DAW solution for supporting brainstorming phase?

[hotspot]

As Jeff Tweedy says: throw a few ideas at the wall and see what sticks.
Clever boy.

When I'm working on a new song project, there's a more or less long phase of brainstorming.

I sit there for a few hours and just play ideas with different instruments that spontaneously come to mind for the song setting.

In this phase, I really want to stay in the flow. Every additional technical move hinders me.
In the run-up to the actual song development, a large number of multi-bar ideas come to mind that I've had lying around somewhere in the timeline.

This makes it difficult and confusing to find and use them in the song later on.

Now to my question:
Is there a DAW that supports this phase well?
I could imagine that you simply have a special area where you can continuously record ideas, independently of the actual timeline.
It would be nice to be able to tag the individual snippets quickly after recording.
Later I would like to select from the area and drag sections into the song.

I know that Logic does something similar with its loops, but I haven't yet found a quick way to get the ideas into this area without any additional steps.

Any ideas or best practices?

 

[Geir]

Cubase is great at this type of workflow. It has a arranger track. So you can simply mark the bars and give them names and mix and match in the arranger track. You can copy/past and make several edits in seconds.

I believe any of the daws that has this type of arranger option will fit your workflow perfectly.

I bin using it this morning, finishing my last work before x-mas. So easy to swap around on different edits and make and create changes.

 

[kcatthedog2]

Isn't this what the recent new feature in Studio one is for ?

Personally, I just capture rough ideas on my iPhone and just title them in a way that makes sense to me, can easily export into logic and then work up better versions in logic, edit into a workman arrangement, what ever.

 

[marQs]

Cubase is great at this type of workflow. It has a arranger track. So you can simply mark the bars and give them names and mix and match in the arranger track. You can copy/past and make several edits in seconds.

^^^^ this ^^^^

Guess most other DAWs should have something similar.

 

[KyMusic]

As Jeff Tweedy says: throw a few ideas at the wall and see what sticks.
Clever boy.

When I'm working on a new song project, there's a more or less long phase of brainstorming.

I sit there for a few hours and just play ideas with different instruments that spontaneously come to mind for the song setting.

In this phase, I really want to stay in the flow. Every additional technical move hinders me.
In the run-up to the actual song development, a large number of multi-bar ideas come to mind that I've had lying around somewhere in the timeline.

This makes it difficult and confusing to find and use them in the song later on.

Now to my question:
Is there a DAW that supports this phase well?
I could imagine that you simply have a special area where you can continuously record ideas, independently of the actual timeline.
It would be nice to be able to tag the individual snippets quickly after recording.
Later I would like to select from the area and drag sections into the song.

I know that Logic does something similar with its loops, but I haven't yet found a quick way to get the ideas into this area without any additional steps.

Any ideas or best practices?

If I am sitting on the couch with an acoustic guitar I use my iPhone to capture ideas. I use the Voice Record pro app. There is a free version and a pro version that I believe is under $10. It allows you to retitle the audio and send it over via a number of different options. If I am in my studio I find Logic Pro with a songwriter template I have customized with all the normal instruments I would use to be very helpful in putting down new ideas. I have a full arrangement laid out using the Arrangement bar so I can move sections around if I choose. Also, by having the arrangement already populated I can very quickly populate the Drummer track with a full song's worth of drums that change up for each different section. I personally like to play to drum tracks when I am creating new music. I keep the tracks I like and delete the ones I don't like. Obviously, the tracks can be named if you find something you like for later reference. I do more traditional instruments so I don't have any good advice for electronic music.
Hope this helps!

 

[hotspot]

Guess most other DAWs should have something similar.

Logic does have that Live Loop thing, what is kind of doing that. It is a bit for loop based music, which is not my cub of tea.
I'll need diving a little deeper into it, let's see if it matches with my non loop based idea recording.

use my iPhone to capture ideas

Yes, I use that too in an earlier phase. What I am after is for the next phase, (pre-) recording snippets in a useable quality.

 

[exoslime]

i also use cubase and the arranger tool is pretty nifty. but i mostly use it in well developeded demos if i just want to try out a differet bridge or prechorus and sneak something temporary in to see how it works and if its better than the original

typcially for creative song creatiion, i do extensivly use copy&paste sections very often and my projects demos tend get a very long timeline with many variations.
what is crucial for me
working with myytemplate for songwriting setup, which includes my typical midi drums from superior drummer, premixed channels, empty tracks for bass, various guitars, vocals, etc and a varity of virtual instruments that i often use, like EZ Bass, Piano, some strings, some moog style synths, some shakers, and of course a cowbell
all my input channels routed correctly to corresponding "recording channels" so i just need to grab the instrument, arm the track and i´m ready to go

i´m very picky about workflow and ergonomics, as if its not already hard enough to write songs and not only be creative, i dont want anything technical in the way that hinder me

 

[JamesNorth]

Studio One’s scratch pad and arranger track both serve this purpose well.

 

[Joe Porto]

I use Ableton for this, but as mentioned, Logic has Live Loops.

 

[FutureLegends]

Maybe Digital Performer’s chunk feature?
basically you can have any number of timelines in a single project and they can share VIs etc so you don’t have to reload them when switching between timelines etc.

This feature is also great for playback of backing tracks etc as they can be put in a playlist and chained together and easily rearranged…

It’s a pretty unique feature as far as I’m aware.

 

[stop.d]

I use Ableton for this, but as mentioned, Logic has Live Loops.

I've no idea how any of the other DAWs have implemented similar features but Session View in Live is perfectly suited for these sorts of purposes. record parts into a Session track then you can drag and drop clips between Session and Arrangement or even 'play' Session clips into Arrangement. with a grid launcher controller one can easily record parts without doing anything but pressing a pad...

OP, give the demo of Live a whirl. if you mostly use real instruments or have favored virtual instruments/effects the Standard version would suffice (but the demo will be Suite).

 

[mrufino1]

As Jeff Tweedy says: throw a few ideas at the wall and see what sticks.
Clever boy.

When I'm working on a new song project, there's a more or less long phase of brainstorming.

I sit there for a few hours and just play ideas with different instruments that spontaneously come to mind for the song setting.

In this phase, I really want to stay in the flow. Every additional technical move hinders me.
In the run-up to the actual song development, a large number of multi-bar ideas come to mind that I've had lying around somewhere in the timeline.

This makes it difficult and confusing to find and use them in the song later on.

Now to my question:
Is there a DAW that supports this phase well?
I could imagine that you simply have a special area where you can continuously record ideas, independently of the actual timeline.
It would be nice to be able to tag the individual snippets quickly after recording.
Later I would like to select from the area and drag sections into the song.

I know that Logic does something similar with its loops, but I haven't yet found a quick way to get the ideas into this area without any additional steps.

Any ideas or best practices?

Logic has arrangement markers, which then let you move sections around.

 

[EoSNJ]

My whole workflow is iterative improvisation, and Logic has served me well for this. My template has my drum kit ready to record (it's in a stack, so I can Rec-Enable the stack and all 10 tracks are armed). I have tracks ready for Bass, Guitars - both my hi-z inputs on Apollos, UAFX amps, and tube amps into Ox. I have a DL-4 on a Cue from UA's console, so I can record any source to it, loop it, and feed it into Logic. Whatever I'm starting with, I use Free Tempo Record and let Logic figure out the tempo from it.

I have logic set to record takes at all times. So I can always refine a part, really easily. I can even rearm the Drum stack and record new takes.

Not stopping to patch, set up, or do anything that'll kill my momentum is exactly what this is designed to do.

I'll refine parts, iteratively as a piece evolves. By the time I'm done there's often no trace of the original ideas...and just as often they remain.

Cycle mode is employed a lot.

Arrangement markers, as others have noted, and move things around easily.

I often have addition computers running other software sync'd, so I can work in Ableton Live or Reason, sync'd, suck it into logic when ready... It's all about spontaneity to me.

 

[bpaluzzi]

I use Ableton for this, but as mentioned, Logic has Live Loops.

Yup, this is Ableton's bread and butter.

 

[Bruce_Sokolovic]

Studio One. Scratchpad, arranger track, chord track, ARA integration easily transforming audio to midi via Melodyne.

 

[David MacNeill]

Rough demo acoustic guitar and lyrics into iPhone recorder, then into Logic for tempo and drum track, then record real guitar and vox tracks, then maybe some MIDI pad stuff or piano and often an electric guitar. Send session to cowriter/lead singer/guitarist/bassist 600 miles away into his Logic rig and back and forth it goes until it is a song. Works every time in either direction: 122 songs written, recorded, mixed and mastered in two years, four albums and six singles distributed.

 

[moraldecay31]

As Jeff Tweedy says: throw a few ideas at the wall and see what sticks.
Clever boy.

When I'm working on a new song project, there's a more or less long phase of brainstorming.

I sit there for a few hours and just play ideas with different instruments that spontaneously come to mind for the song setting.

In this phase, I really want to stay in the flow. Every additional technical move hinders me.
In the run-up to the actual song development, a large number of multi-bar ideas come to mind that I've had lying around somewhere in the timeline.

This makes it difficult and confusing to find and use them in the song later on.

Now to my question:
Is there a DAW that supports this phase well?
I could imagine that you simply have a special area where you can continuously record ideas, independently of the actual timeline.
It would be nice to be able to tag the individual snippets quickly after recording.
Later I would like to select from the area and drag sections into the song.

I know that Logic does something similar with its loops, but I haven't yet found a quick way to get the ideas into this area without any additional steps.

Any ideas or best practices?

Have a mic open and recording to give yourself a voice reminder track. Drop voice notes on yourself as I frequently do.. "You played that part like shit, Matt". Voice cues can work sometimes. Help's me remember specifics in my own words.