| I don't think it is true. There are massive communities around tools far more simple than Ableton was even a decade ago, like SP404, Akai MPCs, Elektron Digitakt. Many musicians treat any item as an instrument, not as a plaform. There are probably dozens of videos on youtube, where musicians explain, why they use more limited tools instead of Ableton. To make a successful music tool (that includes DAW), you have to own a powerful workflow, that some group of musicians love or need. Extensibility is fine, but not the only way to succeed. There are now people making music on pocket trackers that have ± same amount of features as modplug Tracker I used in the end of 90s. The thing is, when you make a music with a guitar, you don't want your guitar to be 'built around composable scripted modules'. You want to play an instrument, and the UX should enable it, and generally get out of the way. |
I am not proposing that someone needs to disrupt or make Ableton obsolete.
I am suggesting that the existence of Reaper strongly implies that there's an under-served demographic of people who (correctly) understand that the DAW can be more than a way to translate audio data from buffers to hard drive and VST host.
In the same way that there is currently a lot of innovation in mixers that don't just sum channels, it's not at all unreasonable to imagine that the DAW itself could be an instrument or at least provide composable functions that make other instruments more interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EclavOHIo4o
One of the best things about the golden age of music tools that we're experiencing is that guitars and guitarists have been decentered from the conversation. We don't call them guitar pedals anymore; they are effects pedals now. We're moving past the GROG TURN OVERDRIVE ON OR OFF phase into a much cooler place where pedals are usually MIDI controlled and often have CV inputs as well. Arguably the most lauded pedal of 2025 was the Polyend Mess, which literally allows sequencing of effects. It's awesome!
https://polyend.com/mess/
The cool thing about a truly composable modular DAW is that it doesn't have to get more complex. Being able to strip things down is also totally valid. Perhaps then folks wouldn't be making such a big deal about Tape:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKZhwIA9hiw