The DAW isn't really an instrument. All DAWs are a combination of (tape-like) linear recording, with a sampling rack, a synth rack, and an FX rack attached.
The instruments are the samplers, synthesizers, loops, and FX.
The proportions vary - Ableton plays up the sampling, ProTools plays up the linear tape and FX - but they're all more or less the same product, which is a digital implementation of a late 1980s recording studio with project recall and much more powerful automation.
To use a DAW as an instrument the design would have to be opened up and made much more configurable and programmable. Products that do this a little exist (e.g. M4L in Ableton, which is descended from Max/MSP, which is used by Autechre) but they're always limited and/or clumsy to program and invariably not very popular.
It turns out most DAW users are very comfortable with the studio metaphor and only a tiny minority have any interest in exploring beyond it. They either find their way to modular synthesisers, which are a different kind of dead end, or Max/PD, which (IMO) are a bit of a nightmare to use (PD less than Max), or maybe one of the code based environments like SuperCollider, which are much more open but so user-hostile you need a good grounding in CS and command-line development to use them at all.
To date no one has made a code-based album that has had any mainstream success.
I'm not really sure what the definition of an instrument is here, but many electronic artists are using Ableton to perform live. If were willing to call turntables an instrument then we need to call Ableton one as well. Quote from the popular BassMusic producer GJONES:
"What do you use to produce & perform?
I use Ableton Live for both. I use almost solely Ableton’s built in synths/effects in my productions. My live setup is a sort of DJ-style set, in that I mainly mix using 2 audio channels and then have several more channels of acapellas, drum loops, risers, 1 shots, drum samples, etc."
Even though you can use Ableton to 'perform live' this is rather raw. When I say 'as an instrument' I mean as the conduit to creativity. The primary creatives in music would have been songwriter/composer, lyricist, performer. Now it's moved into production and the mechanism is not a guitar or piano, it's a variety of digital tools upon which creativity/composition is performed.
I'm very familiar with the tech, and I understand my comment about DAW being an instrument is a little metaphorical ... but the Engineering/Production is now where the material creativity happens.
Obviously it's not happening in 'real time' - but rather, by tuning each bar, each phrase, applying different effects etc. hence they are 'playing that instrument'.
Songwriting, melody, possibly musicianship and definitely lyrics are kind of secondary. You can say anything in a song these days it doesn't matter.
The instruments are the samplers, synthesizers, loops, and FX.
The proportions vary - Ableton plays up the sampling, ProTools plays up the linear tape and FX - but they're all more or less the same product, which is a digital implementation of a late 1980s recording studio with project recall and much more powerful automation.
To use a DAW as an instrument the design would have to be opened up and made much more configurable and programmable. Products that do this a little exist (e.g. M4L in Ableton, which is descended from Max/MSP, which is used by Autechre) but they're always limited and/or clumsy to program and invariably not very popular.
It turns out most DAW users are very comfortable with the studio metaphor and only a tiny minority have any interest in exploring beyond it. They either find their way to modular synthesisers, which are a different kind of dead end, or Max/PD, which (IMO) are a bit of a nightmare to use (PD less than Max), or maybe one of the code based environments like SuperCollider, which are much more open but so user-hostile you need a good grounding in CS and command-line development to use them at all.
To date no one has made a code-based album that has had any mainstream success.