies full of really usable samples, including a 909 and 808 kit. Some rave stuff, some voice stuff, some breakbeats, all the good ingredients. I was unemployed at the time and totally devoted myself to making music. I didn't have a printer so I wrote down the whole helpfile on paper. If I hadn't done that I never would have gotten anywhere with it. I made some good tracks and the feedback from the coffeeshop turned from "meh it's ok" to "fuck man this is actually really good" and people started to dance on it. Then I got a sampler and the boat really started sailing.



I should have stayed unemployed. I might be famous now.

[fullforce]

It looks amazing. I think the concept and workflow of a tracker is underestimated these days.

Renoise is still amazing. A new version has just been released. If you don't have it, buy it.

[fullforce]

I learned so much from being able to open up and dissect not just the music I found on-line at the time (of which I still have! Mostly guys like Necros, Skaven, Siren, Basshead, Teque... the list goes on), but also the music from games like Crusader, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, and Deus Ex

Blood Money! I remember me and a friend loading that up and looking at what it was doing. Then we were like "why is there sound on this channel when there's no notes in there", and that is how we found out about the volume column.

[dannyF]

PowerTracks Pro. DOS only MIDI sequencer combined with a Korg X5.

God, I had so many complete songs and I was so fast producing with it. The good ol days

[fullforce]

PowerTracks Pro. DOS only MIDI sequencer combined with a Korg X5.

God, I had so many complete songs and I was so fast producing with it. The good ol days

Yep. Probably because you knew your gear inside out.

[xboix]

PowerTracks Pro. DOS only MIDI sequencer combined with a Korg X5.

God, I had so many complete songs and I was so fast producing with it. The good ol days

Yep. Probably because you knew your gear inside out.

And because you didn't have 200 synths and effects to choose from.
And because you were young and carefree!

[fullforce]

Yep. Probably because you knew your gear inside out.

And because you didn't have 200 synths and effects to choose from.
And because you were young and carefree!

And then came the time where I talked a local discotheque dude into letting me do a live act. And he agreed. We would do a house party and they would do publicity and such. All I had to do was show up with my gear.

I panicked. I needed TWO amiga's and I only had one. So i borrowed one from a friend, with a monitor. My own came with a TV. I borrowed a mixing board from another friend.

Then it was showtime. I was so freaking nervous. But the DJ, who I knew a bit, felt my predicament, and he played some house before I started so I could adjust the sound level a bit while he was playing, so i did some claps and stuff to hear how it would fit into the building. This was a disco and there were probably 50-60 people there.

Then he announced me and I was on my own. My first mix was bad, because i forgot to adjust the tempo on one amiga so the breakbeat was out of time. I switched back to the first song, it was a horrible transition, but after that I got into the zone and tore the place UP.

[Mataya]

Making Waves Remember that one?



Rebirth, Acid and Fruity.