best value DAW

[BigRedX]

If you buy second hand you can got a lot of Macintosh computer for very little money. 

My MacPro 2010 with 64GB RAM cost just £650 second hand.

It doesn't run the newest version of Logic Pro X but with a bit of lateral thinking I was able to get 10.4.8 installed which includes everything except the very latest updates.

[RachelNorthern]

It is worth asking what sort of music you would like to create and do you have a computer at the moment?

As an example: it would be no good recommending Logic or Garageband if you already had a PC as they're Mac only. Conversely, it would be no good recommending some of the Magix software if you had a Mac as most of their software is PC only.

[Al Krow]

Bumping this old but excellent thread 😊

 

Nice little article from Music Radar - pretty up to date (Sept 2023):

 

5 underrated DAWs that aren't Logic, Ableton or Pro Tools, and why you should consider switching | MusicRadar

[lowdown]

Mac only, but Luna is another DAW knocking around:

 

LUNA Digital Audio Workstation

[Happy Jack]

Reaper.

 

I say again, Reaper.

 

And thrice! Reaper!

 

[Cairobill]

Used to use Logic, dove very deep into Ableton and now use Luna (Mac only)  after it came bundled with a new UAD Apollo interface that was needed for it to work. 

Apparently it's now free and you can use it with or without an Apollo (you pay for it by upgrading the plugins etc). 

I love Luna, I'm mainly sequencing DAWless nowadays and use it as a great sounding tape machine with all the editing/mixing done afterwards. 

[lowdown]

5 hours ago, Cairobill said:

Used to use Logic, dove very deep into Ableton and now use Luna (Mac only)  after it came bundled with a new UAD Apollo interface that was needed for it to work. 

Apparently it's now free and you can use it with or without an Apollo (you pay for it by upgrading the plugins etc). 

I love Luna, I'm mainly sequencing DAWless nowadays and use it as a great sounding tape machine with all the editing/mixing done afterwards. 

  

I upload the link a couple of posts up. My oldest only opens up Logic for old projects since he got stuck into Luna.

In the end, he paid for the pro version to get the extra extensions after trying the free version. About £160 I think.

[BigRedX]

On 09/12/2023 at 13:12, Happy Jack said:

Reaper.

 

I say again, Reaper.

 

And thrice! Reaper!

 

You really can't argue with the price, but in the long run it only works out as good VfM if you don't need to do anything complex with MIDI data and if you don't buy any 3rd party plug-ins.

[Mornats]

18 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

You really can't argue with the price, but in the long run it only works out as good VfM if you don't need to do anything complex with MIDI data and if you don't buy any 3rd party plug-ins.

I manage orchestral music using a variety of sample libraries which requires a fair amount of midi manipulation in Reaper and it's just fine. The likes of Cubase and Logic, by all accounts, do it better (and have handy things such as articulation mapping etc.) but it's entirely possible to do, and without any tweaking or add-ons.

 

Personally I have 3rd party plugins for EQ, compression, reverb etc. anyway, and a many people say Reaper's stock plugins are good (I'm not convinced myself) but yes, you may wish to buy some 3rd party plugins or grab some of the good free ones about. Melda have some good free ones if I recall correctly?

[BigRedX]

If you are a Mac user, the moment you spend more than £200 on 3rd-party plug-ins and samples to go with Reaper, you might as well have bought a copy of Logic. 

 

Just the instruments and effects that come as part of the installation are more than most people will ever really need. I have broken my "Logic only" rule twice - once for a Simmonds Drum emulator and once for Helix Native. However, while they do make life a bit easier, neither of them are essential - I could recreate all the electronic percussion I want from drum machine designers and the various synth plug-ins; and having Helix Native allows me to manipulate my guitar and bass sounds after recording, but I could either use the hardware to re-amp the direct recorded sounds or simply tweak the Helix settings and re-record the part as required. 

 

For everything else I do - drums and synth programming for the live backing of one of my bands as well as recording Bass VI parts Logic does way more than I will ever need.

 

Some years back I did fully orchestrated Christmas Carols for a high-profile web site's seasonal promotion using just the instruments that came bundled with Logic and some vocals from the marketing company's employees.

[Mornats]

22 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

If you are a Mac user, the moment you spend more than £200 on 3rd-party plug-ins and samples to go with Reaper, you might as well have bought a copy of Logic. 

 

That sir, is a very fair point.

[Happy Jack]

Different strokes for different folks. 

 

As an absolutely amateur DAW-user who mainly needs to mix live recordings taken in pubs & clubs the night before, I find it hard to imagine spending 20p on 3rd-party plug-ins, let alone £200. 

 

10 years ago I was happily publishing unmixed, unprocessed MP3s recorded with a Zoom H2 set on a shelf behind the bar at the pub. At the time, unbelievably, that was enough to put my covers band head & shoulders above the local pack. 😂

 

"That's a live, no-frills recording of us playing the Dog & Duck last week. That's exactly what we sound like. Book my band to play here, and what you hear is what you'll get."

 

I got a LOT of gigs like that.

 

All very different from how @BigRedX (and many others) use a DAW, and I get that.

 

It's worth bearing in mind that the OP (from 2017!) was not "the best DAW" or even "the right DAW for me"; it was "the best value DAW" and a product as good as Reaper that can be had for nothing, not a sausage, bugger all, represents value that simply can't be matched by any of the established high-end competitors. Even if you choose to buy a licence (as I did) you're still looking at a one-off £40 payment for a product that gets improved/fixed/updated quite literally every week.

 

 

[Beedster]

1 hour ago, Happy Jack said:

It's worth bearing in mind that the OP (from 2017!) was not "the best DAW" or even "the right DAW for me"; it was "the best value DAW" and a product as good as Reaper that can be had for nothing, not a sausage, bugger all, represents value that simply can't be matched by any of the established high-end competitors. Even if you choose to buy a licence (as I did) you're still looking at a one-off £40 payment for a product that gets improved/fixed/updated quite literally every week.

 

 

 

That can't really be argued with 👍

[Dad3353]

3 hours ago, Happy Jack said:

Different strokes for different folks. 

 

As an absolutely amateur DAW-user who mainly needs to mix live recordings taken in pubs & clubs the night before, I find it hard to imagine spending 20p on 3rd-party plug-ins, let alone £200. 

 

10 years ago I was happily publishing unmixed, unprocessed MP3s recorded with a Zoom H2 set on a shelf behind the bar at the pub. At the time, unbelievably, that was enough to put my covers band head & shoulders above the local pack. 😂

 

"That's a live, no-frills recording of us playing the Dog & Duck last week. That's exactly what we sound like. Book my band to play here, and what you hear is what you'll get."

 

I got a LOT of gigs like that.

 

All very different from how @BigRedX (and many others) use a DAW, and I get that.

 

It's worth bearing in mind that the OP (from 2017!) was not "the best DAW" or even "the right DAW for me"; it was "the best value DAW" and a product as good as Reaper that can be had for nothing, not a sausage, bugger all, represents value that simply can't be matched by any of the established high-end competitors. Even if you choose to buy a licence (as I did) you're still looking at a one-off £40 payment for a product that gets improved/fixed/updated quite literally every week.

 

 

 

^^ Word. 

[Woodinblack]

5 hours ago, Happy Jack said:

It's worth bearing in mind that the OP (from 2017!) was not "the best DAW" or even "the right DAW for me"; it was "the best value DAW" and a product as good as Reaper that can be had for nothing, not a sausage, bugger all, represents value that simply can't be matched by any of the established high-end competitors.

 

Absolutely can. If you are a mac user, Garage band is free, with plugins and synths, and actually costs nothing, which is quite a bit less than £40 and much nicer to use. Even on the PC I wouldn't put reaper as the best value DAW. I get that people like it, and if they do, then it is probably worth it for them

[Al Krow]

Interestingly Mixcraft has been described as being the "closest you will get to Garage Band on a Windows system". It's < £100 and allows video editing too.

 

I take @Happy Jack's point. But I think we shouldn't devalue our time either, so if a particular daw is say £40 cheaper but its UI is much less intuitive and takes a lot more time/effort to get used to, then I'd want to take that into account when evaluating cost and value.

[xgsjx]

I don’t know if it’s changed in the last 15 years or so, but as good as Reaper is, it had a very steep learning curve. 
It’s still good value for money, but if you’re a Mac user, Logic is better value than just about anything else out there. 

[sammybee]

Reaper is great, it does everything I really need from a DAW... but on a Mac, you cannot argue with the value Logic brings to the table. I bought my copy in 2012, and since then haven't paid a bean more; but I get very frequent updates, and more high quality content & plugins than I could ever really consume. 

 

I paid £169 at the time, Reaper costs $60 - but only provides updates for 1 or 2 versions before you have to shell out for another licence. I would imagine over 11 years Logic is probably marginally cheaper on £

 

Horses for courses I guess

[BigRedX]

3 hours ago, sammybee said:

Reaper is great, it does everything I really need from a DAW... but on a Mac, you cannot argue with the value Logic brings to the table. I bought my copy in 2012, and since then haven't paid a bean more; but I get very frequent updates, and more high quality content & plugins than I could ever really consume. 

 

And GarageBand which will probably be more than enough for most users needs is free.

[Dad3353]

As long as one has a Macintosh. 

[Woodinblack]

13 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

As long as one has a Macintosh. 

 

Indeed - but who wants to cater for crazy people

 

[skidder652003]

The video editing option in Reaper (as basic as it is although actually it really isn't) was what for me makes it the best vcalue out there.

Plus the stock plugins are fine and the free JS plugins (which run into the hundreds) are excellent, and look better.

Plus it runs on a fart and any old laptop or PC or 15 year old mac will run it beautifully, couldn't say the same for Logic X.

[Woodinblack]

21 minutes ago, skidder652003 said:

The video editing option in Reaper (as basic as it is although actually it really isn't) was what for me makes it the best vcalue out there.

 

Different strokes and all that - not sure why you want a video editor in a DAW when you can use a video editor?

But anyway, not trying to convert anyone, if it works for you, then its the best value for you.

[BigRedX]

38 minutes ago, skidder652003 said:

Plus it runs on a fart and any old laptop or PC or 15 year old mac will run it beautifully, couldn't say the same for Logic X.

 

Logic X runs perfectly happily on my 2010 MacPro. It's not the very latest version of Logic X but it does everything I need it to.

[xgsjx]

TBH, I just bought a new MacBook Pro M3 pro because my 2015 MBP was failing to cope with what I was wanting Logic to do. 
I use is to send midi to the Jupiter X from Live Loops & get the audio back as individual audio tracks (all via USB) & then I put whatever fx I need onto those tracks, but at the same time I’ve got other loops playing various VSTis & also using my Roli to play another VSTi (usually Equator 2). Then have another usb coming in for the edrummer’s tracks & processing them, sending it all out to a mixer & record the performance too. 
The old MBP stopped playing the moment I ran 2 loops to the Jp X & hit a note on the Roli. 
The new MBP cost about the same as the Jp X, but it’s going to be the centre of our performance.