Talk:Digital audio workstation/Archive 1

Open Source POV
Much of the discussion on open-source DAWs seems to be slanted against open source. Being something of an OSS zealot myself, I've tried to straighten it out, but I fear all I've created is a mishmosh of opposing viewpoints, not a true NPOV entry. Anyone else want to take a hack at that? Haikupoet 01:45, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Against Merging with Music Workstation
I would like to point out that DAWs are used in many industries that only tangentially work with sound, such as film and theater sound design, and radio an TV production. Most dialogue and ADR editors never work with music in their DAWs, and some DAWs are targeted at post-production while some are targeted at music. When I hear "music workstation," I think of an Akai sampler or a Fairlight CMI, but a DAW can be a Pro Tools, or a Nuendo, or a WaveFrame for that matter. Iluvcapra 07:15, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Two different types of products, aimed at different (largely overlapping, sure, but still different) markets. Software DAW is a sequencer, software for nonlienar audio editing and production, a sound design platform, postproduction/mastering platform.. Hardware music workstations in perspective seem like a temporary solution to sequencing before the total overtake by soft sequencers, and lately they seem more and more aimed at hobbyists and songwriters that dislike/fear computers but are in need of a sketch pad for thier musical compositons. Merging the two just "feels" awkward. -- Guest

features
I started to added to the sections on features. I.e. what is it that a DAW can do? I would like to add more about non-destructive editing, non-linear playback (i.e. jump to any part of the record instaneously), non-real time processing (faster and slower), and 'impossible' or very difficult things do do in the absence of a DAW eg timestretching, (real-time) pitch-shifting pitch correction, linear-phase EQ, look-ahead dynamics processing, plugin delay compensation..... i'm sure there is more, please contribute if you can. Iain 11:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Audacity-windows-small.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

New sections
Added a few sentences on how U.S. radio industry seems to be moving towards computer-based DAWs. Created a new section entitled "Interface" so that readers have an idea of what the average computer-based DAW looks like (and how it works). It needs a lot of work. Also added links to Adobe Audition, Sound Forge, Vegas and Audacity.

-Cakewalk Sonar is missing. Br0d 11:07, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Some readers might want to know if there are commercially-available DAWs that don't cost quite as much as the more professional (and expensive) DAWs like Audition and Pro Tools. So I added a section entitled "Commercially-available PC-Based DAWs for under $100 US." This should hopefully help people who want a little more than the open-source DAWs have to offer, but can't afford higher-end DAWs. Stephenw77 04:47, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

---

Commercial DAWs don't necessarily offer more things than open-source DAWs - yet in recent times it starts being true the contrary: open source DAWs offer more than commercial ones, and there are also commercial DAWs employing free and open source software. In fact the commercial attribute doesn't even excludes open source. Please visit the LinuxAudio.org consortium for more informations and avoid doing market advertisement to commercial companies here. Jaromil 15:01, 11 august 2005 (CET)
 * You make a good point, Jaromil. My main goal was distinguish higher-end (read "more expensive") DAWs from the less expensive, but still widely-used DAWs (e.g. Adobe Audition).  Would anyone object to instead having something in the form of two lists:  Perhaps Commercially-available high-end computer-based DAW vs. Commercially-available consumer-grade computer-based DAWs?  This might make this section seem less like an advertisement.  If there are still objections, I can still merge the "under $100" list back into the main "Commercially-available Mac and PC-based DAW" list - and not make any distinctions at all (the way it was originally).  Stephenw77 17:40, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
 * After reviewing my above post, I think that it is just better if I eliminated the distinction altogether and put everything back under the Commercially-available Macintosh and PC-based DAWs category. I did this because I realized that a lot of people in radio and the music industry actually use some of the less expensive commercial DAWs like Audition and Sound Forge -- and increasingly open-source software too (as Jaromil noted).  So it just made more sense to put things back the way they were before I created the other category.  If anyone can think of a better way to organize this list, by all means do so.  I was thinking of making a "single-track" vs "multi-track" list, but I don't know enough about all of the DAWs listed to do something like that. Stephenw77 22:54, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Why are people still paying for commercial DAWs then? Please let's not lean this toward an OSS/proprietary debate. I think you'd find that although open source has come a long way, if you did a feature by feature breakdown comparing major commercial DAWs to open source one's you'd find that commercial systems are still much more feature rich and reliable. Plus the business of accountability--most audio software is notoriously quirky, all other things being equal, many users would still prefer commercial versions due to the convenience of a support contract, and someone might want to point that out. All in all I believe open source is over-represented in this article, relative to its actual deployment in the wild, as it is given equivalent airtime to commercial systems, which have a much larger installed base...and I attribute that anomaly to the predictable evangelism of the open source user base. Most of the DAW world is using Protools, Nuendo, Cubase, Logic and Sonar, let's not bias an encyclopedia because we dislike paying. Not to mention the commercial paragraph is horrifically slanted and packed full of irrelevant and even incorrect information. I think this article ought to be rewritten. Protools the defacto standard on the Windows platform? Hardly. Protools is defacto on Mac. If there is a Windows standard, it is Nuendo/Cubase (whose users don't particularly need to be called "rabid" in what's supposed to amount to an informational article), although the Windows market share is a bit more fragmented than that enjoyed by Protools on Mac. Br0d


 * Can someone please explain me how a brand new user as Br0d, completely unknown and only contributing to digital audio since 2 days, can put a dispute sign on top of an article like this? i think that if wikipedia works this way we have little or no hope to provide correct information. I thank in advance anyone pointing me to the policy regarding this issue. Besides this basic procedural problem, i argue that Br0d assumptions are made on the basis of his specific background as commercial software user. There are various research institutions and universities employing and developing free and open source software in the "professional" field, employing instruments that are precise and can be calibrated because open source. Br0d is writing about consumer-grade DAWs and should simply contribute to that section if he feels he knows about. Jaromil ~ 24 Aug 2005


 * Um, this is rather silly. Some research institutions and universities are employing open source?  Great!  Call me when research institutions and universities represent any kind of serious percentage of the DAW-using world and I'll consider that relevant.  This article is horribly, horribly biased towards open source - and I'm saying this as a Linux user all the time when I'm not doing professional audio work.  This article has a shocking over-emphasis on Audacity, which arguably isn't even a DAW in any serious sense of the word - being a wave editor and closer to a free version of SoundForge than of something like ProTools, Logic, DP, Sonar or Cubase/Nuendo.  The balance in this article is utterly horrible, and if you doubt this it is most certainly YOUR experience of the real world that is lacking.  I suggest you get the phone book out and conduct a brief straw-poll of local studios to see what they're using.  ProTools is the de-facto industry standard, generally running on Macs but basically being a dedicated hardware platform to itself.  On the PC with consumer hardware you're much more likely to see Cubase/Nuendo or Sonar, on the Mac with consumer hardware you can expect to see Logic or occasionally Digital Performer.  Ardour you will not see.  Audacity you will not see.  If you want a citation for that, try looking at this page here:  http://www.soundonsound.com/articles/Technique.php - note the presence of Cubase, Logic, DP, ProTools, and Sonar columns.  Note the lack of virtually anything discussed in this article.  That's a professional perspective from one of the most well-respected industry magazines.  This whole article is shockingly, shockingly biased and quite clearly should have a dispute sign on it.  Finnhiggins 08:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Pro Tools is by no means an 'industry standard' - no standards body has EVER decided that; it is, however an industry leader at the moment in the DAW world. :-) Neilius 11:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, I did say "De-facto" - it's not a formal standard, but if you want to be taking your projects from home into a pro studio it's a pretty safe assumption that you want to be taking them in as ProTools project files. Sort of like Microsoft's .doc and .xls file formats - not an official standard, but very much THE standard professionally. 04:33, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm also sure universities do represent a large portion of the DAW using world, as I work at one myself and we have around 50 machines each running Logic Pro 7, which is a lot of licenses. We also have a couple of Pro Tools suites. If you think about how many universities there are that run courses that require DAWs, and then imagine the number of licenses they require for this software, I'm sure it can be said that universities would make up a substantial portion of the market. Neilius 16:42, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * "Why are people still paying for commercial DAWs then?"
 * Because the open source audio world is buggy, unreliable, and perpetually beta. :-)  I definitely agree with the allegations of bias, but don't delete information, just add more about commercial systems to balance it out.  — Omegatron 14:11, August 23, 2005 (UTC)


 * I have to disagree with the current structure of the Commercial section. The "explanation" of select software platforms is beyond the scope of defining DAW. There should simply be a list that links software titles to pages about the specific software or developer. This would remove the bias, provide depth by linking, and focus this article more on the central information; to define DAW. --Joenovice (talk) 04:10, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

resolution
updated the resolution wikilink to point to Bit resolution. please update if this is incorrect  STHayden  [ Talk  ] 02:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This is not the correct link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_bit_depth Should be used instead. --Joenovice (talk) 18:22, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Reaper?
While audio editors found their way into this article, the main alternative commercial DAW S/W is missing. Reaper is the only product that competes with the big ones in market share and feature set and is discussed more than any other alternative DAW. It can't be ignored.--213.39.178.49 (talk) 13:39, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Sound Forge?
Why is Sound Forge and CoolEdit in the list of DAWs? They are not DAWs except in perhaps the most stretched definition. They are wave editors. Same would probably go for SAW, but I'm not as familiar with that program so I couldn't be sure about that. --Brentt 23:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC) I agree with this... What about Audacity as well??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.25.147.245 (talk) 03:50, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Commerical System Section dispute review
A Call for Removal of Software Descriptions Section removed and replaced with links to better written articles of each commercial platform.--Joenovice (talk) 12:48, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't feel it's necessary to detail individual software programs. It would be more effective to list EVERY platform and link these names to other Wikipedia articles. As it currently stand the "Comerical" section is a mess with incomplete information and a noticable bias regarding software/companies. This could be cleaned up by simply listing and linking to articles or stubs. This edit is available to preview within the edit history section of the article.--Joenovice (talk) 04:13, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I think a commerical section similar to the following "Open Source" section could also resolve this misdirection.--Joenovice (talk) 17:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * A note: the category Category:Audio_editors greatly captures this information already. If you do list them, (which I'm not entirely sure we should) the list should be but in a table. The conversational tone of your edits should be removed too. It's an encyclopedia article so no "Please click on the below link to see the individual article" stuff. Cheers, AtaruMoroboshi (talk) 13:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Category:Audio_editors doesn't include many of the listed DAW platforms (likely because Audio Editors and these commercial packages are not the same). As to the table.... It would be nice but I don't know how to code it.--Joenovice (talk) 13:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

This ection being as is, it should at least be properly srted either by DAW name or by company / daw, mixing "Ableton Live" and "Steinberg Cubase" with "Nuendo" and "REAPER" is ridiculous. I sorted it once, but don't know why it was reverted to this incoherent listing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.57.103.19 (talk) 11:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

This Article is Unsourced Junk (History Section)
I will limit this to the history section. A few points:


 * this article improperly refers to tape recorders as DAWs (i.e. Soundstream, it was a TAPE RECORDER owned and operated by the inventor and couldn't do anything without tape)


 * this article refers to tape recorders as if they were DAWs that were commercially sold (i.e. Soundstream, it was a TAPE RECORDER and they sold 7 of them, and two of those were to the government, this is hardly studio equipment that anyone ever bought or used)


 * this article freely intermixes commercially sold DAWs with one-off homemade systems that they have read about but no one has ever seen (i.e. Roger Nichols' homemade Wendel system, our only source on that are the 10,000 mentions Nichols has made of it himself, it was a drum sampler/sequencer and not a track-based recording system), and any reader would have to know more than the authors to know which were sold


 * the entire history section is useless and totally without sources


 * There are a lot of gray areas within the DAW topic, but I think we can all agree that a tape recorder is not a DAW and that a DAW is, at a minimum, by definition, a non-linear random access recorder. It doesn't need to have 10,000 VST plugins to qualify, but, at a minimum, it should be able to record continuous digital audio to a hard drive in real time and play it back from the hard drive, and it should be computer-based. It should not be recording to tape or RAM. The Soundstream used a computer as an editing controller (and an "oscillioscope", whatever that is); to call this computer + tape recorder a DAW is absurd, like saying that a Sony RM-440 Automatic Editing Control Unit connected to two VTRs is an Avid nonlinear editing system or DAW.


 * This article jumps from Roger Nichols' never-sold drum sampler/sequencer to "At the late 1980s" and describes a lot of Mac software, saying "DAWs were Apple Mac based". That jumps over several years there, and, in 1989, there were at least three DAWs (NED Direct-to-Disk, WaveFrame AudioFrame 1000, and AMS AudioFile), none of which were "Apple Mac based". This section is junk, it skips over hardware systems and talks about Mac software, when DAWs were doing hard disk recording on Atari computers before any Apple Mac was doing it. Worse, it is talking about keyboard sample editors that couldn't do continuous audio recording to hard disk, which is the most basic function of a DAW.


 * Can someone propose a new way to write this section?

Should it be experimentals/prototypes/one-offs in one section and commercially sold systems in another, or all inline in one section?

The history of the DAW section is crucial to the DAW article but this existing history section is so poor in content, spelling, grammar, and sources that it can't be salvaged.

I don't want to delete a whole section unless another one is ready to replace it. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.228.128 (talk) 10:59, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Post note: This has gone uncorrected for a year now. Can someone do this or at least argue why not?


 * In my next visit, I'll clean the garbage out of the history section of this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.100.174 (talk) 07:13, 6 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Post note 11/19/2009:

As promised, I removed the junk from this section, leaving nothing behind.

That's right, nothing, nothing here was sourced, none of the sections had proper spelling/grammar, and it omitted more than it told, as this "history" section didn't have so much as a single mention of the first, second, third, fourth, or fifth DAW/hard disk recorders that existed in audio history.

Please don't repost this without sources, or at least some accurate information written by someone literate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.100.147 (talk) 08:12, 19 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Cool I added an archive of the unsourced crap in case someone wants to source/rewrite it. check Talk:Digital Audio Workstation/unsorcedhistory andyzweb (talk) 17:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the helpful words.


 * Can someone please write a history section. Something? Anything that is at least correct and true?

I can't do it because I am in the business and it will come out biased and possibly omit a lot of crappy software packages for Atari and other platforms that might be historically relevant, but too low-end for me to have ever worked with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.100.147 (talk) 10:08, 31 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The moron who wrote the deleted original unsourced crap ran a spell check on it and reposted it almost verbatim! I deleted it again. Yes, it is garbage, but the fact that it is unsourced is sufficient explanation.


 * Can someone please write a history section? Something? Anything that is at least correct and true? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.100.147 (talk) 09:49, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I've tried to tidy this up a bit, and I've shoved it down the bottom because it's pretty clear that these earlier system were far away from the current understanding. Hopefully somone can improve on this - or maybe it really does Just Need to Go Away...Snori (talk)


 * 6/2010 update:

If you don't know, can you please stay off this page?!?!

Some idiot has added more unsourced idiotic statements to this article, and this time top and center as the opening line:

"Originated in the early 1980s, the term digital audio workstation (DAW) originally referred to a tape-less, computer-based system such as New England Digital's Synclavier and Fairlight that used hard drives for media storage."

No, let's review. The first system Fairlight Instruments put together but never really sold (Quasar) didn't have a hard drive. The second system (CMI Series I) didn't have a hard drive. The third system (CMI Series II) didn't have a hard drive. The fourth system (CMI Series IIx), manufactured through the end of 1985 didn't have a hard drive. The fifth system (CMI Series III) did have a hard drive, but still wasn't a disk recorder. The original 1985 brochures made no mention of disk recording (because their competitors were doing it and they weren't), and the 1986 brochure only said "...disk recording*...*Due mid 1987" Sure, they released some beta disk recording software and several pages of excuses ("instructions") about why it only did one track without editing or reference to anything such as time code and they laid off the latency on the ESDI drives of that era, but the company closed down, bankrupted, and was liquidated in 1988/1989 without ever coming out with a meaningful hard disk recorder. At least three other companies had hardware-based hard disk recorders by that time.

All this makes it laughable to attribute any part of "early 1980s" hard disk recording to Fairlight. --208.127.100.19 (talk) 03:47, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Serial Vandalism On This Article
Please stop shoveling deleted trash back into this article!!! It is unsourced and it is wrong. Whoever moved this garbage "History" section to the bottom and renamed it "Early history", butt out! You know nothing about it. How can a section be named "Early history", yet fail to name the first, second, or third DAWs that were made? If you don't know what they are---and it is clear that you don't---you are unqualified to write about it!

You can not edit trash, it must be deleted. There is NOTHING of ANY value in this section, NOTHING. It is purified garbage.

Here, I'll give you an example of one tiny section of it:

In 1981, recording engineer Roger Nichols built his own digital audio workstation using a S-100 bus-based computer with 32 MB hard disk used for storage of digital audio data. It interfaced digitally to a multi-track digital audio tape recorder in his studio, and was used during the recording and production of Donald Fagen's 1982 album, The Nightfly[3].

I don't even know where to start with that. It is worse than wrong and unsourced, it has had a fraudulent source added onto it to give it some credence! You are a vandal! GO AWAY!

The homemade Nichols system is hardly relevant, no one ever bought it or used it, and all we know about it was written by Nichols. Perhaps he made a time machine, too?

This was first used on the 1980 album Gaucho. And the system was made "In 1981"?

It "interfaced...recorder in his studio"? He didn't HAVE A STUDIO! Read the album credits, idiot.

It goes on to say "...Donald Fagen's 1982 album, The Nightfly[3]." Check that source, it does NOT have that information in it! This is false and it is vandalism! That SOS article does not even contain "1981" in it, yet it is given as the source of "In 1981, recording engineer Roger Nichols built...".

Can somebody with some administrative powers lock these know-nothing moronic vandals out of this page please?208.127.100.147 (talk) 11:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The most effective way to keep the unsourced garbage out is to displace it with good stuff. I do however empathize with your assessment of this article. I've removed some garbage from the lead and I've tagged the article as needing references. --Kvng (talk) 06:02, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Hardware requirements
The article says "most DAWs also require a large amount of RAM, fast CPU(s) and sufficient free hard drive space"

Now in 2010 that "large amount of RAM, fast CPU(s) and sufficient free hard drive space" are a minimum requirement just to run the OS.

e.g. Steinberg CuBase DAW recommended requirements: 2GHz CPU (dual core recommended), 1GB RAM, 4GB HDD, DVD ROM

Windows 7 64 bits minimal requirements: 1GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, 20GB HDD, DVD ROM

77.50.135.136 (talk) 06:59, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * That unsubstantiated and dated statement was removed as part of my recent edits to the lead. --Kvng (talk) 06:02, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

removal of Record
record should be removed, as Propellerheads does not want it considered as a DAW source: http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2009/05/11/propellerhead-record-is-not-a-daw/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.57.103.19 (talk) 12:54, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Cross-platform POV
The "Commercial Systems" section mentions cross-platform portability *twelve* times, which implies that this is a primary concern of people shopping for DAW software. I find this rather strange -- AFAIK the majority of people work solo and wouldn't be trying to exchange sequencer data files with other users. Moreover, with a nontrivial project it would be pretty difficult to export a file and trust it to sound exactly the same on another OS, since there are going to be subtle differences in the software behavior, hardware timings, availability of VST plugins, etc. I'm not saying that nobody cares about this issue, just that it's vastly overemphasized. I don't even agree that cross-platform support is "obviously" beneficial -- e.g. divides the effort of developers, and it encourages very generic software designs that don't make use of the unique innovations of a particular OS, e.g. advanced GUI controls, clipboard interoperability with other applications, DirectX optimizations, COM/.NET automation, or (in some cases heheh) the right mouse-button. Loqui 14:45, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Meanwhile the article appears to be way too OSS-heavy in its focus, in complete disregard of the DAW world reality in which OSS software manages to fail miserably since 20 years. WP is not a platform for wishful thinking for linux afficionados.80.171.178.251 (talk) 20:54, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Bleh...wrong section...sorry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.171.178.251 (talk) 20:55, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Comments by 80.171.56.140
Particularly bad article ..after a few paragraphs, it ventures happily into praising the non-existing features of Linux for digital audio, which are without exception without any significance for the digital audio world. Really bad.80.171.56.140 (talk) 21:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Stupid Linux fanboy idiots...oh´and half of the links nare dead what idiot is maintainig this article  80.171.56.140 (talk) 21:16, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I have an interest in this subject, but only limited experience with DAWs. This article seems to have started well with the first 2 sections Integrated DAW and  Software DAW. But then it seems to go from readable to much worse in the  History section. And to finish it off, it has a list of links.  2 sections about "Free and Open source" is 2 sections too many.  I only made minor edits. Perhaps this article could be split into two - DAW (Hardware) and DAW (Software). Gbeeker (talk) 11:49, 9 November 2011 (UTC)


 * "2 sections about "Free and Open source" is 2 sections too many" -- is there a reason why? It is common in Wikipedia to do that, and it benefits people interested in Open Source alternatives to any kind of software. If you consider Linux-based software to not be "real DAW software", please explain why, with detailed and technically sound arguments.


 * Could you please give more details about the "non-existing features of Linux for digital audio"? If there is anything incorrect about Linux-based software on the article, as a long time Linux user, I'd like it to be corrected. However, please give technical arguments.

Wendel info
Here's a PDF from Roger's page before he died. http://home.comcast.net/~ajawam5/Wendel.pdf

The Wendel has also been mentioned in Sound on Sound 2003 http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug03/articles/steelydan.htm

A few engineers I've worked with mentioned it back in the day (mid 1980's).

It was also mentioned in Mix right before he died: http://blog.mixonline.com/audiobites/2011/01/19/roger-nichols-needs-your-help/ with a date of 1978

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/product-alerts-older-than-2-months/91759-roger-nichols-wendel.html Note where it states it was nominated for a Grammy

Also note the entry:

" I have a pair of Wendel Jr.s I did Wendel Drum replacement to some MPC drum tracks on a DJ Greyboy track I produced.

Check it out. Note: Theres a long intro. Music starts about halfway through.

http://www.ubiquityrecords.com/mpeg/UR144_12.mp3

I didnt have a hi-hat cartridge so I just tuned up a snare. Theres a little of pitch adjustment range on those things.

Jon Erickson"

From http://www.broberg.pp.se/sd_gaucho.htm

"That's when the business with the computer started. Roger Nichols had this toy - we thought of it as a toy - but one day he came to work and told us that the toy had become a man - one helluva man, in fact. A very talented man. A steady man. A man for all seasons - call him Wendel. A man who, in the absence of a usable track after a zillion tries with "real bands", could nicely simulate the most elusive elements of the basic track that we would need to bring our little song into the world, i.e., drums and maybe a simple keyboard part of some sort, and that's all. Because, once we had that - the toy, the man, the track - we could do all the rest with little or no problemo, thank you very much. Unfortunately, at this primitive stage of the evolution of the computer and its requisite software, even the most minute event had to be programmed in the gnarly and unforgiving 8085 Assembly Language, in which all relevant parameters needed to be described in its baffling hexagesimal-base numerical system, which ultimately became the only language Roger Nichols spoke or understood, at least for a time.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Wamnet (talk • contribs) 23:49, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Note to Wamnet, I'm the original poster of the two paragraphs criticizing the history section here. Are these links and references you have listed for me? If so, thanks, but they aren't needed. First, I haven't ever doubted the existence of WENDEL, and second, I REALLY don't doubt the existence of WENDEL because I own it. I haven't fully reverse-engineered it yet, and I can say with reasonable certainty that it will never work again, but nothing I have learned from the machine itself goes against my many, many comments, the point of which is to say that it isn't a DAW to be listed in the list of NED Synclavier II Sample-to-Disk, AMS AudioFile, WaveFrame AudioFrame, etc., as it is a drum sampling/replacement device, and not a hard disk recorder/DAW. In fact, the first WENDEL (the COMPAL 80 machine, not the CompuPro S-100 machine that I have) didn't even have a hard drive. I presently own more DAWs than anyone who ever stepped on the Earth, so I'm very sharp on the topic. I just want these pages to be right, not a listing of homemade devices, tape recorders and Mac apps, none of which are the first DAWs that need to be listed and described in the history section.--99.184.205.160 (talk) 12:54, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Plugins sections should go
The sections on plugins, especially the list of "common plugins" are really bad, unfixably so, for several reasons. First, they're off-topic in an article on DAWs themselves. The topic deserves its own article, or several, detailing the various plugin formats, but here it's just noise distracting from a discussion of the characteristics of the DAWs themselves, not all of which can even host plugins. There's no indication of how they're related to DAWs (which DAWs can host which plugins?)

Second, the list itself just invites arbitrariness and abuse. Without any sourcing about which plugins are common, or indeed what "common" means, it becomes simply a vehicle for whoever is enthusiastic about a particular plugin to ride that hobby horse. Even the most experienced user of DAWs will have a narrow perspective on a vast and rapidly evolving field. A Pro Tools user will have little insight into what's "common" among AU format plugins, and so on. I think Wikipedia's experience with "list of popular X" articles will bear me out that such lists become a target for everyone who wants to promote their product, and there's no way to assess the quality of the resulting list.

And it quickly becomes obsolete. Take a look: it includes Camel Audio Alchemy, which no longer exists as a standalone product, it includes one product (Iris) out of many from Izotope (no Ozone or RX), a random subset from Native Instruments (no Guitar Rig) and IK Multimedia (no Amplitube), Superior Drummer but not EZDrummer from Toontrack, etc. etc., and few if any of the list items have links to existing, sometimes much better Wikipedia articles. The answer is not to undertake some heroic job of fixing the list, because the entries are constantly going out of date or being superseded--it's to just get rid of the list.

That's my position anyway. I realize some people feel passionately that this belongs here, so I won't edit it without some discussion (I have at least alphabetized it, though). But take a look at that list and tell me it represents a high-quality view of the field, or that it ever could. It basically says "plugins exist, here are some."  · rodii ·  17:41, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. The Common instrument plug-ins section is just a list of what ever plugins someone wants to add. The first paragraph is not bad, but it is also not very informative. No mention of different plugin APIs or how a plugin integrates with the DAW. Robert.Harker (talk) 21:10, 28 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree as well. I think that this section has become, as said above, a hobby horse ride for those who have a favorite plugin. I will delete the section. 159.83.54.2 (talk) 22:33, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Reassessment
This article cannot be class=C without references and this article has no references - I reassessed to class=start. Please do not change class= to anything above start without adding WP:RS. Thank you. Steve Quinn (talk) 17:24, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 January 2021 and 25 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Degoodlife. Peer reviewers: Kaycian.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:30, 16 January 2022 (UTC)