Open interchangeable format for DAW sessions? Instawin for FLOSS!
Posted: Fri May 14, 2021 1:52 pm
Ardour has great audio capabilities. MusE has great sequencing. Qtractor is very lightweight. Nama is accessible. Rosegarden has a nice score editor. LMMS has a rapid beat editor. Zrythm has cool Scheme scripting, and who doesn't like Gerald Jay Sussman? 
Each DAW has its own advantages and disadvantages but design and technological issues (not to mention the size of those codebases!) make integration of all features in a single DAW impossible.
But what if the user could switch from one DAW to the other to reach the full potential that no single DAW can reach, working on the same one session file? Being able to import/export a single file format is surely less work-intensive than implementing missing features on every DAW!
Nevermind, this is not about the single user! People often make music together. In order to do so, they need to exchange files. Exchanging .wavs and MIDIs is simple and works but does not include a whole lot of information and plugins. And collaborating can become a very frustrating experience. Why not make it more fun?
We're talking libre software, why does every DAW use its own format? I understand why it is so for proprietary DAWs. They can't really afford to be perfectly interchangeable, they kinda need the lock-in of proprietary formats to prevent their users from migrating to something better. This is especially true for subscription-based DAWs. But why is it the same for FLOSS DAWs?
Now, I am no genius coder or software engineer. I can't invent an open interchange format which works for most DAWs and even if I could, I would have a hard time convincing developers to adopt it. What I can do is make this little campaign for it, spread the awareness and discuss the shortcomings that I am probably not seeing.
My dream is one DAW...day to have a meta-DAW which is actually many DAWs, each doing what it does best on the same project. If anything, so that another futile war (like all wars), the DAW war, is finally over.
Each DAW has its own advantages and disadvantages but design and technological issues (not to mention the size of those codebases!) make integration of all features in a single DAW impossible.
But what if the user could switch from one DAW to the other to reach the full potential that no single DAW can reach, working on the same one session file? Being able to import/export a single file format is surely less work-intensive than implementing missing features on every DAW!
Nevermind, this is not about the single user! People often make music together. In order to do so, they need to exchange files. Exchanging .wavs and MIDIs is simple and works but does not include a whole lot of information and plugins. And collaborating can become a very frustrating experience. Why not make it more fun?
We're talking libre software, why does every DAW use its own format? I understand why it is so for proprietary DAWs. They can't really afford to be perfectly interchangeable, they kinda need the lock-in of proprietary formats to prevent their users from migrating to something better. This is especially true for subscription-based DAWs. But why is it the same for FLOSS DAWs?
Now, I am no genius coder or software engineer. I can't invent an open interchange format which works for most DAWs and even if I could, I would have a hard time convincing developers to adopt it. What I can do is make this little campaign for it, spread the awareness and discuss the shortcomings that I am probably not seeing.
My dream is one DAW...day to have a meta-DAW which is actually many DAWs, each doing what it does best on the same project. If anything, so that another futile war (like all wars), the DAW war, is finally over.