Ableton Live to DAWLESS - What I Bought, Sold and Kept!

In this video I run through all the music gear I’ve bought over the last three years in my journey to move away from a purely laptop based Ableton Live setup into using a range of different music hardware.

Really sorry about the CREAKY chair - I will fix it!!!

I break down everything I’ve bought, whether it worked for me, whether I kept it or sold it on.

All this gear is great or I wouldn’t have bought it! I bought everything myself with no discounts or promotions - chance would be a fine thing! :) These opinions are just my own experiences of using this gear and not meant as reviews.

The track playing in the video is “Whimsy” taken from my 2024 album “Homegrown Apples” which is available from Bandcamp and all good streaming services:

You can find all my music on Bandcamp:

Filmed on my iPhone SE (2020) with just the sun for lighting and DaVinci Resolve and CapCut for editing. I'm just a beginner!

Like and subscribe! Like and subscribe! 🙏

See you soon!

Chapters:

00:00 Intro
00:57 Current Setup
02:08 Expectations
03:32 Disclaimer
04:03 The Gear
23:09 Conclusions

[matejzajacik]

Beautiful presentation with the paper "hardware" pieces, what an idea! Very interesting to listen to all this. Thank you!

[bobsalazar]

Your presentation values are amazing. This is so cool and accesable for other home music tinkerers.

[christernuutinen]

Thank You for the really interesting and helpful video about your experience with different instruments.

GearTube tends to be rather geared (!) towards new instruments, and your retrospective and very down to earth approach was refreshing indeed!

[analog_jono]

Great video, very inspiring to hear your journey with music gear. Also good to hear that you sell gear you don't use/gel with to avoid GAS.

Just a quick correction at 14:36 where you talk about the Microfreak filter. It does have an analogue filter, but its just shared across all four voices in paraphonic mode i.e. if you press one key whilst holding another and there is a filter envelope it will retrigger it. The Minifreak solves this by having a filter for each of the voices if you need true polyphony.

[CartoonCityKid]

This was great and isn't talked about much! It's not always GAS! It's about trying things out and learning that some gear doesn't click how you thought would, or how some gear unexpectedly clicks!

[axelcodr]

Brutally honest and valuable video! Thanks for sharing!

[rayderrich]

A lovely journey so far. We all arrive at our music making in different ways, and your story was very nice to listen to and watch, so thank you.

[remyvegamedia]

That was really enjoyable to watch. Really made me look at my journey with less annoyance over my buying/selling and realize it's been valuable to learn what method I enjoy most for making music.

I started 21 years ago on Pro Tools using samples, a MicroKORG, and Boss DR-5 drum machine. I used Logic Pro for about 7 years then added a Prophet 08, keyboard workstation, and used an SP404SX for effects. I don't think I ever really enjoyed producing within the DAWs I used. In 2022 I started trying hardware then got Ableton with a Push 2 and that was a big inspiration, but ultimately it ended up just being mostly time spent with trackpad/qwerty keyboard all over again. As much as I prefer Ableton over any other DAW, I still prefer writing music, doing sound design, experimenting, etc. with hardware.

I've come to really enjoy the MPC I just recently got. It's similar to a DAW (technically it is a DAW) but it's much more hands on and that does a lot for me.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to checking out more of your videos and music!

[wendelynmusic]

I love the Microfreak also! first synths I bought was the model cycles and the microfreak. Cycles is long gone but I still have the Microfreak and still love it.

[nsiivola]

Really interesting journey. I actually expected you to talk about the Tascam mixer we see behind you as well :)

[MattPerrin]

Really valuable listening to how you discovered your own personal flow. Most YouTube music production videos are just promoting the new hot thing. It was a hard mental pivot for me to actually commit to selling my unused gear, but it's become easier as I've developed my own flow and realized that it's okay to let things go that get in the way of it.

[Boehmrunner]

I really enjoyed hearing your journey thus far! It is indeed a never-ending one, isn’t it? I love Arturia’s products. The mini freak is indeed an amazing piece of kit and so portable!

[Marcelrocha]

Thanks for sharing your quest! Very useful!

[roscoeswraps]

Thank you for sharing your experience! I really enjoyed watching this. Definitely useful and pleasant to watch

[meangene]

As someone who started off "dawless" in the 90s I moved from that to partial DAW then to fully computer based. Due to space it was easier to work from a laptop and still be creative. I now run a hardware set up sequenced from the DAW with fx and mixing done in Abe and it will never change. It's 100% easier to sequence and mix on a DAW....100%. It's more rewarding to create sounds with hardware. Don't do things the hard way just to prove a point, folks. You are setting yourself back years trying to get comfortable with an environment that probably will never be compatible with your workflow.

[Nexon]

Hey, great idea with presenting the synths you sold on cardboard

[CCNutritionist]

Great presentation. Really enjoyed it. I am mostly guitar based with vsts in GarageBand and I'm going to try a couple of small hardware pieces to learn synths. I find the synth vsts to just be too much information. I want to get Hands-On.

Looking at the Donner b1 because I love that 303 sound and the Roland S-1. Those and a midi controller and I'm looking forward to the new year!

[TheUnperson]

Very enjoyable video! And I totally agree that it's very difficult to pinpoint exactly why a piece of gear resonates with you.

[marcadonna_beats]

Beautiful Video of your journey 🙂
I am at the same point, to come „out of the box“ and was buying my first hardware synth. Now I am looking for a good sampler with good sequencer and will try out the smpltrek by sonicware 🙂

[erikpiehl]

Thanks for sharing your experiences, I really enjoyed hearing about your journey. Need to listen to your music next😊