Spaces Outside the DAW
Most music software is designed around the moment a piece of music becomes a production: a timeline, a session, a collection of tracks. But a lot of musical work happens elsewhere.
Ideas begin as voice notes, hums, whistles, MIDI noodles, visual references, conversations and demos. Later on, finished recordings escape the DAW again and become rehearsals, performances, releases, visuals and plans. These stages are collaborative, spatial and often chaotic, yet the tools used to support them are rarely designed with musicians in mind.
This talk explores the spaces outside the DAW, and asks what a creative tool might look like if it treated play, conversation and planning as part of the music-making process, rather than the admin around it. Using the development of a collaborative music board as a case study, it looks at designing for unfinished ideas, playful participation and the handover between playful exploration and focused production.
Antony Nasce
Co-founder
noodlr studio
Audiovisual tinkerer, product developer + synth enthusiast! Ant is the developer of MIDIWeb Browser and co-founder of 5of12 - designing interactions with music. He recently co-founded noodlr studio, with a vision to reimagine musical pre-production, collaboration and most importantly, to encourage more people to play and discover music creation outside of the DAW.
Chris Thomaidis
Co-founder
noodlr studio
Chris started his career in the music industry in 1997, spending a decade promoting records for Warner Music Group and releasing music through his own independent label. In 2006 he pivoted into tech and has spent the last 20 years helping companies turn product ideas and roadmaps into things that actually ship.
In 2026 he co-founded noodlr studio, a Bristol-based startup on a mission to make it easier than ever for musicians to create, collaborate, organise and share music. Having spent his career moving between music and technology, Chris is particularly fascinated by how emerging technologies, especially AI, can assist creativity without removing the fun, skill and agency that make creating music rewarding.