Kid friendly ultrasimple DAW?
- nanamour
- PAT. # 2.972.923
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Kid friendly ultrasimple DAW?
A bit of background:
I've recently been doing a lot of volunteer work with a local elementary/middle school geared toward refugee/asylee/forced migrant children largely from Central America, Afghanistan, and Subsaharan Africa. Along with English language immersion and acculturation, one of the school's focuses is SEL, or social and emotional learning--focusing on relationship skills, social awareness, self-awareness and emotional awareness, and self-management. Many of these kids have witnessed or directly experienced unspeakable horrors fleeing conflict and violence in their home countries, so trauma-sensitive exploration of self-awareness, emotions and means of healthy expression/outlets for often difficult feelings is extremely important for many.
I've been working with a social worker at the school and a psychologist to develop a loose curriculum (if you can even call it that) for music-based SEL: basically using music as an outlet for exploring emotions, self-awareness and self-esteem, respect for one's own culture as well as that of others--and most of all, fun---regardless of one's language or national origin.
We plan on incorporating loosely guided listening sessions, sharing and discussing music from the kids' own countries, and free exploration with range of cheapo drum machines, keyboards, percussion, and hopefully a couple Loogs and some fun pedals if funding should allow--twisting knobs, banging on things, whatever the kids want to do with them.
Anyway, I thought a fun end goal could be recording some bits and editing them into some kind of song(/s) that everyone can listen to and share with family/friends (most of the kids have phones), and maybe even take some pride in having been a part of.
While my expectations on kid involvement in actually editing things together are certainly tempered by reality (many have had precious little formal education and even fewer have much familiarity with computers), I was wondering if anyone knows of a (VERY) stripped down kid-friendly DAW/recording/editing program or app that we might be able to play around with--I'd obviously go back and clean things up later.
Perhaps something iPad based that might be a little bit more tactile? I've done a bit of looking around and haven't come up with much thus far, but maybe some of the recording/parenting gurus of SS OSG have some ideas.
Thanks in advance!
Edited to add: the kids are between 5th and 7th grade, so ~10-13 yo.
I've recently been doing a lot of volunteer work with a local elementary/middle school geared toward refugee/asylee/forced migrant children largely from Central America, Afghanistan, and Subsaharan Africa. Along with English language immersion and acculturation, one of the school's focuses is SEL, or social and emotional learning--focusing on relationship skills, social awareness, self-awareness and emotional awareness, and self-management. Many of these kids have witnessed or directly experienced unspeakable horrors fleeing conflict and violence in their home countries, so trauma-sensitive exploration of self-awareness, emotions and means of healthy expression/outlets for often difficult feelings is extremely important for many.
I've been working with a social worker at the school and a psychologist to develop a loose curriculum (if you can even call it that) for music-based SEL: basically using music as an outlet for exploring emotions, self-awareness and self-esteem, respect for one's own culture as well as that of others--and most of all, fun---regardless of one's language or national origin.
We plan on incorporating loosely guided listening sessions, sharing and discussing music from the kids' own countries, and free exploration with range of cheapo drum machines, keyboards, percussion, and hopefully a couple Loogs and some fun pedals if funding should allow--twisting knobs, banging on things, whatever the kids want to do with them.
Anyway, I thought a fun end goal could be recording some bits and editing them into some kind of song(/s) that everyone can listen to and share with family/friends (most of the kids have phones), and maybe even take some pride in having been a part of.
While my expectations on kid involvement in actually editing things together are certainly tempered by reality (many have had precious little formal education and even fewer have much familiarity with computers), I was wondering if anyone knows of a (VERY) stripped down kid-friendly DAW/recording/editing program or app that we might be able to play around with--I'd obviously go back and clean things up later.
Perhaps something iPad based that might be a little bit more tactile? I've done a bit of looking around and haven't come up with much thus far, but maybe some of the recording/parenting gurus of SS OSG have some ideas.
Thanks in advance!
Edited to add: the kids are between 5th and 7th grade, so ~10-13 yo.
- rumfoord
- PAT. # 2.972.923
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- Location: Boston-ish, MA, USA
Re: Kid friendly ultrasimple DAW?
AWESOME!!
So, no idea
But the first thing I'm thinking of is this music sequencer that plays paths
https://boingboing.net/2018/10/29/music ... by-tu.html
not what you're looking for, but this makes me think of other html5 music tools,
https://html5drummachine.com/
https://io808.com/
and there is an html5 DAW (an alpha version) https://gridsound.github.io/
Hope you find something!
So, no idea
But the first thing I'm thinking of is this music sequencer that plays paths
https://boingboing.net/2018/10/29/music ... by-tu.html
not what you're looking for, but this makes me think of other html5 music tools,
https://html5drummachine.com/
https://io808.com/
and there is an html5 DAW (an alpha version) https://gridsound.github.io/
Hope you find something!
- Larry Mal
- PAT. # 2.972.923
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- Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2010 4:25 pm
- Location: Saint Louis, MO
Re: Kid friendly ultrasimple DAW?
Reaper? Reaper costs money but they might have an education discount for people like yourself, they are a nice company, and it's a full featured DAW that you could load any number of free plugins into.
Audacity? No MIDI in Audacity, but it's a great recorder and editor.
Audacity? No MIDI in Audacity, but it's a great recorder and editor.
Back in those days, everyone knew that if you were talking about Destiny's Child, you were talking about Beyonce, LaTavia, LeToya, and Larry.
- Dok
- PAT. # 2.972.923
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Re: Kid friendly ultrasimple DAW?
Garageband comes to mind immediately, especially for iPads. It can't get much simpler or easier to build loops. Is that the too obvious answer?
Local milk person
- Embenny
- PAT. # 2.972.923
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Re: Kid friendly ultrasimple DAW?
That was my immediate thought as well. iPad-based, highly graphical, can accept inputs from touchscreen instrument apps/plugins.
The artist formerly known as mbene085.
- Larry Mal
- PAT. # 2.972.923
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- Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2010 4:25 pm
- Location: Saint Louis, MO
Re: Kid friendly ultrasimple DAW?
I was assuming there was no money for Apple products, but sure, Garage Band.
Back in those days, everyone knew that if you were talking about Destiny's Child, you were talking about Beyonce, LaTavia, LeToya, and Larry.
- shadowplay
- PAT. # 2.972.923
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Re: Kid friendly ultrasimple DAW?
GarageBand is all I can think of.
However I have to say what you are doing is incredibly admirable, you're a good man.
D
However I have to say what you are doing is incredibly admirable, you're a good man.
D
Are you loathsome tonight?
- jvin248
- PAT. # 2.972.923
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Re: Kid friendly ultrasimple DAW?
.
Audacity https://www.audacityteam.org/
Free, runs on multiple platforms, easy to use, multi-channel, effects available.
Hydrogen Drum machine kit http://hydrogen-music.org/
Free, runs on multiple platforms, easy to use
More advanced is Ubuntu Studio -- you can repurpose old 'too slow' Windows pcs into Linux boxes this way.
http://ubuntustudio.org/tour/audio/
.
Audacity https://www.audacityteam.org/
Free, runs on multiple platforms, easy to use, multi-channel, effects available.
Hydrogen Drum machine kit http://hydrogen-music.org/
Free, runs on multiple platforms, easy to use
More advanced is Ubuntu Studio -- you can repurpose old 'too slow' Windows pcs into Linux boxes this way.
http://ubuntustudio.org/tour/audio/
.
- nanamour
- PAT. # 2.972.923
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- Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 8:22 pm
- Location: Hell's Kitchen
Re: Kid friendly ultrasimple DAW?
Huge thanks for weighing in everyone.
Yeah, GarageBand did seem the obvious choice initially, and is probably what I'll stick with. I guess I was holding a candle for the possibility of there being something even simpler out there in cyberland, but I suppose stripping things down past a certain point would snuff out any useful functionality.
It's looking (fingers, toes, and eyes crossed) like we will indeed have a few iPads at our disposal, so any recommendations on free/cheapo iPad-based instruments/sequencers/etc--ideally something toward the graphical and touch-friendly end of the spectrum--warmly welcomed as well!
Yeah, GarageBand did seem the obvious choice initially, and is probably what I'll stick with. I guess I was holding a candle for the possibility of there being something even simpler out there in cyberland, but I suppose stripping things down past a certain point would snuff out any useful functionality.
It's looking (fingers, toes, and eyes crossed) like we will indeed have a few iPads at our disposal, so any recommendations on free/cheapo iPad-based instruments/sequencers/etc--ideally something toward the graphical and touch-friendly end of the spectrum--warmly welcomed as well!
- pacemaker
- PAT. # 2.972.923
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Re: Kid friendly ultrasimple DAW?
I've been very curious about the Spire all-in-one dealie; it's around $350. I don't know anyone who has used one as most of my musician friends are way down the recording rabbithole, but I've thought about getting one for my daughter and I to record with – it looks simple enough.