For many of us, the most difficult moment in the songwriting process occurs right at the start of it, when you're trying to come up with ideas and sketch them down.
If your DAW is proving to be more of a hindrance than a help in this respect you could try Oscillicious's SongStarter, a new application for Windows, OS X and Google Chrome.
Based on a live looping workflow, SongStarter is designed to help you make music 'organically' and gives you 31 instruments to work with. Some of these are presets from Oscillicious's SodaSynth and Analog Extracts plug-ins, while others are sample-based.
Once you've got your ideas together you can import them into your DAW of choice via drag 'n' drop.
SongStarter sounds similar in concept to A.I.R.'s Ignite, which was previewed at Summer NAMM 2012. It has the big advantage of actually being available, though: you can buy it now for $39.99/€34.99/£29.99 from the Oscillicious online shop. A free trial version is also available.
Alternatively, you could try the the SongStarter for Chrome beta. This will be available for an "extended" period of time.
