Mark from Periphery used his wine JP7 for Ragnarok, which has a low F#. Granted he has a professional tech, but that's still a 25.5 inch neck. Not sure what string gauge he used though.
If $300 for a DAW is steep, just wait until you start wanting to buy plugins. But really, it's a matter of preference at this point. You have people who swear by Reaper. You have people who tell you that Pro Tools is the "industry standard". And so on. I chose Studio One because Keith Merrow...
So, after my mix of binz's snazzy track, I wanted to try something else. I found this on the UM Andy Sneap forum, saw that Sithu Aye played on it, and I had to try my hand at it. Pretty much everything was stock plugins other than an L1 clone on the Master bus...
@binz I took a whack at it. It's my first rock/metal mix and my first with vocals, so don't expect much XD
https://soundcloud.com/brendonmairs/beans-hide-away
Have you tried the FAS models? I was quite impressed when I tried them, especially the FAS 6160 and FAS Modern. The FAS Brootalz is really cool for low tuned stuff as well. Just watch your gain and don't be afraid to actually move knobs around.