What DAW do you use?

[budda]

Logic pro. No complaints - lots of youtube tutorials and the user manual seems pretty good. Coming from garageband I was up and running quick, and now learning how to do more.

 

[4Eyes]

long time reaper user

 

[RevDrucifer]

Logic and I don’t see myself changing.

I went from the old Tascam 4-tracks to a 90’s era “pro level” Tascam 688 8-track then onto Pro Tools in the early 00’s, used Sonar 7 for a few years, back to Pro Tools, then I swore of Windows/PC’s for the rest of my life.

Had a period I didn’t record for a while and got a MacBook, started dicking around with GarageBand and it was working for what I needed. Then I decided I was quitting the band thing and wanted to teach myself how to record, bought a MacBook used that was loaded with Logic and every damn plug-in available (most likely all hacked).

Logic was a breeze coming from both GarageBand and Pro Tools. There’s so much I didn’t even need to look up and it rarely pisses me off, which is the biggest bonus! My *only* gripe is Auto-Punch turning on by itself without me realizing it. I wish you could completely disable that feature entirely, the fact that it turns on by itself is fucking ridiculous. I’ve almost broken my keyboard dealing due to that turning on without me realizing it and then fucking up a take because it starts recording at the wrong spot.

 

[GunpointMetal]

Reaper. I started way back forever ago with Cool Edit Pro, moved to Cubase, learned Pro Tools (FUCK Pro Tools) in school, and then started with Reaper after audio engineering school because Pro Tools was stupid expensive (and still required you use their hardware at the time) and have been on Reaper ever since. I haven't found anything I need to do that I can't do, the native plugins aren't anything to look at but they are all easy to understand, easy to use, and more than capable (even if they don't have any "flavor"), and it runs super light on its own. There's also the plethora of available user scripts and free plugins via ReaPack, a plethora of freely-available skins and layouts and hot keys, so you really can customize it as much as you'd like. I've actually bought it twice through a few versions after using it free for years (you get two full number upgrades with one license, but you can technically use it for free forever, but why not pay $60 for something as awesome). It's definitely not as modern feeling/looking as Studio One and you don't get any samples or instruments built-in, but the money you save not having to buy the Pro version of a different software can be spent on plugins you want. If I wanted to pay a bunch of money for a DAW Studio One would probably be what I would use. I've been thinking about trying to get back into more audio work, so I'll probably have to buy a Pro Tools license just to say I have it, then dump everything into Reaper to work on it anyways, lol.

 

[eclecto-acoustic]

(FUCK Pro Tools)

Quoted for truth. What I didn't say originally was that Pro Tools was my first DAW, and I got it because I, like so many others, heard that it was the industry standard. I spent months trying to get it to work, and I'm a fairly computer-literate person. I satisfied every compatibility recommendation they could throw at me and had hardware that well exceeded the recommended spec.

It wouldn't even start.

I finally looked for an alternative and found Reaper. From the moment it was installed, I was recording my guitar inside of 5 minutes without any manuals or tutorials or stupid fucking compatibility tweaks.

At this point, I'm convinced that the only reason Pro Tools remains an industry standard is tradition. Any time someone goes off about special things they can do quickly in PT, it becomes apparent that it's more a product of being used to the ecosystem. The reality is that almost any DAW today is so powerful that the number of true power users is vanishingly small, and they are all highly capable.

But yeah. Fuck Pro Tools.

 

[BMFan30]

Imagine having a multitrack looper where you could arrange dozens of parts across every instrument and shuffle them around like puzzle pieces.

That actually sounds ideal, I would love that.

You COULD do something like that in the timeline, but it'd take you way longer and you'd spend half of your time scrolling around trying to find tracks. Recording multiple takes using standard timeline looping functions wasn't meant to accomplish what clip launching does. Ableton Live has a rep for being an electronic music producer's DAW, and it certainly has a huge amount of tools for that crowd, but clip launching is a seriously legit way to scratch out song ideas. Now Logic has similar functionality, and you can buy an add-on for Reaper, but I've never tried it.

Can you bring up a video of this happening for me? I'm very intrigued because I've never considered Ableton for live use before for the same reasons you just stated.

 

[GunpointMetal]

At this point, I'm convinced that the only reason Pro Tools remains an industry standard is tradition. Any time someone goes off about special things they can do quickly in PT, it becomes apparent that it's more a product of being used to the ecosystem.

I've lost more time on projects due to someone having PT issues (and Mac computer issues, but that's for another thread) than any other reason I can think of other than a musician being unprepared. My bass player is a PT/Logic guy and I was showing him all the shit that comes in ReaPack for free, along with the all the marker scripts we use in our live set, customized actions, etc and he was blown away that all that functionality was in a $60 piece of software. I do think the stock UI turns a lot of people off, but it's no worse than Pro Tools and infinitely more customizable.

 

[budda]

I've lost more time on projects due to someone having PT issues (and Mac computer issues, but that's for another thread) than any other reason I can think of other than a musician being unprepared. My bass player is a PT/Logic guy and I was showing him all the shit that comes in ReaPack for free, along with the all the marker scripts we use in our live set, customized actions, etc and he was blown away that all that functionality was in a $60 piece of software. I do think the stock UI turns a lot of people off, but it's no worse than Pro Tools and infinitely more customizable.

For me, the difference between Reaper and GB/Logic is that in GB/Logic, I actually got recording done, with a sound I felt acceptable. I never got there with Reaper.

 

[sakeido]

I've used Cubase for almost 15 years now but like it less and less and less all the time

So expensive, super feature bloated now.. packed with crap I never use. Performance isn't very good even on a top end PC. Sometimes I'll start it and wait 5 minutes for it to load a project (off an M2 SSD drive no less) only for it to refuse to output audio, requiring a full restart & reload. Even at high buffers in a complex project, changing certain settings in plugins such as Ozone will make it drop out and crash. Which maybe is more Ozone's fault than Cubase's because it's a poorly coded, unoptimized, POS resource hog which has gotten super bloated as well... but still I expect my DAW to be able to handle trash plugins. All this on a purpose built DAW computer with 8 cores/16 threads, 32GB RAM, 4TB of M.2 SSD space, good cooling, all the rest.

I'd recommend literally anything else. That said, I hate Reaper.. they basically give it away for a reason. It sucks. The workflow makes no sense to me whatsoever and I can't stand to look at it. Studio One, Logic or even Ableton would be my recommendations.

 

[GunpointMetal]

For me, the difference between Reaper and GB/Logic is that in GB/Logic, I actually got recording done, with a sound I felt acceptable. I never got there with Reaper.

DAWs don't sound different unless you're processing things differently. There's been like a million comparison videos and null tests.

 

[GunpointMetal]

That said, I hate Reaper.. they basically give it away for a reason. It sucks. The workflow makes no sense to me whatsoever and I can't stand to look at it. Studio One, Logic or even Ableton would be my recommendations.

I can definitely see this opinion if you like the Cubase workflow, they're almost polar opposites. I had to jump back in Cubase last year to help someone figure out how to to gradual tempo changes and I wanted to pull my balls off after five minutes because it was so different I couldn't find anything. Turns out you can't import a timeline with a linear gradual tempo change, it has to make it little tiny steps, which fucks up the MIDI/Audio lining up.

 

[sakeido]

I can definitely see this opinion if you like the Cubase workflow, they're almost polar opposites. I had to jump back in Cubase last year to help someone figure out how to to gradual tempo changes and I wanted to pull my balls off after five minutes because it was so different I couldn't find anything. Turns out you can't import a timeline with a linear gradual tempo change, it has to make it little tiny steps, which fucks up the MIDI/Audio lining up.

there is a way! In Cubase 10.5 at leats. ctrl+T to bring up the tempo track, change the setting at the top where it says "Type of New Tempo Points" and change from Jump to Ramp.

Intuitive? Fuck no... I swear their UI decisions are made by Germans hopped up on Chechen meth.

They really need to just ditch Cubase. It's 32 years old now... the Windows of DAWs. They keep tacking on more and more features without ever stopping to ask if a DAW really needs that junk. IMO they almost gotta start over from a clean sheet, with all the different functionality broken into modules. Scoring module, tracking module, mixing module, something, anything to try and get performance back and organize the UI better.

 

[nickgray]

That said, I hate Reaper.. they basically give it away for a reason. It sucks. The workflow makes no sense to me whatsoever

Reaper's strength is in it's ability to customize it. If you're just using stock Reaper with default settings and hotkeys - yeah, it's not a pretty thing, unless it just so happens that it gels with you.

You should create custom toolbars, hunt the action list for useful stuff and remap the hotkeys, customize the mouse modifiers, and also look at user-made scripts. Sounds like a pain in the ass, but the more you tweak it to work like you want to - the less you'll mess with it. Other DAWs might be easier to learn or they might be more streamlined, but you have to adapt to the way the DAW wants you to use it way, way more than in Reaper. I think the polar opposite is Ableton Live - you get fuck all customizability and it reeks of Apple's "my way or the highway" workflow style. It's very simple to learn though (but not even remotely intuitive).

 

[BMFan30]

Reaper. I started way back forever ago with Cool Edit Pro, moved to Cubase, learned Pro Tools (FUCK Pro Tools) in school, and then started with Reaper after audio engineering school because Pro Tools was stupid expensive (and still required you use their hardware at the time) and have been on Reaper ever since. I haven't found anything I need to do that I can't do, the native plugins aren't anything to look at but they are all easy to understand, easy to use, and more than capable (even if they don't have any "flavor"), and it runs super light on its own. There's also the plethora of available user scripts and free plugins via ReaPack, a plethora of freely-available skins and layouts and hot keys, so you really can customize it as much as you'd like. I've actually bought it twice through a few versions after using it free for years (you get two full number upgrades with one license, but you can technically use it for free forever, but why not pay $60 for something as awesome). It's definitely not as modern feeling/looking as Studio One and you don't get any samples or instruments built-in, but the money you save not having to buy the Pro version of a different software can be spent on plugins you want. If I wanted to pay a bunch of money for a DAW Studio One would probably be what I would use. I've been thinking about trying to get back into more audio work, so I'll probably have to buy a Pro Tools license just to say I have it, then dump everything into Reaper to work on it anyways, lol.

Thanks for the in depth reply. I actually don't need any built in samples or anything fancy because I have my own sample library or 3rd party software for drums like BFD3. It's actually more attractive to me to have a DAW not want to bloat your computer with stuff you won't even use to begin with.

I forgot I can download the ReaPack plugins to use in my DAW too. I should do that actually. Reaper is starting to sound like something I do want around so I will definitely be demoing it. You all have me interested to try it.

 

[BMFan30]

At this point, I'm convinced that the only reason Pro Tools remains an industry standard is tradition. Any time someone goes off about special things they can do quickly in PT, it becomes apparent that it's more a product of being used to the ecosystem. The reality is that almost any DAW today is so powerful that the number of true power users is vanishingly small, and they are all highly capable.

But yeah. Fuck Pro Tools.

I felt like that about them over 10 years ago and obviously most still feel like that today. I hated their AAX model that locked you out of their format to use plugins. I'm glad that Steinberg didn't do that with VST. That would have been a disaster and a half on top of what Pro Tools decided to do with their gate keeping attempt. VST's only got even better with VST3.

 

[BMFan30]

I've used Cubase for almost 15 years now but like it less and less and less all the time

So expensive, super feature bloated now.. packed with crap I never use.

The pricing of each update getting higher if you miss an update turns me off from Cubase when I actually consider going back to it after over 10 years but I don't want to keep paying out the ass to get a recording done. Otherwise I think Cubase is pretty great.

Performance isn't very good even on a top end PC.

This scares me even more.

Even at high buffers in a complex project, changing certain settings in plugins such as Ozone will make it drop out and crash. Which maybe is more Ozone's fault than Cubase's because it's a poorly coded, unoptimized, POS resource hog which has gotten super bloated as well... but still I expect my DAW to be able to handle trash plugins. All this on a purpose built DAW computer with 8 cores/16 threads, 32GB RAM, 4TB of M.2 SSD space, good cooling, all the rest.

To be fair not all plugins will behave correctly on all DAWs, this just flat out sucks but it's a fact.

I'd recommend literally anything else. That said, I hate Reaper.. they basically give it away for a reason. It sucks. The workflow makes no sense to me whatsoever and I can't stand to look at it. Studio One, Logic or even Ableton would be my recommendations.

I tried it in 2007 but I didn't really know what I was doing so I didn't give it that much of a fair shot but it did seem confusing to me then. Maybe this will be different this time when I try it.

 

[buriedoutback]

Reaper. I've used cubase and audition and garage band in the past, and reaper (IMO) kills them all. price and customizability and AFAIK it's no less powerful than anything else out there.

if you need help with something, check out Reaper Mania on youtube (Kenny Gioia's channel) and all shall be revealed to you!!

 

[ZXIIIT]

Logic Pro X. Use it for all recording, streaming and live patch automation as it gets easier with every update, plus being knee-deep in the Mac ecosystem thing .

Dabbled with Garageband (backing tracks) and Reaper (backing tracks and patch automation) a bit on laptops for shows, since they were easily available and worked well, aside from the massive configuration chain to get Reaper to automate patches.

 

[budda]

DAWs don't sound different unless you're processing things differently. There's been like a million comparison videos and null tests.

The layout in Reaper never clicked for me. First time I opened GB, I felt like I had more of a handle on things and was able to get stuff done.

 

[Dayn]

Ableton. I had the Lite version with my audio interface and I got a good deal on the Suite version, so I went with that.