Getting around
The window, the things in it, and how to move through time. Nothing in this course makes a sound.
Most of what stops somebody using a DAW is not that the concepts are hard. It is that they do not yet have names for the six things on screen they need to talk about, so every explanation they read is about parts they cannot locate. This course is the vocabulary. It is short, it is deliberately the first thing here, and every other course spends it.
The lessons
Lesson 1 names every panel, because the rest of the course has to point at them. After that the order is loose: regions and the transport can be read either way round, and the drawer stands on its own.
- 01What and where?Every panel in the main window, boxed and named, in the state you meet them on the first launch.Unlocks: You can name any part of the window, which is what every other lesson has to assume.
- 02Tracks and the hierarchyWhat a track actually holds, why buses are in the same tree, and what the folders are for.Unlocks: You can build a project's shape before putting any sound in it.
- 03RegionsThe blocks on the timeline: audio and MIDI, what the six mouse tools do to them, and what a region loop is.Unlocks: You can arrange material you already have.
- 04Moving through timeThe transport, the ruler and its lanes, loop and punch, markers, and the two kinds of zoom.Unlocks: You can get the playhead where you want it without hunting.
- 05The drawerThe mixer, the analysers and the module info pane, all in the strip you can pull up from the bottom.Unlocks: You can watch what the audio is doing while you work on it.
What this course will not do
It will not teach you music. Whether a bassline should move on the fourth beat is not a question about Phonon, and answering it here would be answering it badly. Battuto is the course for that, it is free, and it mentions no products.
It also will not make anything sound good. Getting around a room is not the same skill as furnishing it, and the courses that follow this one are where the modules are.