“It’s so important”: Nick Hakim explains why every producer should learn their DAW’s key commands

As a producer, you’re going to drastically supercharge your workflow if you spend some time learning the key commands of your chosen DAW. 

It might seem like a boring task to sit down and learn them, but knowing how to navigate the grid, move the playhead, and quickly select crucial tools without manually trying to find them within busy dropdown menus can speed up your creative process by several orders of magnitude.

And kicking off the brand-new season of MusicTech’s My Forever Studio podcast – made in partnership with Audient – producer, songwriter and Anderson Paak and Mac DeMarco collaborator Nick Hakim discusses the importance of learning key commands, and explains how doing so improved his workflow.

“I learned Pro Tools when I was in college – I kind of fooled around with many of them to start with to understand them and to see what felt right,” he explains of his early experience with DAWs. “I started using Ableton in 2018. I had a cracked version. Sorry! But I was always like, ‘I wanna learn how to use Ableton.’” 

Hakim explains how a friend who was well-versed in Ableton took the time to show him the programme’s basic key commands.

“He literally sat down with me for an hour and showed me how to set my own key commands, little shortcuts,” he says. “Once he showed me that, and just having somebody show me that, it changed [things].

“To me the boring stuff is the fundamental fun – the stuff that’s so important. Being able to cut and stretch, and how to zoom out. Every DAW is slightly different. When I was first in Ableton I’d be doing Logic key commands, pressing X to go to the mixer [laughs].”

My Forever Studio is back, a series which sees the MusicTech team quiz artists, producers and engineers on their favourite gear, asking them to put together their fantasy Forever Studio using whatever musical items their hearts desire.

While it’s an environment for freedom, there are some strict rules in the Forever Studio. Guests are permitted a limited number of items in their creative space, so they have to choose carefully. There will be nostalgia. There will be anecdotes. There may be gags. But there will be no bundles!

Subscribe to My Forever Studio on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and check out all episodes so far via MusicTech.

Sam is the Associate News Editor for Guitar.com and MusicTech. Thoroughly immersed in music culture for the majority of his life, Sam has played guitar for 20 years, studied music technology and production at university, and also written for the likes of MusicRadar, Guitar World, Total Guitar and Metal Hammer.