Record is now shipping, and the beta closed – and now is a perfect time to talk about learning.

Okay, let me explain something. Propellerhead doesn’t want Record to be called a “DAW,” for Digital Audio Workstation. I personally overcame my own distaste for the strange acronym today because, well, there’s not another good name for a related set of tools.

But I do think Record is different. Workstations are usually defined by being all-in-one environments, for hosting other third-party instruments and effects, and adding in additional features like notation and video scoring. Record is none of those things. You can even treat it like a virtual mixer or rack of processing tools and load it into your existing “DAW” of choice, or take something like Ableton Live and load it into Record for mastering.

But then, Record is the exception that proves the rule, isn’t it? Aggressively geared to be the anti-DAW, to avoid trying to be all things to all people, Record illustrates the variety of ways you can get your music making done.

We’ve had a good, healthy debate on this topic, so no reason to resurrect that. Instead, I have two pieces of news: one, Record is now actually shipping. Two, if you’re interested to learn how to use it, or just to see what they’ve done, the Props have assembled a terrific set of learning resources. For beginners, “Record U” promises to cover the basics of recording tasks as well as the software. (So far, the first episode, “Recording Guitar,” is available.) You can add that to lovely ReWire tutorials from the folks who developed the technology, and mini-tips on how to use the tools. Whatever you think of the software, it’s an exemplary learning site, just the kind of thing you’d hope developers would do.

Basics video
Record U
Tutorials Page
Micro Tutorials and iTunes podcast link

I’ve chosen my favorite so far. Love it or hate it, I think this illustrates some of the vision of Record. It makes moving tracks and devices as easy as racking up instruments and effects in Reason, and makes mixing and matching audio uncommonly easy. That could make Record a nice tool to have around for trying to take your pile of recordings and productions and turn them into finished tracks and albums. (A lot of this “love it or hate it” phenomenon seems to depend on your feelings about Reason, so Reason fans will also want to take a look at the Reason – Record integration video.)

Okay, that’s technically not a snow leopard, but I came pretty close, right? Photo (CC) Mark Kenny.

For the latest on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6), be sure to check out our full round-up. It’ll be regularly updated through the coming days.

We have updates from Propellerhead and Ableton. Basically, the message is what we’re hearing across the board – developers have been testing their software, but you should be cautious about updating and ensure all the hardware, software, and plug-ins you want to use work. More details on the state of development from these favorites to follow… notably, including an expected update to Live 8 that will bring full, official support to 10.6.

Updated: More news coming in and added to the round-up page. Antares reports their software works — good news. But the big news is that many Tascam hardware products will need driver updates. That is suggestive of changes to the OS that could impact other audio interfaces from other vendors. I’m going to keep saying this – upgrade on launch day at your own risk. Writing and testing audio drivers is tremendously time-intensive, so if you want everything to work, you’ll need to verify compatibility before you upgrade. Snow Leopard’s improvements will only be cool if your audio box works, too.

In a Hollywood overrun with remakes, a new Tron has quite a daunting challenge. The original film may be a cult hit for its 80s arcade cool, but it also was a seminal moment in the evolution of computer animation, at the nexus of obsessive-compulsive optical effects that came before and digital effects that came after. (Google Perlin Noise, if you must.) But where the bits of the effects look uneven or dated alongside the brilliant, it’s nearly impossible to top the genius of Wendy Carlos’ score. Her deft blend of choirs, orchestras, organs, and rich electronics wasn’t just forward looking: it’s fresh today, an alternative to some of the signature sameness in today’s games and films.

Perhaps Tron Legacy will do what other belated sequels have not: express love for the original. With Daft Punk helming the score and a reverent, inspired crew ready to make Tron live again, the trailer last week was the real sleeper hit of Comic-Con.

If that’s not enough layers of fandom, though, head to GearSlutz for a lesson in film scoring and a recreation of the trailer in Reason, custom Reaktor patches, and Ableton Live. This is not much of an infomercial for Live: because Ableton’s arrange view doesn’t quite understand frames, scoring with Live is a bit of a beast. (Live 9, anyone?) But it’s a great example of love for the movie and its original score. And hey, everyone need a source of joy, even a film.

Ableton Live for Sound Design :Tron Legacy [GearSlutz forum]

Stripped the original audio and redid all of the sound from scratch using Reason/NI Reaktor/Ableton Live 8. An M-Audio Axiom 49 was used to perform the Lightcycle Engine Oscillations

Wendy Carlos, if you’re out there, we get it. You revolutionized film scoring and electronic orchestration, and we’re all in your debt. It’s not so much that you switched on Bach or switched on Moog or even switched on Kubrick and guys in glowing skin-tight outfits. You switched on sound, and nothing has been quite the same since.

Now, we just have to hope 2010 can show us a good time, too.

As I’m going through all the responses for the Propellerhead Record beta, I couldn’t help but notice this image, taken in Lima, Peru this month. Sure, you can claim that Propellerhead’s software looks too much like analog gear, that racking up lots of instruments and effects together (especially now, with parallel racks in Record) leads to visual clutter. But then, that mish-mash of knobs and colored panels looks, well, a lot like this Lima electronics market.

Interestingly enough, the photographer notes these are all homegrown efforts, unique DIY electronics. A theme that comes up every time I talk to folks in South America is a reminder that they can’t always afford the latest-and-greatest modern tech. And, of course, neither can a lot of us on the other continents — hey, here in the US, we’re paying off loans, debt, and health insurance bills. So I do think the DIY world will continue to spawn things people themselves can use. An oft-overlooked driver of the open source software movement remains the desire to create something for yourself, even in the shadow of titans like Red Hat, IBM, Sun, and Novell, who stand to reap big business rewards. With the interest in these things exploding, as well as indie commercial development, hardware and software alike can be thought of as a virtual analog to this rack of strange Peruvian sonic gear.

It certainly reveals something essential about the drive to decorate your audio creations, and to make them unique. Hardware or software, it’s hard not to look at this and want to go make some crazy noises.

Given the passion of the debate, it’s easy to forget that Propellerheads’ Record has been firing up discussion from many people who haven’t actually seen it. Record is to audio recording, mixing, and mastering what Reason is to synthesized sound, and for Reason lovers, it finally delivers that holy grail – multiple racks. Record is a bit like Reason Studio, taking those instruments and giving them a full production context.

Since its release, Propellerhead has amplified polarized opinions about this tool. It doesn’t support plug-ins (though you can use other ReWire clients), it doesn’t do things like film scoring, and thus its singular focus on recording means I think it’s fair for Propellerhead to say it’s not a DAW. Of course, going so far as tell blogs they can’t label it as such is going a bit far, and it only made some people protest more. And the focus on those features hasn’t pleased users who want everything and a kitchen sink on their feature list. Users were divided over the Ignition Key and online authorization scheme (see full explanation), of course.

But it is something about which everyone seems to have an opinion, and for that alone, I love it. That’d be a little more fair if you’ve actually gotten to use it, however. So, now’s your chance to try Record for yourself:

http://www.propellerheads.se/products/record/

The beta is a full-featured, open-and-save-capable version, through its expiration date on September 9.

If you’re impatient, we can get you the beta key right now. Just leave a comment, say something intelligent, say “+1 beta,” and be sure to leave your real email address. (Emails are not published on the site; I’ll just see them in my inbox.) If you’d like to be on the CDM Notes mailing list (no other marketing or spam), say “+1 email.”

All out! Thanks to everyone; hopefully we’ve gotten everyone a code who wanted one. Follow comments for some little glitches with their Website…

Once you’ve got a reply from me, download Record by entering your code at http://recordyou.com. You’ll also get two codes to pass along to friends.

Update on registration: I talked to Propellerhead’s web developer – when you get the confirmation email for recordyou.com, go ahead and log in! You’ll be confirmed automatically. Some people saw this login page following the confirmation email and thought something was wrong. Don’t worry, log in, and everything will be fine.