Three Top DAW's

[clanmorgan]

Picking your DAW is almost like picking your beer. There are so many options to choose from and its best to try them all ! My preferred DAW is Digital Performer on the MAC just because it does all the things that I want and suits the way I "think". I come from the "old" school where you actually had to write down your db settings for each track so that when you work on a tune you can reset everything. The old racks of hardware now replaced with an 'analog' style board with full automation. Now I get the best of both worlds. The old ADAT's and Mackie boards still come in handy when I dusk off the archived material.... but for me Digital Performer has been wonderful.

[timmcallister]

I don't see enough requirements from you horacejesse to really recommend any DAW.Do you work with MIDI? Audio? Loops? How do you want to work? How do you construct songs? Are you intending to open a studio open to the public? Who do you record? what do you record?A few comments on some of the suggestions that I have personally used. Pro Tools - proprietary hardware, was/is "big guy" standard, but that doesn't mean much to you unless you are opening a studio to the public. I used it for 5 years. I wouldn't go back to it.Sonar - Ehh.. Everyone is going to have their own opinion. I used Sonar for a few years and finally got sick of the company due to problems with VSTs, UAD-1 incompatibility and expensive upgrades.Reaper - I think mentioned one time. People either love or hate this one. It may suit you VERY well but I don't know enough about your needs. Rock solid with UAD-1 and provides me all the MIDI support I personally need. I would personally pick this over Sonar any day of the week.Missing completely from this conversation is Ableton Live. For me, this is hands down the creativity champion, and where I spend most of my time now. I can get more ideas down with this tool than anything else by a large factor. But if you are recording folk groups in your living room, I would not recommend it.None of these are the best for everyone. Everyone of them has a few flaws. Buying a DAW is VERY personal. GOOD LUCK!

[heinsite]

ok, i'm going to delve into this and ask stupid stuff--i'm recording now on my boss 1600, which is it's own beast. i am a very very very NON TECHIE person, so what would be the easiest thing to switch to without taking a month of my damned creative time to learn? again, i am dense in this area. this traction thing sounds good, i've of course heard of protools, and was considering it. what course would you recommend to a beginning, who does mostly rough home demos, but needs that pro sounding stuff/gadgets to HELP me sound like you guys more.glad i got on here, this started what 6 months ago? but see it's still alive,love, peace and help,warren

[mojobone]

Yes, Ableton Live and Fruityloops are great for loop-based composition; I think Ableton Live has an edge in the flexibility department and has a greater variety of VST instruments. Sonar has excellent mastering tools and very flexible methods for adjusting phrasing and tempo.I think there's a consensus among those who've tried several DAWs that Tracktion is among the easiest to learn. If you can operate an analog mixer, there aren't too many more concepts you'll need to wrap your mind around in order to get started with it. It may be a bit bumpy at the moment if you're on a Mac, though.

[timmcallister]

Jul 16, 2008, 5:44pm, heinsite wrote:i am a very very very NON TECHIE person, so what would be the easiest thing to switch to without taking a month of my damned creative time to learn? again, i am dense in this area. this traction thing sounds good, i've of course heard of protools, and was considering it. what course would you recommend to a beginning, Based on your statement you are using hardware device (Boss 1600) you might find it easiest to use a "linear" DAW. Protools, Traction, Sonar, Reaper and others operate in this manner. Ableton Live is a completely different animal. And that can be good or bad depending on what YOU want. In a nutshell, Live's session view is set up to allow you to write one or multiple versions of the verse, chorus, bridge, intro, etc, etc and then "string them together" anyway you want while the song is playing. For ME, this works best as it is how I write songs with a band. That is, as the band is playing the song, you can call out what part to go to next and try stuff out. But better yet, ableton is set up to easily record stuff as you are jumping around. Sure, you can rearrange stuff in a "linear" DAW; essentially, you copy and paste stuff around. I assume your Boss can do this as well. But you can't do it on the fly.In todays age, I believe (if you will be recording yourself) learning your DAW is just like learning another instrument. If you put some time into it, it will serve you well, and if you stick with a DAW, you kinda know it, so after the learning curve, you'll just stay productive.Jul 16, 2008, 5:44pm, heinsite wrote:who does mostly rough home demos, but needs that pro sounding stuff/gadgets to HELP me sound like you guys more.The truth is, there is little difference in SONIC quality between DAWs. It's really that last 2% thing, meaning about any "pro" DAW will sound 98% as good as the very best. And "the very best", whatever that happens to be, is debatable.What WILL make a difference in sound quality are the plug-ins used to process the audio you recorded. And sorry to say, this is where you have a real learning curve if you want to become proficient. We can argue plug-in's to death, oh my... UAD, Duende, Sonalksis and Waves commonly acknowledged as being on top, but there are others. Ugghh. Now I opened a whole can of worms.Ya know what, the Boss 1600 is a decent piece of gear. It's more than Bruce Springsteen used to record Nebraska. Its more than the Beatles used to record Sgt Peppers.Yeah - I've totally changed my mind. Save your self the headaches of a computer. Stick with your Boss.

[milfus]

I dunno, it comes down to precision and work flow as well, honestly, and I don't mean anything condescending or to imply anything, but most other daws, at least to me, dont set up nearly as easy, I once took a song from start to finish, like empty project, to mastered, not counting a day long break to finalize (I didn't end up tweaking though, so technically it was allready finished) in 10 minutes, just because pt was made to rock like that, now could I have done it in sonar or ableton or reason, sure, would it have taken 10 minutes? no way in hell, I just think the editing, and all the synchs, and variable zooms and the extra functions on pro-tools, once mastered, can increase your production speed almost exponentially over other DAW's, now to some, this isn't even a concern, but if you charge by the hour mixing, and you average 1-2 hours less than the other guy, at the same quality, who you think they are gonna come to. It really comes down to aspiration, if you are hoping to end up in a pro studio mixing for a living, or to do your own mixing in a big boy studio, pt is the way to go, if you are cool with broadcast quality for listings and you are still building up to moves and stuff, you can probably skate on something else without really feeling a bite from it. although, I have to say, pro-tools is a HELL of a lot more portable, just because you can link to a studio session, from home, and co-mix without leaving the house, I have done this, after I got over my faders moving on there own, and actually seeing it humanized, which took like 5 minutes, it was crazy productive, you can even just record enable a track with an input to your side, and talk directly into the studio, have them run to themore expensive out board effects and stuff. I am really amazed this doesn't go on more, it is REALLY handy, esspescially if you are teaching someone to mix. honestly tho slide, if you mix to standard and use your trims and stuff though, the engineer wont have to redo much of anything unless there is major collisions, cause he can just use the trim on the new plug-in, which is like..... 2 seconds worth of work. I never needed a ref track of the effects either, they could just tell me, oh yeah I had a reverb on there, it was kinda big and boomy, "sec, like this?" little smaller "this?" yeah. the problem with rendering out to wav's and what not, is all DAW's have there own compressors and dithering and can color the audio, that and most people don't under stand bit rates/depths and either take up enormous amounts of room on disks that all have to be imported (the time it takes can add up for an album, trust me) or are of sub par quality, I noticed that alot from like sonar and cubase users, just because I mean, they arent engineers, they see a list of numbers, go with the defaults, and cubase in particular had that &*@#^*(&!*@!&*^$! compressor, I am not sure if it still does, on mix downs and exports, so I would have to expand the track (hopefully) and hope it didnt smear artifacts everywhere. I think if you are going to work regularly with a studio, it is much much easier on an engineer to use pt, and have him just replace your effects, and tweak balances (a 15 minute job in most cases, including the discussion time) than to have him re lay the tracks and mix from scratch, fix bad edits off the raws, and undo any inadvertant bad processing (can take an hour or two depending on severity), but that is purely going off how easy it is, and you know, time is money in a studio. but then again, I may have a chip on my shoulder from the 50th jack ass questioning my ability because I couldn't magicly fix his vocal which is clipping every 3 seconds cause he stuck a compressor on it and pumped it into red line.that being said though, if you don't see yourself working with a big studio/mixing engineer any time soon, then it really doesnt matter as long as your tracks come out soundin clean. and not to sound pro-tools biased completely, if it was an all sonar studio, I would suggest doing the same thing in sonar, you just want to match whats in there to cut down on processing time, its cheaper for you, and it saves the engineer from having to waste a bunch of time getting to 0.

[frodo]

Jul 16, 2008, 11:06pm, milfus wrote:...but then again, I may have a chip on my shoulder from the 50th jack ass questioning my ability because I couldn't magicly fix his vocal which is clipping every 3 seconds cause he stuck a compressor on it and pumped it into red line....Well milfus, - I've read great things about Izotope RX - if you really often run into the situation with tracks with clips and unhappy customers, you might want to look into it.From the reviews it looks like it can do those magic things with clipping and stuff.I don't have it myself, yet, however - I sometimes have a need for software like this, and I consider buying it.- until next timefrodoEdit; Disclaimer: No affiliation with the company or product mentioned

[billg]

I did a quick check of most all of the DAWs mentioned a couple of years ago when I was trying to figure out how I was going to do this recording thing "on my own." I had been used to a band, a real engineer, in a real analog studio with top notch gear. I'll be honest, I chose Tracktion for it's simplicity. Since then I've had users of other DAWs (mostly PT) come over now & then to record a track for something, have me sing backup, play bass etc., or friends just to goof off a bit. Although these folks are PT deciples they are always amazed with Tracktion . . . IN FACT a few weeks ago a buddy was in town & wanted me to record an awesome local harp player for something (a fairly well know artist) that he was recording in his PT studio in New York. Anyway, long story short, he left loving Tracktion & has now another DAW running it in his studio. Some of the DAWs get a bargain basement identity I think because they are inexpensive & or folks who haven't tried them make an assumption. I haven't met anyone (yet) that has experience on a bunch of systems that hasn't really like Tracktion for it's power, capbilities, & ease of use. damn, I sound like a commercial.

[heinsite]

commercial on billg, and thank you ALL--damn, got to look into this now. the simplicity thing and what seems to be a bargain price and quality might be just what i need to start with. thanks again. and the statement about staying with boss might be right on as well--you see, i still don't have a clue how to use all the stuff in there, and don't use so much of it, after 3 years!! the friggin' manual leaves out certain steps to stuff, i have to call them (roland very helpful to me by the way), but it's ME not being patient enough. i'll consider all you guys have said, glad i stumbled on this thread.THANKS AGAIN,warren

[mojobone]

The best thing about Tracktion might just be the manual. Complex interfaces and layers of menus are the number one complaint about hardware DAWs, but manuals written in Japanese and translated by engineers should run a close second. I think you'll find you get a lot more done when you kiss "virtual tracks" goodbye and can finally see what you're working on. MHO.Ableton's the cat's pajamas for remixing. I'm working on using it for solo gigs, remixing and juggling beats with live guitars and whatnot.Cool thing about their demo, the only thing locked out is "save", so you could actually do a DJ set with it without buying the program; smart move on their part, it's really addictive for loopmeisters.Just downloaded iZotope Rx demo last week, haven't tried it yet.