Love it. First you say that yeah there’s this thing that exists, then you say,… Don’t get confused because he talks about the concept of getting it right the first time, and becoming quicker at doing music and sounddesign, that is valid for any DAW, but Renoise could really step up with making the gain + clarity more accurate when imprinting samples with DSP.
Haha, confusion, let’s talk about more information ::). I got a better suggestion, simply use Sonic Foundry’s Soundforge or Cool Edit Pro circa 2001 versions or even Goldwave 1998 version and just use the FX and render them becos they do not work in realtime. You know another genius who works this way ? Burial (William Bevan) one of the more cinematic Dubstep pioneers who uses ONLY Soundforge and does all his ‘productions’ in an old computer cos he can’t afford new ones. Listen to his tracks on YouTube like ‘SpaceApe’, or ‘Untrue’ or the super cinematic ‘Pirates’ and you get the drift. It’s so Leftfield that you would feel why his 2 page album review in the Guardian (or the Herald, I forget) warrants recognition. He has a very unique sound, never heard anything like him before and even after.
He produces unquantized music, working with everyday samples and obscure snippets, does not use grids and does not play and record but programs the whole shit on a wave form view. He reads beats like a ‘fishbone’ in his own words. His vocals manipulation is superb too, they sound androgynous. Never uses any VSTi etc. Many do not get his music or complain about his lack of new productions but his first two albums are genre bending and are very timeless.
For me though, ironically this is exactly how I started making music using only wave editors way back in school when computers were mostly a game machine for me. Just using the copy paste features and going by ear. Super tedious to do if you think you can work like Burial.
And yeah since I got a gaming rig, I can run at least 1.5% of gazillion plugins that amount to 20-30 tracks all running at the same time filled with plugins, never had any issues. It’s 2017 bruh, it ain’t Amiga days anymore. It is also a convenience thing, not about whether I can or cannot do but does doing it this way help me return and change things later if I want to, like a tape machine with a time travel feature.
Makes you think about, if you had a time machine of your own, would you continually use it to go back and fix things in your life or would you live a loop by choice reliving the best parts or would you be more disciplined about progressing in time and not getting old or getting old then getting young back and forth just basically playing with your own existence. I suppose this could be sci-fi movie script on its own.
Regarding building a better ear for mixing and mastering sessions, that is a more disciplined process like telling when a kick is off by what freq or is there a hum in the final mix somewhere etc, those are more essential skills. Also skills like telling the voicings of a chord and the type of chord, writing melodies you hear to sheet, being interval sensitive and having high degree of relative pitch are the more useful ones in terms of musicianship.
The genius are sometimes called crazy in that sometimes becos of their brain calibre they can work without certain core skills, because their complimenting abilities offset that. For others, skill itself becomes the first and foremost duty to obtain, only then you can actually use it.