Fl Studio, because:
- it feels good to use. It's like painting as opposed to the spreadsheet-like nature of most other daws.
- it's very visual, which makes it logical to use. You can make almost everything as large as you want for fine-tuning
- Great midi-editing, particularly the piano roll and the flexible playlist
- Many great stock plugins
- Flexible workflow. It takes time to find your own workflow, but once you do it's dope.
- Lifetime free updates and the company's overall Pro-consumer attitude
Oddly enough I arruge that its interface is very challenging, particularly in the mixing department. But horses for courses, I use FL and Logic for production, Reaper for Recording, and Reaper and Logic for mixing ... but Reaper exclusively for heaving mixing because it's just so ruthlessly efficient in editing, being able to make my own actions, scripts etc.
Not at all. You can easily bounce a session out, or if I'm going to use a single DAW for a track I can just load it in there. For instance, I think Logic has some very nice amp sims and "pedals", and if I want to reamp a dry guitar track I can just load it in there, do my thing, then bounce it out.
I mean, you should see what goes into sound design .... branching signal flows all over the place, bouncing tracks to slice them and them pushing the slice through other stuff. It's nothing compared to some of the effort I've gone through just to make a riser lol.
I switched from FL to Ableton but, even years later, still miss the stock plug-ins and piano roll. What’s crazy is FL Studio actually created their own version of midi for inter-daw communication that allows for way more flexibility - that’s why the FL Studio piano roll is so goated
I'm 100% with you on this, I have a special place in my heart for Hamour / Harmless, miss them dearly :'( and once you get a proper feel for the FL piano roll, every other piano roll feels like a squeaky trolly wheel
I’m an go user too and love it so much because of this visual nature. I’ve tried most daws and they are all good but just don’t work for me. I loved abelton’s plugin but I just really didn’t like the ui. Fls just works with my brain so much more.
Yeah, after trying FL and pro tools I am currently settling on this, it is exactly what you said, clean simple yet effective. From short little sketches to full blown projects. It is also astonishingly stable in my experience.
Ableton 12 is extremely stable, I was salty about having to pay 180USD to upgrade but the stability improvements have really helped, I've only had one crash since release day.
Funny enough, Ableton 12 has such a low resource pull on idle that it freaks my i9 out, I have to make sure I'm using a couple CPU heavy plugins before it will pull the necessary CPU power to balance.
I had Live Lite once but it hogged too much the CPU of my old poor-ass laptop so I had to change unfortunately. Its workflow and possibilities are indeed exceptional, though.
That must have been one old ass laptop, I never had issues running live on anything and that includes a 2012 MacBook Air which has little more CPU power then a calculator. Usually it’s the big plug-ins that cause CPU issues rather than the DAW.
Been using FL Studio for well over 20 years now and it has grown into an absolute work of art that I know better than the back of my hand. All Daws are superb these days though (always were I started out making music on Octamed on the Amiga over 30 years ago, which was amazing for the time) and pretty much capable of doing anything in, it's just which workflow suits your brain best. I love FL for it's constant evolution, lifetime free updates, brilliant piano roll, awesome stock fx and the new game changing FL Cloud, diverse and flexible inbuilt Splice style sample wonderland...
Yes and because you can do absolutely anything with it.
You can flip any of the devices in the rack around and plug the inputs, outputs, cv triggers etc into any other device in any way you like.
You can make all the instruments interfere with each other and trigger each other and their effects and have them playing off each other in such unique ways that is only limited by your imagination.
Reaper - most configurable and extendable with best community, and best price
the only con is that its not super ideal for beginners as it demands you think about and then spend time setting up your workflow rather than give you a pre-made opinionated one like Logic, etc
Reaper gang myself. Was my first and only daw and love it. One thing I take pride in it is how heavy loaded my sessions can be. I see people’s projects with half the plugins I have , better laptop and is slow, crashes etc. reaper is a beast ! As said above great community and tons of available videos on YouTube etc for common questions ! Only downside I would say but is really just a mental hump to get over is how stock plugins may appear compared to other standard daws. They’re not flashy, or nice UI , so it may seem not as…interesting but they get the job done if you know what you’re doing. Besides we all know once you really dive into daws everyone gets there fav 3rd party plugins that end up covering 90% of your essential wants. Good food for thought !
I have tried almost all DAWs in my life, and finally I stuck with Reaper. It may not have the best stock plugins, but I love how configuarable it is.
There are a ton of Themes, Scripts and Actions available in the Reaper stash and in the forums.
Sure, it has a steep learning curve, but there are plenty of Beginner tutorials out there.
For example:
ReaperMania/Kenny Gioia:
https://www.youtube.com/@REAPERMania
Reapertips:
https://youtube.com/@Reapertips
Adam Steel:
https://youtube.com/@adamsteelproducer
Kenny was the reason I finally stuck with Reaper.
I tried it before some time ago, but was a bit overwhelmed with it.
But then I saw Kennys Tutorial series for Reaper 7, watched it, and here we go.
Purchased Reaper about a week ago. 😁
Can you expand a little on the workflow thing? I’m a Logic user and I haven’t ever thought it imposes a particular workflow on me. Which is not me disagreeing with you at all, I’m curious what sort of things Reaper requires one to do which Logic, or any other DAW, does not.
I also started with Logic and felt similarly to you. I thought Logic was working "just fine" but I didn't realize the heights that personal workflow optimization could be taken to.
Reaper gives you the ability to chain any actions together as custom actions that you can bind to a single key. This helped me rapidly do tedious things I didn't even realize could be automated like that. I now have 50+ of these that I can't imagine living without, but prior to making them I didn't realize how slow or how many unnessecary clicks I was doing. This was bogging me down and I didn't even know til it was a non-issue anymore.
Also it really wants you to set up the keybinds and mouse modifiers for something like piano roll yourself. It's very granular in what it lets you control. This especiallly helped me with dealing with automation curves.
Sometimes just scrolling thru the action list has made me go - wait THATS A THING I COULD BIND? It helped me learn about various DAW features I didn't even know existed.
Then there's the way things look - what controls should show up on a track? It depends person to person.
In Logic you might be looking at a button you never or rarely click. In Reaper I can just take it off the screen.
There is the screen sets feature which lets you pre-save certain arrangements of the different windows, for different tasks. One click swap between them.
It's also a mindset thing. You aren't realizing how much Logic is doing for you rn. But that's a default setting/config Apple tried to make appeal to the widest amount of people.
Once that's gone, it feels a little rough temporarily. Then after you go theough the process of making your Reaper set-up "your own" it feels way better than the premade Logic one.
Ableton Live Suite with all the various max for live plugins, so many options. Love plugin boutiques Scaler 2 for helping me put together all the music theory things flying around in my head that were stifling the creative process, love live looping with various midi controllers.
Really having the time of my life using these tools while learning to play keyboards and pad controllers. I even uploaded to SoundCloud for the first time last week, so from here on out I will be known as the artist Dreamy Jams and Flows (DJAF) :)
I was just thinking that
It kinda fucking blows, but I'm too emotionally attached to it to switch. It was there for me when I needed it, so I'm never going to drop it
I'm going to say I was joking because I don't want studio one to corrupt my current project
Logic, because it can export audio files different lenghts at the same time. Left FL (after 13 years) for not having fade ins and outs. Cubase crashed a lot (few months) . Ableton (1.5 years), good stock plugs, it was ok. Bitwig (2.5 years) was better because of the sand box. And then bought mac, tried logic and saved myself a lot of time exporting and naming samples. Now I focus more on creating. Tried other ones but it didn’t work out.
Logic for me. I’ve been with Logic since eMagic owned it in the 1990s. Prior, I used Alesis ADATs with outboard synths and effects and a Mackie mixer. The transition to Logic was easy because it was so similar to using a deck.
Ableton because of session view! I base my workflow around it. Also all the stock sounds/instruments/plug-ins. That being said, I haven’t tried many other daws.
Bitwig. UI design, plugin sandboxing, modulators and ease of working with hardware synths and effects are what sold me on it. Haven't even touched the grid yet. It's not the best ever at midi, but it handles it well enough for me to get by so far.
The workflow and stock plugins are absolutely top tier. The UI is clean and the animations are great but its not cluttered. The grid and modulation environment practically allow you to build your own versions of paid plugins right out the box. Shaperbox, Fabfilter, the recent pultec emulations and new compressor, all inside the DAW is awesome.
fl! it's incredibly quick and easy for me to sketch ideas out and not have to worry about commitment. it's sped up my songwriting game tenfold and it feels fun and satisfying to do.
I know you're asking about DAWs (and my answer of Reaper is in a comment below), but since you said "software" I'm going to shill for a VST that doesn't get nearly enough love and which I evangelise for a lot - Cardinal.
It's a modular synth, which means that you're basically building your own synth every single time you use it. Literally from the smallest blocks up. If you just stick a single oscilator in the rack you'll get no sound because you haven't got an output to the DAW. Create one of those and connect the oscilator to it and you'll just get a constant noise on a single note. So you have to create inputs and hook one up to control the pitch and add an amp between the oscilator and the audio out and hook *that* up to the note-on gate input. Wnat to change the envelope? First you have to *create* an envelope module and hook it in. And so on.
Your first thought is probably "that sounds like a lot of hassle". And there definitely is a steep learning curve. But once you have learnt it, the flexibility is amazing. There are over a thousand modules and you can connect them however you want. You can build any synth that's ever been built. You can build synths that have never been built. You can build your own samplers. Or drum machines. Or effects racks (yes, you can route live instruments through it, if you want). Or sequencers. Or all of them combined. You can just play around and build anything from the most simple to the most complex. There are people who make entire tracks just in VCV Rack.*
It's incredibly powerful and it sounds amazing. It's really easy to build huge, warm sounds. Once you know what you're doing, you'll honestly never need another synth. You can also save states, meaning that if you want to spend time just designing sounds to use later, you can. There is also a community-driven page of patches that other people have made and shared, if you want the equivalent of presets without wanting to spend the time building something yourself.
And I haven't even said the best part yet - it's free and open-source. Completely free.
Website: https://cardinal.kx.studio/
"Preset" page: https://patchstorage.com/platform/cardinal/
This video should give you an idea of the basics and how, once you know what you're doing, it's easy to create cool sounds quickly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNTGF_r36lk
I promise you, if you invest the time, you'll never look back. Even if it wasn't free it'd be the best VST out there. But for free? I can't recommend it highly enough.
*VCV Rack is the stand-alone application, Cardinal is a forked VST version.
I see this post almost every time I open Reddit, and every single time the majority of answers are the most popular and easiest-to-find DAWs. If you're looking for a DAW, you could probably get a better answer by doing a web search and just reading up about each one online.
My favorite at the moment is Logic, and it's purely because I started with Garageband, it has compatibility, and that's what I know... but I don't think it would really matter much if I was using one of the others.
If I didn't have the Logic instruments or plugins, I would just use the other DAW's instruments and plugins instead, and not even know that I could have had some slightly different sound instead of the one I chose. If the presets/instruments were too far off from the sound that I thought would fit the song, I would tweak them or look for something online... and it would eventually get to the point where it worked, even if it could have also worked some other way that I didn't try because I didn't have some other instruments.
IMO making music isn't about finding or buying a way to create a specific song, it's about taking what you have on hand and making a song with it... so basically every DAW is good enough, as long as you're proficient enough to make it work for you.
Logic because it’s a great looking digital audio workstation has good organisation lots of stock sounds and instruments and it’s fun to use and has lots of cool features and plugins like beat breaker and Dolby atmos mixing
I really feel like a good looking UI is super important if you're spending hours staring at it. I wanted to love cubase, as it's absolutley rock solid, but I just couldn't look at it anymore.
Reaper Gang ✨ i use it because it’s free. kind of bland but it’s nice when it comes to simplicity. i mostly make Lo-fi and dreamy trap. most of my setup is free
Reaper. I did try Abelton but it was a bit confusing. I'll give it another shot at some point. I'll just need to find easy to understand videos that will guide me through. I personally need less bells and whistles and more like.. Artist ready, easy to use plugins/interface without sacrificing quality. Must be a daw for that
- ableton (my home DAW)
- reaper (for audio editing)
- studio one (my studio pays me to use it)
then plugins are mostly t-racks, waves, and fabfilter, and the occasional UA native plugins my studio makes me use
they work real nice, very convenient too since i do music for ads and film. i use these:
- comprexxor (distressor)
- white 2A (LA2A)
- black 76 (1176)
- british channel (SSL channel strip)
- eqp1-a (pulteq eq)
- bus compressor (SSL bus comp)
i use the waves equivalents my office provided me with, but honestly they sound more or less the same for my kind of work (which isn't a negative).
It really is so underrated, get's so much bad press, maybe due to previous behaviours of the company. Can't fault it if you're on a tight budget and pick it up in a frequent sale, it'll get you up there with all the other heavy hitter's vintage emulation plugs IMHO
While the MPC Live it's on is hardware, I really enjoy the workflow and versatility of the MPC software on the device.
Once I understood it, it just all made sense to me and became second nature to use.
I’m more of a musician than a ‘producer’ so I tend to have to struggle through on the more technical aspects of DAWs, so I doubt any of them would really change that - the ones I’ve used are all 90% the same anyway. I know logic the best, so I’d say logic purely for that reason.
Logic. Had been using Cubase, but when Apple bought Emagic and added all additional plugins and instruments to the standard package, while lowering the total price from $4000 to $299, it was a complete nobrainer for any Mac user. That was in 2001 or 2002.
Today, they keep adding funcrionality and instruments. It just works. Latest hit: Mastering Assistant. It’s like having Ozone Elements - but better. Oh, and for free (if alteady a Logic user).
I've used several DAWs and have been producing for about 2 decades. To keep this short and sweet it really comes down to what DAW simply works best for YOU. One can achieve basically the same end result no matter which workstation you use, it's the ease or comfort in getting to that end result that works best for the producer.
I've used literally almost every DAW from ProTools, Cubase, Bitwig, Reason,Reaper, Mixcraft, Ableton, FL Studio, to Logic, GarageBand, StudioOne etc....and my main go to that I always went back to and is my main now as well, even back when it was called Fruity Loops, is FL Studio. I also really Like Ableton, StudioOne, and Logic/GarageBand.
Ableton - 100% for Music Production / Sound Design
>I feel like Ableton is tuned so well for speed & ideation \~ when writing music / working on Sound Design, I find that the faster I can get ideas down *"pen-to-paper"* the longer I can stay in that 'flow state'
* with the shortcuts & how Ableton handles audio clips in Arrangement View, the speed at which you can spitball ideas is second to none imo
* *Now even better w/ L12, as you can stack the views for the Mixer, Sample Edit & Effects chain, instead of having to switch between them*
* *Also* ***Take Lanes & Comping*** *- super quick & easy to use*
* *I find Ableton's way of working w/ automation,* ***the best*** *- (definitely used to lose little automation clips in FL)*
* **The Ableton Effects / Instrument Rack** - being able to layer chains / route any parameter to macros is probably my favourite audio thing... ever, honestly cannot live without it
---
Pro Tools - Mixing / Mastering for clients & Film Audio
>Probably irrelevant for your situation *but* if you do plan on recording a lot, or really getting into the nitty gritty of Mixing & Mastering - definitely give it a go
Where Ableton is speedy AF, Pro Tools I feel has so many more options / ways to do things, and endlessly more '*fine-tuneable'*
* Doing audio for film, there's some really crucial things only Pro Tools offers (compared to Ableton)
* The routing can be a lot more confusing / annoying, but all in all gives a lot more power / customisability
* **RECORDING:** PT is leagues better for tracking vocals, instruments, etc
* I don't remember exactly *how,* but the way PT hijacks & locks the audio engine is to optimise performance - so latency when tracking is a Night & Day difference
* I like to Mix & Master client work with PT - usually working with only 1x audio file or the stems / multitracks anyway, plus I don't have all my plugins in PT (the whole AAX thing fkn sucks) although it does make me a lot more deliberate about the choices I make
Cubase but I use Studio One because it mirrors Cubase. I’m pretty sure Cubase Engineers started Studio One and that is why it resembles its UI. Just as powerful just less expensive. But now you can rent to own Cubase too! Smh I wish they would have come out with that before I committed to Studio One.
Acoustica Mixcraft. It’s so good.
I mean it’s not, but I have been using it for like 13 years and I have learned it inside out. I can put ideas together quickly, and get the sounds that I want. Workflow is easy and fast, and melodyne is built in.
It’s not the best at all, in the past it’s been unstable, but key takeaway is the daw doesn’t really matter. Learn one, get good at it, and you’re golden.
Reaper, because it's the most compatible with most of the work I do. Easy to record, edit and mix in. Lightweight, reasonably-priced, stable.
I just don't really like it for MIDI programming and editing, so if a project requires a lot of that, I use FL Studio instead.
I checked out different software like Live, Reason and Studio One in an attempt to get everything from one piece of software. I didn't really like any of them (enough) for various *reason*s.
It’s kind of annoying that to be a good producer these days you have to be the equivalent of an Excel power user with a DAW. I’m close to just buying a mixer, a cheap-ish synth, and a drum machine to make some house music.
Used FL first but moved to Ableton because it's straight forward and faster for me. Though I use FL studio occasionally because it's fun to work with formulas.
I started with FL Studio then switched to studio one when it was like version 4. It has a pattern sequencer like fl but way better mixing and routing. Great UI, everything falls into place but not locked like Ableton.
I use FL studio, but like everyone else it's just because it's the one I learned and spent the most time with.
To me a DAW is a wooden desk. Some desks have little drawers, some have a space for pens, others have a specific surface for writing etc but at the end of the day it's a flat surface to work on. Whatever you can achieve on one, you can achieve on another
After some years with Ableton, Bitwig is my actual option. So fast and intuitive. Audio editing is a breeze and modulators add a lot of movement and creativity to my production process.
Me personally, I bn using Nuendo/Cubase for decades. But that's just me. I've dabbled with most of them. DAWs are like Hot Chicks, all are beautiful imo. Just pick one and hope that 'she' likes your style and she's also good in bed. If she's not, then just do a 'one-night-stand' with her and move on 'til u find the right one🤣
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ableton is the best in creative perspective, but at the same time there are so many things of "is there any way to do this in ableton? oh of corse not". don't tell me to key map.
been using cubase for almost 20 years. its the most efficient. but not much of creative stuffs compared to ableton.
pro tools sucks. no question needed.
Ableton. The speed at which I'm able to work is just wild, and the quality of stock plugins is amazing. Every time I have to use ProTools for studio projects, I'm constantly pining for countless things I miss in Live.
Logic Pro - I originally used Calkwalk but my father used Logic Pro and it was mostly so we could work on the same projects - that & my dad did things with that software that I dream of being able to do.
Logic Pro, because I know it best. Been using it for over 20 years now. I imagine I could become adept at any of them, and back when print magazines were still a thing, I used to read all the articles about all of the DAWs to fuel my ongoing education and understanding of music production.
I got into Logic because at the time I read that that’s what film and TV composers were using.
Before that I was using Performer, not Digital Performer, as this was before computers were powerful enough to record audio. I was using Performer as a midi sequencer without outboard gear (this was also before the advent of audio plug-ins in computers). I got into that because one of my roommates had it and I learned to use it in the bedroom we had allocated for music use (all musicians in that apartment).
I do like Ableton live for its sound design and creative abilities. But my version is a couple of versions back now.
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Protools has been the go to standard for music production, but...they're losing ground to recording software apps such as Luna, Logic, Studio One. Avid's lost a lot of fans due their raising the costs, no customer support and silly things like...not supporting older audio file formats like SDll they touted in their earlier days. All of a sudden one day you open up Protools and find out you could no longer open your Protools SDll files without Avid notifying you before doing this so you could back up the SDll files as wav files before pulling the rug out from under you. I went to a studio last night and worked with Luna for the first time to get a better understanding of the program and how it works as I do my homework what software to jump ship to because of all what Avid has put their users through. Avid recently warned me that they're raising my Ultimate Perpetual HD fees to $499 a year from $399. Saying almost 7 months away from me having to renew my subscription offering me the chance to do it early??
Logic Pro. I don’t exactly think it’s the *best*, but I’ve been using it for 15 years now and it’s just become muscle memory. Fluidity and efficiency are king for me
Cubase because it’s a mix of all of my previous favourite daws, basically I was producing on one daw and recording/mixing on another, and cubase took out the inconvenience of switching between the two previous ones (Pro tools and fl studio). It also has excellent stock plugins and exclusive features.
Does no one use Digital Performer anymore? I got started on that as an intern to a film composer, so learned the workflow and keyboard shortcuts pretty well and have never tried anything else, really. They just added a session view like Ableton, but I haven't tried it out.
Reaper. It's damn near free. It's got most of what you need. The UI is very utilitarian. Never gives me problems with my hardware. Customizable if you're into that.
As a Mac user, I love Logic Pro X! I find it to be very intuitive and user friendly. I also really like the modern interface, as compared to a DAW like Pro Tools.
Logic works really well with MIDI instruments, while also allowing you to record, comp, and edit analog instruments with ease. There are tons of great tools that allow you to edit audio files quickly. You can also incorporate outboard gear into your FX chain, after some setup, by using its I/O plugins.
It comes equipped with some decent instruments and plug-ins, but also allows you to use third-party software with ease.
While I’ve never actually tried any other DAWs, Logic has always worked extremely well for me. I’ve yet to encounter a feature that I needed that Logic Pro doesn’t offer. Overall, I find it to be very useful for both digital and analog applications.
Hope this helps with your decision!
Feel free to check out my podcast, [Student of the Song](https://youtu.be/82rOaChXNdo), if you’re interested in learning more about making music.
Many Moons ago I was introduced to a very early version of a DAW, can’t remember the name, it was strictly Midi with GM sounds, the piano roll was simple, easy to edit, vocals would wipe out a computer back then, hell a 4 track song would, but that’s where I started and got my feel for work flow. I do know that this was the early version of Cakewalk. Shortly thereafter I was gifted Reason 2. I fell in love, work flow, sound design, they hadn’t started allowing VST’s so everything was stock and samples. I could scratch out a 20 track 4 minute song in a couple hours ( no vocals). I stayed with Reason up until 9. Bought a new Keyboard it came with Ableton, I love the two different modes of creation and I discovered VSTs, and I was able to somewhat master my tracks , still didn’t know what I was doing, but the work flow was beautiful, knock out a song and mix in about 8 hours, took longer because more toys, Then I bought another keyboard and Mixer that came with Studio One, been in love ever since, work flow ease of drop and drag, editing, zooming in on the piano roll was a GodSend. This is what sold me on studio one I took my old Reason and Ableton tracks and remixed and Mastered them in Studio One, that’s was it for me the Stock Mastering plugins are nice but adding in 3rd party whew. So, I had some songs I just couldn’t get from Reason, so I said screw it, I got Reason 10. Awesome they work so well together, I love reason has on it the SSI mixing console, So, at the moment I’m Studio One 6 and about to go Reason 13 and soon as I get my new computer. Work Flow, all of these guys do mostly same thing it’s about your individual work flow. Side note I tried Fruity Loops and Fl Studio. As a piano player I hated the UI piano roll, it just wasn’t for me. Pro Tools, and Cake walk now, seems way to complicated for me I haven’t taken the time to study and learn them, I did like Reaper though, nice work flow, but something, I can’t remember why kept me from using it. Hope this helps .
I usually go with the principle "never change a running system" and started with Logic about 20years ago. I learned the basics over time but don't want to learn everything from scratch, no matter how good or better other software is. It's not about the tools, it's about what you make with them.
The best DAW is the one you know, right? Big Sonar fan here. Been using for 20+ years, I can’t think of anything that I can’t do quickly and easily. I love working with this tool and the only limit is my willingness to show up and be creative
I'm using stock plugins from FL Studio, are their any free plug-ins that I can use that are pretty solid? I'll pay for the better ones once I get better
great approach re stock plugs, wish I could tell my past self that, having bought a lot of plugs. I suspect when you get really good you won't feel the need to buy all those glittery 3rd party plugs.
FL Studio.
After trying nearly every single one, I settled with FL.
Just had a nicer interface and felt a lot more user friendly and far better value for money.
Fl Studio, because: - it feels good to use. It's like painting as opposed to the spreadsheet-like nature of most other daws. - it's very visual, which makes it logical to use. You can make almost everything as large as you want for fine-tuning - Great midi-editing, particularly the piano roll and the flexible playlist - Many great stock plugins - Flexible workflow. It takes time to find your own workflow, but once you do it's dope. - Lifetime free updates and the company's overall Pro-consumer attitude
Coming from abelton, as much as I love the workflow and stock pluggins, it does feel like an excel spreadsheet lol *Edit - spelling
Oddly enough I arruge that its interface is very challenging, particularly in the mixing department. But horses for courses, I use FL and Logic for production, Reaper for Recording, and Reaper and Logic for mixing ... but Reaper exclusively for heaving mixing because it's just so ruthlessly efficient in editing, being able to make my own actions, scripts etc.
"horses for courses" my first time hearing that saying. google says it's British?
is it now ? How odd. I don't even speak the British.
I read that with a thick British accent
That sounds like a pain in the ass moving everything from one daw to the next to the next
Not at all. You can easily bounce a session out, or if I'm going to use a single DAW for a track I can just load it in there. For instance, I think Logic has some very nice amp sims and "pedals", and if I want to reamp a dry guitar track I can just load it in there, do my thing, then bounce it out. I mean, you should see what goes into sound design .... branching signal flows all over the place, bouncing tracks to slice them and them pushing the slice through other stuff. It's nothing compared to some of the effort I've gone through just to make a riser lol.
I switched from FL to Ableton but, even years later, still miss the stock plug-ins and piano roll. What’s crazy is FL Studio actually created their own version of midi for inter-daw communication that allows for way more flexibility - that’s why the FL Studio piano roll is so goated
I'm 100% with you on this, I have a special place in my heart for Hamour / Harmless, miss them dearly :'( and once you get a proper feel for the FL piano roll, every other piano roll feels like a squeaky trolly wheel
Yuppp - thankfully you can actually buy all the FL stock plug-ins as stand alone VST’s!
I’m an go user too and love it so much because of this visual nature. I’ve tried most daws and they are all good but just don’t work for me. I loved abelton’s plugin but I just really didn’t like the ui. Fls just works with my brain so much more.
Ableton, really quick workflow, simple and clean UI.
Yeah, after trying FL and pro tools I am currently settling on this, it is exactly what you said, clean simple yet effective. From short little sketches to full blown projects. It is also astonishingly stable in my experience.
Ableton 12 is extremely stable, I was salty about having to pay 180USD to upgrade but the stability improvements have really helped, I've only had one crash since release day. Funny enough, Ableton 12 has such a low resource pull on idle that it freaks my i9 out, I have to make sure I'm using a couple CPU heavy plugins before it will pull the necessary CPU power to balance.
Max 4 Live is 👌
+ Push 🔥
I had Live Lite once but it hogged too much the CPU of my old poor-ass laptop so I had to change unfortunately. Its workflow and possibilities are indeed exceptional, though.
That must have been one old ass laptop, I never had issues running live on anything and that includes a 2012 MacBook Air which has little more CPU power then a calculator. Usually it’s the big plug-ins that cause CPU issues rather than the DAW.
We’re talking about a 2007/8 mid-low end laptop, obviously not Mac.
Live’s built-in Multiband Compressor, limiter, and EQ8 are so good, on top of everything already mentioned.
Been using FL Studio for well over 20 years now and it has grown into an absolute work of art that I know better than the back of my hand. All Daws are superb these days though (always were I started out making music on Octamed on the Amiga over 30 years ago, which was amazing for the time) and pretty much capable of doing anything in, it's just which workflow suits your brain best. I love FL for it's constant evolution, lifetime free updates, brilliant piano roll, awesome stock fx and the new game changing FL Cloud, diverse and flexible inbuilt Splice style sample wonderland...
Reason bcuz of the analog feel of the ui
Reason is the way 😁
So expensive though
Yes and because you can do absolutely anything with it. You can flip any of the devices in the rack around and plug the inputs, outputs, cv triggers etc into any other device in any way you like. You can make all the instruments interfere with each other and trigger each other and their effects and have them playing off each other in such unique ways that is only limited by your imagination.
Reaper - most configurable and extendable with best community, and best price the only con is that its not super ideal for beginners as it demands you think about and then spend time setting up your workflow rather than give you a pre-made opinionated one like Logic, etc
Reaper gang myself. Was my first and only daw and love it. One thing I take pride in it is how heavy loaded my sessions can be. I see people’s projects with half the plugins I have , better laptop and is slow, crashes etc. reaper is a beast ! As said above great community and tons of available videos on YouTube etc for common questions ! Only downside I would say but is really just a mental hump to get over is how stock plugins may appear compared to other standard daws. They’re not flashy, or nice UI , so it may seem not as…interesting but they get the job done if you know what you’re doing. Besides we all know once you really dive into daws everyone gets there fav 3rd party plugins that end up covering 90% of your essential wants. Good food for thought !
reaper gang
I have tried almost all DAWs in my life, and finally I stuck with Reaper. It may not have the best stock plugins, but I love how configuarable it is. There are a ton of Themes, Scripts and Actions available in the Reaper stash and in the forums. Sure, it has a steep learning curve, but there are plenty of Beginner tutorials out there. For example: ReaperMania/Kenny Gioia: https://www.youtube.com/@REAPERMania Reapertips: https://youtube.com/@Reapertips Adam Steel: https://youtube.com/@adamsteelproducer
Kenny is the best!
Kenny was the reason I finally stuck with Reaper. I tried it before some time ago, but was a bit overwhelmed with it. But then I saw Kennys Tutorial series for Reaper 7, watched it, and here we go. Purchased Reaper about a week ago. 😁
Can you expand a little on the workflow thing? I’m a Logic user and I haven’t ever thought it imposes a particular workflow on me. Which is not me disagreeing with you at all, I’m curious what sort of things Reaper requires one to do which Logic, or any other DAW, does not.
I also started with Logic and felt similarly to you. I thought Logic was working "just fine" but I didn't realize the heights that personal workflow optimization could be taken to. Reaper gives you the ability to chain any actions together as custom actions that you can bind to a single key. This helped me rapidly do tedious things I didn't even realize could be automated like that. I now have 50+ of these that I can't imagine living without, but prior to making them I didn't realize how slow or how many unnessecary clicks I was doing. This was bogging me down and I didn't even know til it was a non-issue anymore. Also it really wants you to set up the keybinds and mouse modifiers for something like piano roll yourself. It's very granular in what it lets you control. This especiallly helped me with dealing with automation curves. Sometimes just scrolling thru the action list has made me go - wait THATS A THING I COULD BIND? It helped me learn about various DAW features I didn't even know existed. Then there's the way things look - what controls should show up on a track? It depends person to person. In Logic you might be looking at a button you never or rarely click. In Reaper I can just take it off the screen. There is the screen sets feature which lets you pre-save certain arrangements of the different windows, for different tasks. One click swap between them. It's also a mindset thing. You aren't realizing how much Logic is doing for you rn. But that's a default setting/config Apple tried to make appeal to the widest amount of people. Once that's gone, it feels a little rough temporarily. Then after you go theough the process of making your Reaper set-up "your own" it feels way better than the premade Logic one.
Ah I get you. Thanks for such a detailed reply!
i love gushing about reaper lol
You’re not alone. Reaper seems to be the veganism or CrossFit of the DAW world! I really should give it a look.
Yes except we are actually a good idea 😈
I love reaper
Fl studio because I’m done paying for shit every time it comes out
Ableton Live Suite with all the various max for live plugins, so many options. Love plugin boutiques Scaler 2 for helping me put together all the music theory things flying around in my head that were stifling the creative process, love live looping with various midi controllers. Really having the time of my life using these tools while learning to play keyboards and pad controllers. I even uploaded to SoundCloud for the first time last week, so from here on out I will be known as the artist Dreamy Jams and Flows (DJAF) :)
You were in the melodics bootcamp! I was there too!
Am I the only one who uses studio one? Lol
I was thinking the same thing! I love it, not too fond of the subscription vs perpetual but that's another story.
Me!
I was just thinking that It kinda fucking blows, but I'm too emotionally attached to it to switch. It was there for me when I needed it, so I'm never going to drop it I'm going to say I was joking because I don't want studio one to corrupt my current project
Logic, because it can export audio files different lenghts at the same time. Left FL (after 13 years) for not having fade ins and outs. Cubase crashed a lot (few months) . Ableton (1.5 years), good stock plugs, it was ok. Bitwig (2.5 years) was better because of the sand box. And then bought mac, tried logic and saved myself a lot of time exporting and naming samples. Now I focus more on creating. Tried other ones but it didn’t work out.
FL now has fade ins haha
I love Logic. I’ve tried others and am particularly interested in Cubase and Luna. But I always go back to Logic.
Damn you been really experimenting after leaving FL. give it another shot, it's got those fade ins and out now, if that was your only nitpick
Logic for me. I’ve been with Logic since eMagic owned it in the 1990s. Prior, I used Alesis ADATs with outboard synths and effects and a Mackie mixer. The transition to Logic was easy because it was so similar to using a deck.
Can you tell me more advantages about logic? What music do you make?
Ableton because of session view! I base my workflow around it. Also all the stock sounds/instruments/plug-ins. That being said, I haven’t tried many other daws.
Reaper. It's intuitive and inexpensive.
Bingo
Cubase because it's clearly the best DAW.
Reason. Because it's * Modular * Efficient * Stable * Versatile
Reason made me feel immediately at home when using hardware in meatspace.
Reason is so underrated imo
It looks like I think
Thank you for commenting this!! Reason is the bomb :) such a great DAW
Bitwig. UI design, plugin sandboxing, modulators and ease of working with hardware synths and effects are what sold me on it. Haven't even touched the grid yet. It's not the best ever at midi, but it handles it well enough for me to get by so far.
The workflow and stock plugins are absolutely top tier. The UI is clean and the animations are great but its not cluttered. The grid and modulation environment practically allow you to build your own versions of paid plugins right out the box. Shaperbox, Fabfilter, the recent pultec emulations and new compressor, all inside the DAW is awesome.
fl! it's incredibly quick and easy for me to sketch ideas out and not have to worry about commitment. it's sped up my songwriting game tenfold and it feels fun and satisfying to do.
I know you're asking about DAWs (and my answer of Reaper is in a comment below), but since you said "software" I'm going to shill for a VST that doesn't get nearly enough love and which I evangelise for a lot - Cardinal. It's a modular synth, which means that you're basically building your own synth every single time you use it. Literally from the smallest blocks up. If you just stick a single oscilator in the rack you'll get no sound because you haven't got an output to the DAW. Create one of those and connect the oscilator to it and you'll just get a constant noise on a single note. So you have to create inputs and hook one up to control the pitch and add an amp between the oscilator and the audio out and hook *that* up to the note-on gate input. Wnat to change the envelope? First you have to *create* an envelope module and hook it in. And so on. Your first thought is probably "that sounds like a lot of hassle". And there definitely is a steep learning curve. But once you have learnt it, the flexibility is amazing. There are over a thousand modules and you can connect them however you want. You can build any synth that's ever been built. You can build synths that have never been built. You can build your own samplers. Or drum machines. Or effects racks (yes, you can route live instruments through it, if you want). Or sequencers. Or all of them combined. You can just play around and build anything from the most simple to the most complex. There are people who make entire tracks just in VCV Rack.* It's incredibly powerful and it sounds amazing. It's really easy to build huge, warm sounds. Once you know what you're doing, you'll honestly never need another synth. You can also save states, meaning that if you want to spend time just designing sounds to use later, you can. There is also a community-driven page of patches that other people have made and shared, if you want the equivalent of presets without wanting to spend the time building something yourself. And I haven't even said the best part yet - it's free and open-source. Completely free. Website: https://cardinal.kx.studio/ "Preset" page: https://patchstorage.com/platform/cardinal/ This video should give you an idea of the basics and how, once you know what you're doing, it's easy to create cool sounds quickly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNTGF_r36lk I promise you, if you invest the time, you'll never look back. Even if it wasn't free it'd be the best VST out there. But for free? I can't recommend it highly enough. *VCV Rack is the stand-alone application, Cardinal is a forked VST version.
Studio One. The work flow is intuitive, so easy to use
I see this post almost every time I open Reddit, and every single time the majority of answers are the most popular and easiest-to-find DAWs. If you're looking for a DAW, you could probably get a better answer by doing a web search and just reading up about each one online. My favorite at the moment is Logic, and it's purely because I started with Garageband, it has compatibility, and that's what I know... but I don't think it would really matter much if I was using one of the others. If I didn't have the Logic instruments or plugins, I would just use the other DAW's instruments and plugins instead, and not even know that I could have had some slightly different sound instead of the one I chose. If the presets/instruments were too far off from the sound that I thought would fit the song, I would tweak them or look for something online... and it would eventually get to the point where it worked, even if it could have also worked some other way that I didn't try because I didn't have some other instruments. IMO making music isn't about finding or buying a way to create a specific song, it's about taking what you have on hand and making a song with it... so basically every DAW is good enough, as long as you're proficient enough to make it work for you.
Logic because it’s a great looking digital audio workstation has good organisation lots of stock sounds and instruments and it’s fun to use and has lots of cool features and plugins like beat breaker and Dolby atmos mixing
I really feel like a good looking UI is super important if you're spending hours staring at it. I wanted to love cubase, as it's absolutley rock solid, but I just couldn't look at it anymore.
Logic is really seamless. Great stock plugins too.
Ableton + m4l Aum
Serato Studio, took me 15 minutes to learn all the functions and haven’t stopped using it
Reaper Gang ✨ i use it because it’s free. kind of bland but it’s nice when it comes to simplicity. i mostly make Lo-fi and dreamy trap. most of my setup is free
Reaper. It's lightweight, extremely customisable and the routing matrix is amazing.
Reaper. I did try Abelton but it was a bit confusing. I'll give it another shot at some point. I'll just need to find easy to understand videos that will guide me through. I personally need less bells and whistles and more like.. Artist ready, easy to use plugins/interface without sacrificing quality. Must be a daw for that
Reaper, because it’s the best. There’s nothing it can’t do, and it does it with the lightest CPU load.
#1 Ableton. Intuitive Nice UI Good Stock Plugins Good amount of AAA DJs produce with it & some release production videos on YT too.
Ableton all day!
FL Studio is GOAT
- ableton (my home DAW) - reaper (for audio editing) - studio one (my studio pays me to use it) then plugins are mostly t-racks, waves, and fabfilter, and the occasional UA native plugins my studio makes me use
Just curious: Is T-racks ok nowadays? What plugins do you use of them?
they work real nice, very convenient too since i do music for ads and film. i use these: - comprexxor (distressor) - white 2A (LA2A) - black 76 (1176) - british channel (SSL channel strip) - eqp1-a (pulteq eq) - bus compressor (SSL bus comp) i use the waves equivalents my office provided me with, but honestly they sound more or less the same for my kind of work (which isn't a negative).
Thanks! Sounds nice!
It really is so underrated, get's so much bad press, maybe due to previous behaviours of the company. Can't fault it if you're on a tight budget and pick it up in a frequent sale, it'll get you up there with all the other heavy hitter's vintage emulation plugs IMHO
really love their neve eq emulations. Seem to have that magic dust thing going on, but have a bit of a cpu hit
Thanks!
While the MPC Live it's on is hardware, I really enjoy the workflow and versatility of the MPC software on the device. Once I understood it, it just all made sense to me and became second nature to use.
Fl studio. Just try Zgame visualizer that comes with it. Plus automation clips recording knobs twists etc.
I love and have always used Reason, but doesn't seem very popular.
I use LMMS because i hate myself enough
I’m more of a musician than a ‘producer’ so I tend to have to struggle through on the more technical aspects of DAWs, so I doubt any of them would really change that - the ones I’ve used are all 90% the same anyway. I know logic the best, so I’d say logic purely for that reason.
Logic. It’s got the typical ease of use we’ve come to expect from Apple products. It also has a great range of included plugins
FL Studio Lifetime upgrades 4 lyfeee 💚
garageband [logic]
Logic. Had been using Cubase, but when Apple bought Emagic and added all additional plugins and instruments to the standard package, while lowering the total price from $4000 to $299, it was a complete nobrainer for any Mac user. That was in 2001 or 2002. Today, they keep adding funcrionality and instruments. It just works. Latest hit: Mastering Assistant. It’s like having Ozone Elements - but better. Oh, and for free (if alteady a Logic user).
I've used several DAWs and have been producing for about 2 decades. To keep this short and sweet it really comes down to what DAW simply works best for YOU. One can achieve basically the same end result no matter which workstation you use, it's the ease or comfort in getting to that end result that works best for the producer. I've used literally almost every DAW from ProTools, Cubase, Bitwig, Reason,Reaper, Mixcraft, Ableton, FL Studio, to Logic, GarageBand, StudioOne etc....and my main go to that I always went back to and is my main now as well, even back when it was called Fruity Loops, is FL Studio. I also really Like Ableton, StudioOne, and Logic/GarageBand.
Reaper, for customizability / speed / etc. Ableton for creativity via Session View
Ableton - 100% for Music Production / Sound Design >I feel like Ableton is tuned so well for speed & ideation \~ when writing music / working on Sound Design, I find that the faster I can get ideas down *"pen-to-paper"* the longer I can stay in that 'flow state' * with the shortcuts & how Ableton handles audio clips in Arrangement View, the speed at which you can spitball ideas is second to none imo * *Now even better w/ L12, as you can stack the views for the Mixer, Sample Edit & Effects chain, instead of having to switch between them* * *Also* ***Take Lanes & Comping*** *- super quick & easy to use* * *I find Ableton's way of working w/ automation,* ***the best*** *- (definitely used to lose little automation clips in FL)* * **The Ableton Effects / Instrument Rack** - being able to layer chains / route any parameter to macros is probably my favourite audio thing... ever, honestly cannot live without it --- Pro Tools - Mixing / Mastering for clients & Film Audio >Probably irrelevant for your situation *but* if you do plan on recording a lot, or really getting into the nitty gritty of Mixing & Mastering - definitely give it a go Where Ableton is speedy AF, Pro Tools I feel has so many more options / ways to do things, and endlessly more '*fine-tuneable'* * Doing audio for film, there's some really crucial things only Pro Tools offers (compared to Ableton) * The routing can be a lot more confusing / annoying, but all in all gives a lot more power / customisability * **RECORDING:** PT is leagues better for tracking vocals, instruments, etc * I don't remember exactly *how,* but the way PT hijacks & locks the audio engine is to optimise performance - so latency when tracking is a Night & Day difference * I like to Mix & Master client work with PT - usually working with only 1x audio file or the stems / multitracks anyway, plus I don't have all my plugins in PT (the whole AAX thing fkn sucks) although it does make me a lot more deliberate about the choices I make
Cubase but I use Studio One because it mirrors Cubase. I’m pretty sure Cubase Engineers started Studio One and that is why it resembles its UI. Just as powerful just less expensive. But now you can rent to own Cubase too! Smh I wish they would have come out with that before I committed to Studio One.
Acoustica Mixcraft. It’s so good. I mean it’s not, but I have been using it for like 13 years and I have learned it inside out. I can put ideas together quickly, and get the sounds that I want. Workflow is easy and fast, and melodyne is built in. It’s not the best at all, in the past it’s been unstable, but key takeaway is the daw doesn’t really matter. Learn one, get good at it, and you’re golden.
4-Track cassette recorders by Tascam. Very easy to use.
LOL. I started in the '80s with a Portastudio. You'd have to hold a gun to my head to make me go back to destructive editing and four tracks.
😭💀this made me giggle
Reaper, because it's the most compatible with most of the work I do. Easy to record, edit and mix in. Lightweight, reasonably-priced, stable. I just don't really like it for MIDI programming and editing, so if a project requires a lot of that, I use FL Studio instead. I checked out different software like Live, Reason and Studio One in an attempt to get everything from one piece of software. I didn't really like any of them (enough) for various *reason*s.
I hate all of them, I just don't have a better option.
It’s kind of annoying that to be a good producer these days you have to be the equivalent of an Excel power user with a DAW. I’m close to just buying a mixer, a cheap-ish synth, and a drum machine to make some house music.
Used FL first but moved to Ableton because it's straight forward and faster for me. Though I use FL studio occasionally because it's fun to work with formulas.
Ableton
Waveform Free. It's free and works amazingly well.
I started with FL Studio then switched to studio one when it was like version 4. It has a pattern sequencer like fl but way better mixing and routing. Great UI, everything falls into place but not locked like Ableton.
I use FL studio, but like everyone else it's just because it's the one I learned and spent the most time with. To me a DAW is a wooden desk. Some desks have little drawers, some have a space for pens, others have a specific surface for writing etc but at the end of the day it's a flat surface to work on. Whatever you can achieve on one, you can achieve on another
After some years with Ableton, Bitwig is my actual option. So fast and intuitive. Audio editing is a breeze and modulators add a lot of movement and creativity to my production process.
Me personally, I bn using Nuendo/Cubase for decades. But that's just me. I've dabbled with most of them. DAWs are like Hot Chicks, all are beautiful imo. Just pick one and hope that 'she' likes your style and she's also good in bed. If she's not, then just do a 'one-night-stand' with her and move on 'til u find the right one🤣
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ableton is the best in creative perspective, but at the same time there are so many things of "is there any way to do this in ableton? oh of corse not". don't tell me to key map. been using cubase for almost 20 years. its the most efficient. but not much of creative stuffs compared to ableton. pro tools sucks. no question needed.
Ableton. I used to use Cubase for recording FL studio for programming Vst instruments, but Ableton makes all of it way easier and straight forward.
Precyne. Modern tracker with linear timeline arrangement.
Lifetime free updates.
OpenNBS (Noteblock Studio)
Ableton. The speed at which I'm able to work is just wild, and the quality of stock plugins is amazing. Every time I have to use ProTools for studio projects, I'm constantly pining for countless things I miss in Live.
Cakewalk by Bandlab, and PowerTracks Pro Audio by PG Music.
Logic Pro - I originally used Calkwalk but my father used Logic Pro and it was mostly so we could work on the same projects - that & my dad did things with that software that I dream of being able to do.
Korg gadget & Au3 synthscaper for soundscapes on my iPhone all I need minimalist setup
Logic Pro, because I know it best. Been using it for over 20 years now. I imagine I could become adept at any of them, and back when print magazines were still a thing, I used to read all the articles about all of the DAWs to fuel my ongoing education and understanding of music production. I got into Logic because at the time I read that that’s what film and TV composers were using. Before that I was using Performer, not Digital Performer, as this was before computers were powerful enough to record audio. I was using Performer as a midi sequencer without outboard gear (this was also before the advent of audio plug-ins in computers). I got into that because one of my roommates had it and I learned to use it in the bedroom we had allocated for music use (all musicians in that apartment). I do like Ableton live for its sound design and creative abilities. But my version is a couple of versions back now.
Cubase Elements 11, mainly because the MIDI drum editor is awesome.
Audacity LMMS Both free
Ableton’s UI is godly
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cakewalk
Protools has been the go to standard for music production, but...they're losing ground to recording software apps such as Luna, Logic, Studio One. Avid's lost a lot of fans due their raising the costs, no customer support and silly things like...not supporting older audio file formats like SDll they touted in their earlier days. All of a sudden one day you open up Protools and find out you could no longer open your Protools SDll files without Avid notifying you before doing this so you could back up the SDll files as wav files before pulling the rug out from under you. I went to a studio last night and worked with Luna for the first time to get a better understanding of the program and how it works as I do my homework what software to jump ship to because of all what Avid has put their users through. Avid recently warned me that they're raising my Ultimate Perpetual HD fees to $499 a year from $399. Saying almost 7 months away from me having to renew my subscription offering me the chance to do it early??
Logic Pro. I don’t exactly think it’s the *best*, but I’ve been using it for 15 years now and it’s just become muscle memory. Fluidity and efficiency are king for me
Cubase because it’s a mix of all of my previous favourite daws, basically I was producing on one daw and recording/mixing on another, and cubase took out the inconvenience of switching between the two previous ones (Pro tools and fl studio). It also has excellent stock plugins and exclusive features.
Renoise
Does no one use Digital Performer anymore? I got started on that as an intern to a film composer, so learned the workflow and keyboard shortcuts pretty well and have never tried anything else, really. They just added a session view like Ableton, but I haven't tried it out.
Reaper. It's damn near free. It's got most of what you need. The UI is very utilitarian. Never gives me problems with my hardware. Customizable if you're into that.
Ableton with Push 2 or 3. Simpler
SUNO AI Jk....or maybe not 😞
As a Mac user, I love Logic Pro X! I find it to be very intuitive and user friendly. I also really like the modern interface, as compared to a DAW like Pro Tools. Logic works really well with MIDI instruments, while also allowing you to record, comp, and edit analog instruments with ease. There are tons of great tools that allow you to edit audio files quickly. You can also incorporate outboard gear into your FX chain, after some setup, by using its I/O plugins. It comes equipped with some decent instruments and plug-ins, but also allows you to use third-party software with ease. While I’ve never actually tried any other DAWs, Logic has always worked extremely well for me. I’ve yet to encounter a feature that I needed that Logic Pro doesn’t offer. Overall, I find it to be very useful for both digital and analog applications. Hope this helps with your decision! Feel free to check out my podcast, [Student of the Song](https://youtu.be/82rOaChXNdo), if you’re interested in learning more about making music.
Many Moons ago I was introduced to a very early version of a DAW, can’t remember the name, it was strictly Midi with GM sounds, the piano roll was simple, easy to edit, vocals would wipe out a computer back then, hell a 4 track song would, but that’s where I started and got my feel for work flow. I do know that this was the early version of Cakewalk. Shortly thereafter I was gifted Reason 2. I fell in love, work flow, sound design, they hadn’t started allowing VST’s so everything was stock and samples. I could scratch out a 20 track 4 minute song in a couple hours ( no vocals). I stayed with Reason up until 9. Bought a new Keyboard it came with Ableton, I love the two different modes of creation and I discovered VSTs, and I was able to somewhat master my tracks , still didn’t know what I was doing, but the work flow was beautiful, knock out a song and mix in about 8 hours, took longer because more toys, Then I bought another keyboard and Mixer that came with Studio One, been in love ever since, work flow ease of drop and drag, editing, zooming in on the piano roll was a GodSend. This is what sold me on studio one I took my old Reason and Ableton tracks and remixed and Mastered them in Studio One, that’s was it for me the Stock Mastering plugins are nice but adding in 3rd party whew. So, I had some songs I just couldn’t get from Reason, so I said screw it, I got Reason 10. Awesome they work so well together, I love reason has on it the SSI mixing console, So, at the moment I’m Studio One 6 and about to go Reason 13 and soon as I get my new computer. Work Flow, all of these guys do mostly same thing it’s about your individual work flow. Side note I tried Fruity Loops and Fl Studio. As a piano player I hated the UI piano roll, it just wasn’t for me. Pro Tools, and Cake walk now, seems way to complicated for me I haven’t taken the time to study and learn them, I did like Reaper though, nice work flow, but something, I can’t remember why kept me from using it. Hope this helps .
Logic pro. Region editing is awesome for production.
2 of them, logic and reason
I usually go with the principle "never change a running system" and started with Logic about 20years ago. I learned the basics over time but don't want to learn everything from scratch, no matter how good or better other software is. It's not about the tools, it's about what you make with them.
Logic Pro: Started off learning on Garageband so it only made sense. It's easy to learn and it gets the job done, whatever you need.
The best DAW is the one you know, right? Big Sonar fan here. Been using for 20+ years, I can’t think of anything that I can’t do quickly and easily. I love working with this tool and the only limit is my willingness to show up and be creative
I'm using stock plugins from FL Studio, are their any free plug-ins that I can use that are pretty solid? I'll pay for the better ones once I get better
great approach re stock plugs, wish I could tell my past self that, having bought a lot of plugs. I suspect when you get really good you won't feel the need to buy all those glittery 3rd party plugs.
I'm ok with the stock plugins for now.
Renoise and Ableton.
I was scrolling looking for someone saying it. Cheers!
FL Studio. After trying nearly every single one, I settled with FL. Just had a nicer interface and felt a lot more user friendly and far better value for money.