[ vt100's dawless synthesizer rig during a live performance ]

Welcome to Spaceship Design 101

Hello friends, welcome back. Recently I shared with you an article where we began to explore an unconventional style of electronic music production, dawless electronic music. In this style the music producer is focused on creating electronic music with music hardware exclusively, in real-time, at least for the purposes of composing and performing their music. This style is really not practical if I'm being honest, but it sure is fun. If you missed it, check out part 1 to learn more about the roots of dawless and why I find this artform so compelling.

When it comes to dawless electronic music production, the musician has quite a bit to think about and a seemingly infinite number of choices to make. Every step of the way is going to be unique and custom tailored to the musician by the musician themself. The musician is going to design a rig that has certain sound and control characteristics...

[ Dawless Electronic Music Hardware Setup Studio Synthesizers Mixer ]

What if you built yourself a spaceship…
and that spaceship just happened to play music?

Friends, I’d like to share with you my perspective on electronic music production; a dawless perspective. If you’ve been around a while making music, you know opinions on electronic music production are everywhere; there’s easily your pick of producers out there who will shed their light on your efficiency/sound/composition/whatever. You could stage dive right now (the stage is in your mind) and you’d hit at least 15 producers who’ve got advice for you no matter what DAW (aka music software) you use.

I’m not that producer. In fact, the way I go about making electronic music is not guaranteed to yield the “best” results. My style is also not the cheapest nor is it the most efficient. This style is full of limitations. I might even go as far as arguing that my style is… uh… complicated.

The secret is in the cables.
I have

...

This is the Introduction to Mixing Foundations—My personal experiences that laid the groundwork for our world-famous courses on saturation, compression, EQ, reverb, and much more. (8–10 minute read)

About the Author
Daniel Wyatt is a multi-genre, Emmy-nominated, Platinum-selling music producer, engineer, and educator based on the East Coast with over 40 years of professional experience.

My First Official Major Record Label Release

Recording the Album - A Tribute to Curtis Mayfield

Easily the most cherished memory of my music journey to date was flying to Atlanta to Curtis Mayfield's house and recording Curtis Mayfield's vocals for a track that I co-produced and played congas on for a band that I co-founded, Repercussions. I think I literally remember every second of that day - and I can replay the entire "movie" memory from start to finish.

That track became a single and was a cover of "Let's Do It Again" and was featured as track 3 on the Tribute to Curtis Mayfield Album th...