Hi Bearfoot........and welcome. I’m sure you’ll find this forum to be addicting. As for going to a DAW from a stand-alone......my experience is the opposite of yours. A DAW allowed me far more freedom to create and produce than the Tascam DP-24 I still own. I had come from a long history of multi-track cassette recorders when I found the DP-24 and thought........wow.......this is freedom. But a DAW changed all of that for me.
I wonder if those who dislike a DAW also disliked or were unfamiliar with computing in various forms and thus felt that the (sometimes constant) learning curve took away from their fun. In my case.......I had worked a technical job for 37 years with most of them on a pc.
What factors of using a DAW do you think cut back on your creativity? Just curious and once again.......welcome!
Thanks for the welcome. I do not think our experiences are "opposite", however. You have mistakenly assumed I don't like DAWs. I have used them exclusively for 20 years. They're great , they are freeing. I love technology, and was programming as far back as the early 80's. My first "pro" soundcard was a Gadgetlabs 424, which I still have. Great sounding card. 24-bit before it was cool
While a DAW is indeed freeing in all those wonderful DAW ways, so too is a multitrack recorder, in its ways.
Some people say necessity is the mother of invention, others say convenience. I find the latter is often true. I am a prolific songwriter with a lot of unrecorded material wasting away, and it bothers me.
When I read about people who went back to MTRs, most of the testimonials state that they output a lot of work, and when they switched to DAW, their output reduced bigly. This is true for me also.
I don't know if getting an MTR will increase my output, but to me it's worth a try. I have not used one since the Tascam porta 03.
I would not say a DAW limits my creativity, nor do most people in my position say that either. The problem is the lack of limit, the lack of focus. The lack of getting it done. Visual artists do this also. A large palette of colors is not necessarily a good thing. It does not necessarily mean an increase in quality, either, as quality is a very multi-dimensional equation rife with subjectivity.
So, I am interested in the intentional constraints of a MTR for the purpose of increasing output.