What DAW do you use?

[BMFan30]

Just get cakewalk by bandlab. It's free, constantly updated and awesome. full featured, intuitive and cosmetically customizable. Even if you decide to go with another DAW, there's no reason not to install it. I'm surprised I don't see it brought up more often... This program used to be called Sonar platinum and used to cost 500 bucks haha

I never really considered it to be honest, I've not met anyone that really used it before so I don't know much about it but you do have as point about it being free when I remember Sonar used to be pretty expensive back in the day.

 

[thebeesknees22]

just FYI on the logical editor in cubase, if you aren't used to working with expressions it can be super weird at first. But once you get it it's really powerful.

I do find that variaudio works pretty well in Cubase. I haven't used melodyne yet, but it has similar features. If you do go with Studio one, you'll have to upgrade melodyne to get the full feature set which will put in close to on par with how much Cubase costs tbh. Melodyne's full version ain't cheap, but if you wait for BF sales or something you can probably upgrade it for a good price.

If you're not working with vocals then it probably won't matter much though.

Melodyne is polyphonic though and variaudio is monophonic (for now). Anywho, variaudio's been pretty nice since I haven't had any polyphonic needs yet. Every now and then I have a spot that pops or goes into robot voice territory that's hard to get rid of though. Melodyne is definitely more of a standard for vocal editing though for transparent tuning.

If i were to do it over again, I think I would give Studio one a good trial run with a demo version before deciding between Cubase and that. I may actually just download it when I get some free time to play with it now that I've been watching videos on it. I'm pretty curious now.

 

[BMFan30]

If i were to do it over again, I think I would give Studio one a good trial run with a demo version before deciding between Cubase and that. I may actually just download it when I get some free time to play with it now that I've been watching videos on it. I'm pretty curious now.

I hear that Studio One & Cubase actually have similar workflows and approaches to making music because Presonus has some Steinberg employees helping develop it. I just can't justify the price of Cubase in the long run, although it looks great.

 

[Dushan S]

Not that it matters that much but I was still curious on which DAW you use to write metal and why? I tried searching but didn't turn up any results other than an error.

All major DAWs are great it just depends what works for you. Some people may have strong opinions based on their personal experiences but one person may have problems with DAW A, and move to DAW B because of it, but another may have issues with the same DAW B that works flawless for another person.
Reaper is cheapest option, and works great. There are some things I personally strongly disliked, like the way the plugins are handled.
Logic is not that expensive and is natural choice if you are using mac.
I use Cubase and it is actually not that expensive, I got the pro version for 250 bucks. There is a sale every year, one for updates and one for full versions. And you probably don't need Pro version, Artist will be just fine. I needed it because some of the people I had business with use it so it is easier to exchange projects, and I am kind of used to its interface. The problem is you can't try demo of Cubase unless you buy the hardware USB licencer, as far as I know. Also stay away if you have 4K monitor, Cubase still doesn't handle HoDPI in a good way.
You can also try Cakewalk, it will also do everything you need.

 

[thebeesknees22]

You also get Spectral layers when you buy cubase pro (similar to RX).

 

[DrakkarTyrannis]

I ended up with FL Studio because it was free....FL Studio is notorious for the amount of users who have it illegally. I originally got it because I knew nothing about DAWs and I was just trying some different ones to see what I liked. I tried Reaper and something else but I wasn't wowed or anything. FL Studio just kinda ended up being what I went with because I had all the VSTs and plugins the highest end FL version came with.

I stuck with FL..so much so that I bought the fully loaded version (which hurt me considering I pretty much had it for free..ugh. My poor wallet). All DAWs will pretty much get you where you wanna be. It just comes down to which one provides the best work flow for you.

 

[BMFan30]

All major DAWs are great it just depends what works for you. Some people may have strong opinions based on their personal experiences but one person may have problems with DAW A, and move to DAW B because of it, but another may have issues with the same DAW B that works flawless for another person.

This is also a reason why I'm curious to see if my workflow might be better suited for metal in another DAW or I will just realize staying with this was best with everything generally considered.

Reaper is cheapest option, and works great. There are some things I personally strongly disliked, like the way the plugins are handled.

What do you mean? Also, how do I get Reaper to scan another folder for my vst files since none of my VST's showed up, only my VST3's when it did the plugin autoscan.

I use Cubase and it is actually not that expensive, I got the pro version for 250 bucks. There is a sale every year, one for updates and one for full versions. And you probably don't need Pro version, Artist will be just fine. I needed it because some of the people I had business with use it so it is easier to exchange projects, and I am kind of used to its interface.

Everybody always praises the Cubase workflow. Whats the difference between Cubase Artist and Cubase Pro? What are the limiting factors?

The problem is you can't try demo of Cubase unless you buy the hardware USB licencer, as far as I know. Also stay away if you have 4K monitor, Cubase still doesn't handle HoDPI in a good way.

You actually have to buy a usb liscence stick to try a demo of it? haha Well, damn! How much is it then?
No issues on a 4k monitor, I probably won't see one of those for ages.

You also get Spectral layers when you buy cubase pro (similar to RX).

This looks extremely useful actually. Makes recognizing issues look like you don't even have to think to fix them at all.

 

[BMFan30]

What do you mean? Also, how do I get Reaper to scan another folder for my vst files since none of my VST's showed up, only my VST3's when it did the plugin autoscan.

@Dushan S I actually I just figured it out. You have to separate different VST paths by a semicolon ; in the same text window.

It was a lot simpler than I though, was just accidentally overlooking it.

 

[Guitarmiester]

I'm probably the oddball here running Reason. I tried most of the common DAWs before I ended up with Reason. It made the most sense and had a workflow I liked.

 

[DrakkarTyrannis]

I'm probably the oddball here running Reason. I tried most of the common DAWs before I ended up with Reason. It made the most sense and had a workflow I liked.

I originally wanted Reason

 

[KingAenarion]

I actually Lecture at University, and this is one of my key areas of discussion with students.

It doesn't matter at all, and everyone's workflow and mindset is different. I currently use 4 separate DAWs for different things, and that's because I find them all particularly fast workflows for their specific tasks, and I am all about professional speed. But you need to find the software that works best for you, demo them all and find the workflow that inspires you to get past fiddling and into creating usable or enjoyable products.

I personally use Pro Tools, Logic, Studio One, and Ableton at the moment (with Qlab, iZotope RX and a few other ancillary outside tools as well)

- Pro Tools is used in studio recording environments where I'm recording live instruments in a pro space. I know that the spaces will be configured to work with it. I also use it on projects where I need to do a lot of custom routing or complex MIDI routing. Generally albums get mixed in Tools for me, and film post-production work.

- I mostly teach Logic as it's a really good all-rounder for teaching principles of DAW operation, and its MIDI implementation is really good for scoring. It's also really excellent for Sound Design for Theatre and Film I find. As a related piece of Software, Mainstage is so freakin' good for keys live, especially when patches are MIDI triggered alongside amp modellers so no one has to change any of their patches.

- Studio One is used as my scratch pad for ideas, for songwriting, for pre-production and vocal production during albums, and for live recording from a desk. I find it super stable for that purpose.

- Ableton is used for anything with complex audio manipulation, so really generating sounds for sound design, synth work and song writing in electronic music styles, and for generating ideas. It's also obviously good live, but the live Version of Studio one is excellent too now.

- I also unrelated use Qlab for live backing track triggering, and it's dope.

 

[Achilleion]

I like Reaper for ease of use, you can stay a musician and not worry about having to become an engineer

 

[Crungy]

I switched to Reaper from Pro Tools 10 about a year ago and definitely will never go back. It's been a better experience for me and it keeps me far more productive. I spent more time googling random Pro Tools errors or tricks to get sessions to load and other bullshit more than making music. It was beyond frustrating.

Some of the Reaper pros off the top of my head: Editing has a better flow, adding new plugins/virtual instruments and loading of either is faster, I can use more plugins/VI's per session if I want with no issues, no random crashes or session file corruptions, bouncing songs down is faster... I know there's more!

The included Cockos plugins are decent too, especially ReaEQ. (I use that on everything!) All of my Waves stuff works without issue, and a JST amp sim that crashed in PT constantly now works totally fine.

Side note: I made no upgrades to my pc switching to Reaper and it works great. I thought I needed to scrap this one and buy a brand new system but thankfully I don't.

If you're curious about Reaper, go for it! It has a decent trial period and if you like it a personal license is $60. It's worth a lot more than that, plus you get a lot of free upgrades along the way.

 

[fantom]

Not that it matters that much but I was still curious on which DAW you use to write metal and why? I tried searching but didn't turn up any results other than an error.

I used Cakewalk from about Pro Audio 3 until Roland burned Sonar in a fire and then Bandlab attempted to fix it (aka, buy Sonar users for their social DAW), so a good 20-30 years. I probably dumped money into various upgrades every 5 years, most of the time to get bug fixes. Each version seemed to produce more bugs than it fixed after about Sonar 3. I was super optimisitc when Bandlab "came to the rescue". After a year or two, I realized that the fundamental bugs weren't being fixed, so I shopped around and gave up on Cakewalk.

I demoed Cubase, Reaper, and Studio One. This was about 2 years ago.

Reaper was an easy no. Despite all the praise it gets, I couldn't keep it running with a simple project for more than 20 minutes. I mean 3 di guitar tracks, 1 di bass track, programmed drums, and maybe 4 analog synth midi tracks. I had no problems with a track like this in Sonar. But somehow Reaper reliably crashed and lost all my work. I was too used to this crap in Sonar (on larger projects) that I decided it was not worth my time to try to figure out workarounds for problems. In other words, you get a better product with Cakewalk than Reaper, and Cakewalk is free now (used to be like $500).

Cubase was a pain in the butt to install. I didn't have the software for iLok installed, and that was killing all of their installers with no explanation. After a few hours, we figured it out on their forums. It ran ok from then on. Cubase's main strength over Studio One and Sonar is the midi editing. This is super useful if you want to program any drums or synth (orchestral and staff editing for sure) for metal.

I had zero problems installing or using Studio One on the first try. The drag and drop interface is extremely well thought out. Everything does what I expect (with the exception of izotope plugins not being named according to track names). At the time, the midi editing was worse, but they are slowly improving it. The staff editor is still crappy. However, the sequencer is better than the one in Sonar or Cubase.

The main reason Studio One took the cake (haha?) was how it buffers tracks. The biggest annoyance I had in Sonar was working on songs with like 20+ resource heavy VSTs. In order to prevent it from dropping audio, I needed to freeze every track I wasn't actively editing. This was error prone and time consuming. Studio One automatically chooses a different buffering strategy for armed tracks for lower latency. I've been able to run larger projects with no problems because all of the VSTs just go to a higher latency buffer and the armed track can still be super low buffer sizes. The idea is so obvious that I'm surprised it hasn't been copied yet.

So ya, if you just want to mix audio tracks and work with recording, you are better off trying Sonar (sorry, Cakewalk by Bandlab) and ignoring Reaper. It is pretty much the Sonar Producer license for free.

If you plan to use a staff editor and a lot of midi tracks, compare Cubase and Studio One and see which workflow is more productive for you.

If you just want a stable DAW, pick Studio One or maybe Cubase.

At the end of the day, working on songs should be fun. So if you demo each DAW and try to write or record, pick the one that you were able to do more in less time and not get frustrated or demotivated. A lot of the features in Studio One are targeting trial & error, arranging, and composing. Definitely try some of those out.

For me, the stability and workflow of Studio One was a no brainer. I don't regret switching from Cakewalk, even if it costs money to upgrade.

 

[Achilleion]

I've never had a crash with Reaper, but it goes to show, save your tracks

 

[FearTheDeer]

I use Logic. The comping is so straightforward and effortless. GUI makes sense to me. Great for working with midi, which is important to me because everything other than my guitar tracks are software instruments. And the included plugins are good enough that I haven’t felt the need to buy many third party ones (as far as processing goes at least, instruments are another story). I’m sure any other DAW can do all this just as well, but if you’re already on a Mac I feel like it’s hard to beat the “bang for the buck” factor at $200.

 

[Triple7]

I used to use Reaper, then I switched to ProTools...now I use Reaper.

 

[michael_bolton]

I only use DAW for occasional practice and recording some riffs/solos to share with the band I'm in or new bands when replying to musician ads. GarageBand does the trick for me.

With bias and neural dsp to get the toanz I need - don't have a compelling reason to switch to anything else.

 

[CanserDYI]

Reaper f'n rules. No idea why anyone would bother with anything else for the price reaper is.

 

[SamSam]

Logic. I won an iMac in a raffle that lasted me about 6 years so it was great value for me. I now have a new mac mini that I'm pretty happy with bar a few minor niggles.