When the Ableton Live DAW was first launched in 2001 it introduced the radically new possibility of using a 'non-linear' approach, not only for playing back music from a DAW in live performance, but also for creating music in a DAW. Recently, with their release of Logic Pro v10.5, Apple have at long last climbed aboard that same non-linear bandwagon. (Indeed Logic now embodies much of the ground-breaking non-linear functionality of not only Ableton Live, but also that of Bitwig - Ableton's closest rival up to now).
I believe now is a very good time for creative artists who make extensive use of virtual instrument sample libraries in composing original works of orchestral music, to consider the possibility of adding this non-linear technique into their panoply of creative approaches. Whilst Ableton broke the new ground, Logic now may well have paved the way for a new epoch in orchestral composition.
Before Ableton, users of DAWs (such as Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, DP, etc) were more or less solidly locked into the paradigm of working in a temporally and spatially 'linear' fashion, vis-à-vis the timeline of the DAW's MIDI/Audio playback sequencer. And following suit, typical creation and production workflows evolved that all presupposed a pretty straightforward 'linear' progression in time from earlier to later and left to right in the DAW's "arrangement-view" timeline, as well as in actual elapsed time. Ableton Live shifted that paradigm substantially with its revolutonary live "Session" view and functionality of playback. This Session approach offers the ability to pick and choose MIDI and /or audio clips instantly and easily from anywhere within a potentially huge grid of clips, and to launch these clips such that any desired relative temporal ordering of their real-time playback can be accomplished easily, quickly, and radically differently from the traditional 'linear' method of sequential ordering. This new Session capability of Ableton was not only unprecedented in digitally mechanised production of music, but also, arguably, it can potentially surpass the playing abilities of even highly adept musicians in sketching and writing.
But how might this be relevant to the fine art of composing? In listening to great compositions, how often do we hear temporally-associated patterns of melodic sequences and modulated themes, motifs, lietmotifs, etc., brilliantly and beautifully coordinated and coreographed with harmonic progressions which may themselves be shifting, modulating and dancing hither and thither? Surely the potential for combining these elements in different qualitative and temporal ways is virtually limitless. And yet are composers always able to quickly play or imagine hearing, more than a relatively small proportion of all the possibilities of rearranging the various elements at hand in any one place in their sketch or score thus far written? Could not this new temporally and qualitatively non-linear approach help them at least in auditioning or experimenting with several if not many more possibilities than they can at that moment readily play or imagine hearing? Also, in terms of the details, colours and nuances of possible orchestrations, could not use of this non-linear approach in a DAW often surpass the traditional benefits of playing piano reductions of various speculative arrangements? In these various respects, I believe it certainly could be of some valuable service to composers.
So now that Logic Pro, as one of the few DAWs that incorporate staff notation (and hence are more likely to be accepted by composers as at least 'musically respectable' platforms), offers the non-linear creative approach - previously found only in DAWs that focus on pop and electronica - I'd like to urge composers to take a closer look at this radical new capability of the latest Logic Pro.
Even for the most conservatively-minded composers, surely 20 years is long enough to have waited for one of the - let's say "mainstream" - DAWs to catch up with a truly ground-breaking idea that may prove to be of tremendous benefit and value in intensely creative moments of composition.
