I'm an amateur musician and one of the things I hate about electronic music is how "distant" it all feels.
I'm used to picking up the guitar, playing a few chords and writing a melody.
Ableton (or any other DAW) feels like a chore. I have to boot up the computer, connect the MIDI keyboard, the audio interface and the headphones, then wait for Ableton to load, then create a new track and add a MIDI instrument before I can play a single note.
I know the sessions view in Ableton was an attempt to make the music feel more like jamming, but it doesn't really work for me. A lot of musicians who play instruments I've talked to feel the same way.
I would love an "Ableton in a box" that feels more intuitive and immediate.
I made a pair of iOS apps to help bridge that gap: Composer's Sketchpad[1] and MusicMessages![2]. Above all else, I wanted to make note editing and navigation as simple as possible. At least for the basic ops, there are no tools, no modes, and no switches: what you see is what you get. Unfortunately, this also means that the apps are more suited for rough drafts than anything resembling full, polished pieces. But I've found them remarkably effective for notating quick rhythms, chord progressions, and even solos! They're very simple — there's not even MIDI support yet, only the built-in SoundFont — but I hope to add depth to them over time without compromising on their simplicity.
If you're an iOS user, I highly recommend the "Music Memos" Apple App that nobody talks about. Pretty great. Even better if you were to get something like the Rode iXY to go with it!
If it is just about "start playing", then it sounds like you are just looking for a hardware synthesizer or groove box? You don't need a DAW to play an electronic instrument, for many they only come in when they start recording.
Computers are powerful but boring as hell when it comes to creating music. Lately physical machines have been getting popular again (drum machines, modular systems like eurorack, etc). The computer is then used to glue everything together (mixing and mastering)
You can do electronic music without a computer and with the immediacy of an acoustic instrument : pick up a Volca or an Analog Rytm and you can go a long way (some machines are quite expensive, but hey, guitars and piano are, too)
No reason they have to be. I recently ordered a couple 'Bastl Kastles' to use as oscillators and LFOs (patching them into Xoxboxes and/or each other). Part of the reason some of those old things like DINsync hardware are prized is retro nostalgia, but the other reason is they're using primitive timing systems that have less jitter than the more sophisticated centralized MIDI systems. If you're using DINsync, all your instruments are playing their own sequences and a timing tick is just keeping them aligned. If you're running MIDI then you have to send actual note descriptions over a 31.25 Kbaud serial bus before you can get any sounds out. If you're sequencing from a DAW (not doing realtime processing) and daisy-chaining instruments, forget it ;)
I'm currently getting a bank of Delta Labs Effectrons together for delays: old delta-sigma (like SACD, but potato grade) digital delays. It's possible that popularizing this would make Effectrons trendy and pricey, like the EMS VCS3 synth is trendy and pricey… but Bastle Kastle kits are dirt cheap. There's no reason there can't be a delta-sigma digital delay kit with the same functionality as Effectrons and the same or better sound in relevant ways. Tools don't have to be expensive these days.
I only have basic knowledge about these old things, so thanks for the info. While MIDI endured the effects of time quite well, as a developer it is a pain in the ass. Every device (or DAW) handles things a bit differently.
Check out the Novation Circuit. It's a brilliantly fast and intuitive sketchpad for electronic music. You can turn it on and be making music in minutes, without reading the manual. It runs on AA batteries, so you can doodle ideas anywhere. It isn't a replacement for a DAW, but it isn't supposed to be.
I've used all the software DAWs. They are a chore. They're all terrible. Extremely cluttered UIs, and way too much to learn to do the simplest task. By contrast, I always found hardware DAW touch-screen interfaces a joy, because they strip it down to entering and editing notes, everything is tactile, and they sound great.
I found Multitrack Studio to have better UI than rest of DAWs, but it's not so geared towards eletronic music. They also have pretty good support for touch-screens. Too bad there's no Linux version, but that's hardly surprising for multimedia software.
That "jamming feel" is sort of what they were going for with their "Push" line of controllers. Of course, you still have to do all of the things you said about launching the application, but I think that's akin to setting up a drum kit or hauling your amp out of the closet and tuning your guitar.
Perhaps you'd be happier with a fully featured keyboard, no computer required? They make some great stuff these days, and it all feeds back into the computer pretty easily if you come up with a riff or loop you like, and want to put it into a proper DAW for polish. Just flip a switch and you're rolling.
I'm used to picking up the guitar, playing a few chords and writing a melody.
Ableton (or any other DAW) feels like a chore. I have to boot up the computer, connect the MIDI keyboard, the audio interface and the headphones, then wait for Ableton to load, then create a new track and add a MIDI instrument before I can play a single note.
I know the sessions view in Ableton was an attempt to make the music feel more like jamming, but it doesn't really work for me. A lot of musicians who play instruments I've talked to feel the same way.
I would love an "Ableton in a box" that feels more intuitive and immediate.