I think most DAWs (Ableton, Cubase, Reaper, etc.) will shut down completely without having anything running in the background. The problem with the driver should be solvable. You could use ASIO4All or VB Audio Matrix or VB Audio Voicemeter to get ASIO Support if you even need it. They work with the standard audio devices you have in your computer. The VB stuff can be shutdown easily too, so you wouldn't have it running in the background if you don't want it to. In general, you should be able to run a daw with mme, directx or wasapi drivers too, depending on what your system supports. If you use any other program, you require some audio device for them as well. So if you get them to run, your DAW should work as well. The latency might be a bit higher with mme drivers, but if you just place samples, it shouldn't matter at all.
Having a stripped down version of your DAW on the plus side allows you to easily collect your samples and copy the whole project to your real DAW computer and continue to work on there.

If you want something completely different, you could look into Renoise . It is a tracker type DAW. It definitely has a learning curve though if you are not used to it, but it is not too difficult to understand either.

 

Last edited: Feb 28, 2025 at 6:22 PM

Have a look at trackers.
I love Renoise but there are others.

 

I like Renoise, but I'd pick a free tracker to start with, I already recommended two (Sunvox, OpenMPT) which are also great, but as OP has said, I don't think a tracker is for that way of working.

 

https://roland50.studio/

TR-606 or TR-707 or TR-808 or TR-909

 

I don't agree. I think a tracker is great to sketch ideas. If you only use samples you are really quick with getting your ideas down. You might need some time to get used to it though. I think a tracker sucks if you use vstis and midi and you have to set all the notes by hand, but for samples it is a great and fast way to get stuff done. I don't think you will be slower than using a "normal" DAW if you input everything manually there too.

 

Last edited: Feb 28, 2025 at 6:38 PM

Two questions:

1. What DAW do you use to produce that isn't capable of being optimised for quick idea creation? (maybe I missed this)
2. What kind of setup do you have that takes at least 15 minutes to get ready?

Here, I have lots of gear, but I reserve its use for when I have time for long sessions. If I just need to set down an idea, I can still just use the studio computer only, and from a cold boot pc to making sounds, I'm looking at 2 minutes max. I'm using Ableton with genre specific templates, curated plugins list and an optimised sound library. It is so efficient I can utilise blocks of time of 15-30 minutes to get a significant amount of work done.

 

Thanks again for all the ideas! Instead of replying to all comments individually I will try to answer in one go.

-I mostly use Ableton Live 11 Suite
-I use hardware analog synths (mostly vintage), stringed and other real instruments, rack mix processing etc, so trust me, 15 minutes is actually a very fast startup time! 20-30 minutes of warmup time is usually how it goes (especially the analog kit).
-This is all entirely offline and Windows 10 OS.

I have thought about installing Live 12 and making a template, but if I remember correctly, even stripped down to bare bones is still 2-3GB? Or maybe I am wrong about this How are the stock beat making tools in v12 today? I dont know, the thought of Ableton is kind of boring to me. Maybe 12 is so much better than 11 that it wouldn't feel like that.

Cubase, on paper anyway, appears to have some cool new beat making features, but it has been a really long time since I tried the DAW and well I feel like installing a full blown DAW defeats the purpose, takes up too much storage space and processing while trying to multitask with other things on the same PC. I definitely worry about this with any DAW really. But again, I could be wrong about it

The whole idea is too keep it dead simple, quick to fire up in an instant, easy and intuitive to use, interesting and fun to experiment with making and cutting beats and loops etc whenever inspiration strikes.

In the past days I tried Maschine, hated it. I tried several of the other initial suggestions, some I demoed before, some new, but found them to be, meh. Trackers are interesting but not my workflow. I really don't want to waste a bunch of time learning an entirely new method to cutting beats. I tried Serato Studio, although a slightly better experience, again, hated it. Way too much click here, click there, click everywhere to get anything simple done. The one good thing is that without touching anything it immediately picked up my system soundcard, as did the next program I tried.

Enter Audiomodern Playbeat. It installed and fired up and I was cobbling together beats in minutes. No audio/interface nonsense as I mentioned. It didnt try to take over my PC or leave shit running in the background even when off. I can just jab in some anchor hits and then experiment with the rest. The negatives so far are, learning all the dumb gui icons and functions, which there seem to be maaaaany. The randomizing function is just OK, a mixed bag of horribly off target to silly and passable, not great from my initial tests. Over all, for my purposes, its miles ahead of Maschine and Serato, but I am still on the hunt for something with a bit more of that "fun" factor.

Remember, this is on my visual media making and internet PC, not my main studio rig, so whatever it is it must play nice while using everything else at the same time. I am solely using my own beats and loops to jot down quick ideas and explore fresh ones with randomization, so I don't need anything with a massive library expansion thing. Maybe something else similar to Playbeat, but "better"?

 

Last edited: Mar 1, 2025 at 10:19 PM

I second Ableton option.
You may even get an Ableton Lite for free with your audio hardware
With external VST plugins disabled, Ableton will load fast, and be really fast to start.

Another option is MPC Beats (free)
https://www.akaipro.com/mpc-beats

 

Today I tried Cubase just because I had to know. After jumping through all the installation hoops finally got to try it and after 20 minutes decided to delete it because I found it annoying

I then got the latest Audiowarez Ableton 12 from sister site to try that and just setup a basic template only for hosting quick beat making on the fly. I followed all the instructions but am now stuck on the "Drag Lisense file Inside the program". It wont allow me to drag the Authorize file into Live's GUI and putting it inside the installed 'Program folder didnt work. Then I tried dragging it onto the "Ableton Live 12 Suite" program itself, but that also didnt work. I restarted the PC several times Do you happen to know exactly where I am supposed to drag this Authorize file to? Its driving me crazy now. I've never had any problems with installing Live before, many times over, but those were always R2R on an offline PC.

On a side note, Live picked up my soundcard and works perfectly, but I cant save or export anything until its authorized correctly

 

You probably forgot to replace the program binaries and/or run the patch. If you've got an antivirus software active they have the bad habit of removing them.

 

I always turn off Windows virus BS first thing after startup. I followed the Audiowarez instructions exactly, dragged the Live exe onto Patcher, did everything as Admin and also tried opening normally

@ArticStorm thanks for the tip. I guess if nobody can help me with this version I already have installed and configured, I guess I will need to uninstall, clean the PC system, track down those files etc and do it all again

 

Downloading R2R version 12.0.10 now.

In the meantime, I wish there was a super tiny DAW that had nothing inside but just audio and midi track hosting, BPM and record/play controls, basic af, nothing else. Does such a DAW exist?

 

Check out this DAW, old but fully functional: Synapse Audio Orion 8 v8.6 Incl Keygen-R2R (Team R2R | 30 Sep 2021 | 181.0MB)

 

***EDIT:

"3.Drag & Drop license to the software."

For anyone else who might get stuck on this step where Live wont allow you to do this, I figured out the reason why. You must be OFFLINE to install the R2R version (it says nothing about shutting off the net in the instructions steps). After I unplugged the net, I went back and redid the drag vcruntime140, then opened Live, popup appears, open KG, create new Auth file, click offline reg, THEN it finally allowed me to drag n drop onto the GUI.

Also, I had to untick "read only" for the Ableton folder to change the update setting, which after restart it did indeed update to the latest version. Afterwards I set it to "ask me" for future updates.

If that helps anyone else.

Now reading your tips thread @ArticStorm Hopefully I can somehow remove much of that crap from the browser menu, silly tags, any samples packs or whatever that auto-installed etc. I want this to be as slimmed down as possible. If any of you have tips, please do post!

Now, FINALLY, I can get back to the VST beat making plugin hunt............

Oh and I did try Reaper a year or two ago and was immediately turned off by the mega overkill options available. I mean, I get it, but my god! Also, I heard using MIDI wasn't that great. For my purposes, its a no.

 

Last edited: Mar 3, 2025 at 1:43 AM

Hmm.. I searched and read an article, looks decent enough, but whats so special about it? It looks like it is bundled with all their plugins, or maybe they also offer a bare bones stripped down version? If its old, is it only 32bit VST2 or can do 64bit/VST3?

 

Speaking of 32bit plugins, does Live 12 now auto-bridge those or does it still require using jbridge or whatever? I have some very old plugins I use for ITB control of my analog synths, so if I decide to connect those at any point, I will need a bridging solution.