There are DAWs and there are DAWs

I have been struggling for some time with the question of what Digital Audio Workstation to use for music production and for podcasting. My needs are different then a lot of people and the quality of a DAW is somewhat subjective so this is a hard thing to pin down. The truth is that most of the big names do more or less the same thing, however, their work flow is a bit different as is their compatibility with hardware (controllers, sound cards) and software (operating systems and plug ins). I’ll tack on a little list of these differences at the bottom of the post. I wrote it as response on Google+ to an inquiry on DAW recommendations.

Up until recently I primarily used CuBase and Ardour. CubBase came with my Alesis Firewire mixer. I took to it pretty quick. In the past I have used Pro Tools

Will people use Siri? I don’t think so

Siri screen capture
A screen cap from Siri

I’m interested to see if the new Siri voice command stuff on the iPhone 4S goes anywhere. I don’t think that it will, but it’s not because Android was there first or because I don’t think it works. It’s because I don’t think people will use it.

Yes, Android had voice commands first, but Siri is very different. It was created by a dedicated company based on military artificial intelligence research – not just a side project to take dictation. Siri was fully fleshed out before Apple bought it. Voice on Android works (if you speak slowly and clearly) but it isn’t “smart”. The breakthrough of Siri is that it works out what you want based on natural language and context, not keywords.

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