Need advice on DAW purchase please!!

[mlancaster1]

ok so I am now a mac user but still use pc for whatever I need it for. I have been dickin around with garageband but I want to upgrade. Was thinking logic 9 but now I am trying to hear everyones opinions on it. I was thinking protools 10, cubase, or reaper other than logic. The reason why I was thinking logic is because I heard it works great and I have heard all the virtual instruments that come with it and I really love all the synths and spacious sounds and effects. The only thing that is a turn off is I can't run it on my windows laptop or send song files to pc users, unless I change the format of the file. I was also reading about reaper but was wondering if there are a lot of good virtual instruments in the program and how easy it is to use. If anyone can shed some light I would appreciate it greatly. Thanks

 

[KingAenarion]

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/re...-recording-guitars-bass-home.html#post2875695

I wrote a post in that about a lot of the DAWs and their strengths and weaknesses.

I am a big fan of Presonus Studio One.
Works really well on both Mac and PC.
Has wicked instruments and is really easy to use

Pro Tools is great, but sometimes makes me want to punch things. I know how good logic is, but I can't stand it personally.

Also, Reaper has next to no instruments inbuilt

 

[Seamless]

I am, personally, all about FL Studio as my DAW. But whether or not I recommend its use to you is about the scale to which you want to record.

For example: if you were to only record one or two inputs at a time, DI guitar and bass and what not, then FL is awesome for you. It's PC based, they are working on a MAC version too. It comes with quite the impressive arsenal of plugins and effects. As well, its third party support is pretty good, it can even handle 64 bit plugins effectively.

Another example: Full band recording. Run away, run away right now. FL's one weakness is that it will never actually be a 64 bit DAW. They get around this with fancy bridging and disk streaming, but if you're going to record alot of raw inputs, you're going to have to cut your sessions real short.

Reaper, indeed, has basically nothing in its effects and plugins arsenal. But it's still a host, and VSTs are still a thing, so really that shouldn't be a huge isssue.

Also, if you buy FL Studio, you get every future version of it for free. Not true for most other DAWs.

 

[rahul_mukerji]

I guess the budget also makes a difference in your choice of DAW.

I use Cakewalk Sonar (I used to use Sony Acid years back and then moved to Sonar). Its a great DAW for my needs. Lots of tracks, multi-processor handling, 64-bit if required and the Plugins are great with the DAW. Plus a lot of the free VSTi's I find work well without crashing it. I run it on Win XP without issues so far.

You should definitely see what's important for you: MIDI support, Multiple Tracking, Added plugins and budget. There are a lot of great DAW's out there each with some benefits and drawbacks.

Here are the ones I would check out

• Presonus Studio
• Cubase
• Sonar
• Digital Performer [mac]
• Reaper
• Ardour [free, linux]
• LMMS [free, linux]

On a side note, I have a friend who uses Ubuntu-Studio (or was it 64Studio ) to make all his music. And its not too shabby !

 

[mlancaster1]

I am basically just doing production recording using superior drummer and doing doing guitar, bass, and vocals through a processor. I am looking for something that has good amount of virtual instruments. Thats why I was looking into logic for a little while but for some reason I havn't taken the plunge and I think I might go else where. I am thinking of possibly presonus or cubase.

 

[keshav]

Cubase 6 or Pro Tools 10. I'd lean slightly towards the latter.

 

[Winspear]

I wouldn't suggest ProTools (read Kings post). Doesn't include many virtual instruments either (good ones, at least). Not too MIDI friendly. When you say a processor, perhaps you mean VST amp sims. ProTools doesn't support VST's without the use of a 3rd party wrapper from FXPansion.

Unless you yourself know a reason you want to use PT (generally meaning you're going into the industry/collaborating with other industry users), I'd stay away from it.