Which DAW?

[SumOne]

@51m0n We've got quite related names!

Yeah, I didn't expect it but Reaper is actually winning for me at the moment after hours of frustrating Cubase and Reason hassles with ASIO drivers because I have a lot of things with their own drivers competing (I already have Traktor, and Helix Edit on the Laptop), but Reaper and Fruityloops dealt with it with no issues at all.

The simple test I've been using is seeing how long (or how frustrating it is) to import a wav break, timestretch and loop it, automate some reverb, and add a few synth notes on a piano roll and add an automated delay to them. Reaper has been the winner at that, intuitive stuff and works as it should with no hassles, which is surprising as the reviews I'd seen basically say it can do almost all the things other DAWs can do but is un-intuitive and lacks visual appeal - personally I'd say the opposite! (well, it's not as flashy looking, but I find that a bit distracting/cluttered on some other DAWs).

Edited June 26, 2021 by SumOne

[zbd1960]

I'm currently trying Logic Pro as a free download... Currently watching loads of online stuff to get my head round it

[chyc]

On 26/06/2021 at 22:00, SumOne said:

Reaper has been the winner at that, intuitive stuff and works as it should with no hassles, which is surprising as the reviews I'd seen basically say it can do almost all the things other DAWs can do but is un-intuitive and lacks visual appeal - personally I'd say the opposite!

I was in exactly the same position as you, wondering why people thought this. Then I got into the bundled effects plugins, and I realized I think it's there. There are sliders that offer values that don't make sense, a plugin called "ReaVerb" that doesn't actually offer tweakable reverb (that's "Reaverbate") and usually there's no visual representation on what the settings have done to your sound.

 

Here's a video comparing ReaComp to other compression plugins:

 

 

Edited June 27, 2021 by chyc
Fix typo

[51m0n]

14 hours ago, chyc said:

I was in exactly the same position as you, wondering why people thought this. Then I got into the bundled effects plugins, and I realized I think it's there. There are sliders that offer values that don't make sense, a plugin called "ReaVerb" that doesn't actually offer tweakable reverb (that's "Reaverbate") and usually there's no visual representation on what the settings have done to your sound.

 

Here's a video comparing ReaComp it to other compression plugins:

 

 

Dan Worrall, is one of those chaps who puts the engineer in sound engineer.

He does a lot of reviews and intros to Tokyo Dawn Records plugins and Fabfilter plugins.

 

He seriously knows his stinky poo, love his channel.

Interestingly he is a huge advocate of Reaper himself.

 

He's not wrong about the plugins having some idiosyncrasies, but interestingly Reaper has been updated to come in line with his suggestions on a few things.

 

I'd recommend anyone wanting to learn a bit more about how the magic happens in Draws to watch everything he's done, and his Tokyo Dawn Records plugins videos as well, there are some awesome features on those that you will miss otherwise!

[SumOne]

On 27/06/2021 at 08:02, chyc said:

I was in exactly the same position as you, wondering why people thought this. Then I got into the bundled effects plugins, and I realized I think it's there. There are sliders that offer values that don't make sense, a plugin called "ReaVerb" that doesn't actually offer tweakable reverb (that's "Reaverbate") and usually there's no visual representation on what the settings have done to your sound.

 

Here's a video comparing ReaComp to other compression plugins:

 

 

Yeah, the Reaper bundled effects plugins aren't great looking or always intuitive. But all the main DAW stuff I really like and I guess can get a lot of decent free VSTs to make up for the ones most lacking. 

[funkle]

Reaper is a winner for me. Light on the system, flexible, and does everything I want. Rock solid performance, if it crashes it’s invariably a VST that has done it, not Reaper itself, and you can start it in an ‘offline’ mode which lets you get rid of the troublesome plugin.

Its biggest pro is also its biggest con. Configurability.

Just about everything can be remapped or adjusted, which is brilliant, but also a pain, lol, as many people’s Reaper setups will be quite different. It’s not like moving between different ProTools setups where everyone will know the same shortcuts.

The stock setup preferences are a bit odd to me, at least some of them. I don’t like the menus either, and replaced them with an improved set I think called ReaMenus. A new starter to Reaper definitely benefits from Kenny Gioia’s videos. Kenny G is my guru! Jon Tidey as well.

I had to tweak the MIDI editor *a lot* to get it how I wanted and to have access easily to actions I wanted. I quickly learned how to make custom actions and cycle actions (toggling states of other actions). I love it now, single click to add notes or delete them (as in FL) is sensible to me. I tweaked mouse modifiers and keyboard shortcuts a lot too. Zooming on MIDI notes was a bit odd until I tweaked it.

I also dislike the stock theme. Thankfully I adore the iLogic themes done by a guy called Blankfiles, which makes everything look beautiful. The latest is iLogic 3.85, looks fab and I donated £10 to get that and the iLogic 2.0 theme he does, which also looks equally great. 

I’d say the DAW matters less than the familiarity with it though, overall. I’d just commit to one and stick with it. 

[Dad3353]

51 minutes ago, funkle said:

...Just about everything can be remapped or adjusted, which is brilliant, but also a pain, lol...

And there we have it; I'm precisely the opposite..!  I really, really detest working with 'non-stock' stuff, and would rather put what little energy I have into making the best music I can (already rather a modest aim..!  ) than spend more than a minute or so 'customising'. I will admit to having changed the colour of my Master tracks, all the better to see them with my poor eyes, but at 'template' level, so just the once, thank you very much. I'll happily put up with repeating a few mouse clicks for commonly-used functions before getting into 'macros' or shortcuts. I lose some time, surely but as that's the way I've learnt, from the beginning, this old dog would only get confused and forget the 'neat little trick' I'd cobbled up.
That's not to say that you're not right: it is, indeed, one of the great forces of the software that it allows itself to be personalised to such an extent, and maybe I don't do enough sophisticated complex things that would justify delving deeper, but as a minimalist, it handles that well, too. I'm not put off by a dowdy interface (certainly not enough to even consider any 'bling' aspect as an 'improvement'...), and find its functionality fairly spontaneous (perhaps the years of using it have helped...). No, no; carry on. To each his/her own, I say, and glad you're able to bend it to your will. My idea of thinking 'out of the box' is to use stuff straight out of the box, and not tinker around. (My...) Life's too short for that..! 

[dave_bass5]

Interesting posts above. Obviously we need different things and features, but i tihnk what make a DAW ‘the best’ is the speed you can get on and be creative with it. 

Ive struggled with some of these over the years, but last year really wanted to make a go of Cakewalk by Bandlab, as ive used CW Sonar on and off over the past decade or so. In the end i got too frustrated with it. Got CB, will never go to anything else. It just seemed so natural to me. 

I have no doubt anything ive done could be done in a few other DAW’s, I’m not a power user, but being able to get things done quickly is what i love about CB. Having to much choice over contouring things would slow me down. Its the same with pedals etc. I want the features there but done want to go hunting for them etc. 

[adamg67]

I'm sure there are good DAWs and bad DAWs, but one thing I do know from working with some fairly powerful software tools over the years is that something being intuitive and immediately easy to use isn't everything. In fact, some of the longest-lasting and most powerful tools I've used famously don't even try and be intuitive, they try and be simple and powerful but you have to learn some stuff before you can do anything at all.

Sometimes you need to learn a few concepts, and when you do everything clicks and it's easy to do quite powerful stuff. I found a few things in Studio One a bit confusing until I decided to spend a bit of time watching a few tutorials and reading the effing manual as the saying goes. Now I find it very easy to work with, it's not that it's complicated and I've had to learn lots of difficult things, you just need to know what represents what, like what they are representing with tracks and channels and why they're not the same, that kind of thing. I'd definitely not judge a DAW without spending a bit of time with it.

Edited July 1, 2021 by adamg67

[funkle]

1 hour ago, Dad3353 said:

And there we have it; I'm precisely the opposite..!  I really, really detest working with 'non-stock' stuff, and would rather put what little energy I have into making the best music I can (already rather a modest aim..!  ) than spend more than a minute or so 'customising'. I will admit to having changed the colour of my Master tracks, all the better to see them with my poor eyes, but at 'template' level, so just the once, thank you very much. I'll happily put up with repeating a few mouse clicks for commonly-used functions before getting into 'macros' or shortcuts. I lose some time, surely but as that's the way I've learnt, from the beginning, this old dog would only get confused and forget the 'neat little trick' I'd cobbled up.
That's not to say that you're not right: it is, indeed, one of the great forces of the software that it allows itself to be personalised to such an extent, and maybe I don't do enough sophisticated complex things that would justify delving deeper, but as a minimalist, it handles that well, too. I'm not put off by a dowdy interface (certainly not enough to even consider any 'bling' aspect as an 'improvement'...), and find its functionality fairly spontaneous (perhaps the years of using it have helped...). No, no; carry on. To each his/her own, I say, and glad you're able to bend it to your will. My idea of thinking 'out of the box' is to use stuff straight out of the box, and not tinker around. (My...) Life's too short for that..! 

Good points all. I really like the ‘just use it’ attitude; it’s waaaaay too easy to get lost in customising it.

My main use for Reaper was as MIDI editor. It was not usable for me out of the box, at all. I had to bend it to my will, or find something different. And I didn’t really get on with some of the other things I trialled, so….Reaper it was. 

I’d be strongly tempted by Ableton now. But I committed to Reaper about 8 years ago. 

[dave_bass5]

30 minutes ago, adamg67 said:

I'm sure there are good DAWs and bad DAWs, but one thing I do know from working with some fairly powerful software tools over the years is that something being intuitive and immediately easy to use isn't everything. In fact, some of the longest-lasting and most powerful tools I've used famously don't even try and be intuitive, they try and be simple and powerful but you have to learn some stuff before you can do anything at all.

Sometimes you need to learn a few concepts, and when you do everything clicks and it's easy to do quite powerful stuff. I found a few things in Studio One a bit confusing until I decided to spend a bit of time watching a few tutorials and reading the effing manual as the saying goes. Now I find it very easy to work with, it's not that it's complicated and I've had to learn lots of difficult things, you just need to know what represents what, like what they are representing with tracks and channels and why they're not the same, that kind of thing. I'd definitely not judge a DAW without spending a bit of time with it.

Oh yes, totally agree. I was just stating from my point of view. I can work with Cakewalk just fine, but some of the things it makes you do just seem too longwinded compared to Cubase. I think when you have found ‘the one’ then you stick with it. If something looks daunting, but i know it doesn’t offer everything i can see in another DAW then i just wont put the time in. 

I used Studio One for a while, actually really liked it, but at the time i didnt have much use for a DAW so after a few test recordings i stopped using it. 

To be honest some of the cooler features like the audio quantising/hit points etc in Cubase, some of the VST plugins, along with really liking Halion’s sounds swung it for me anyway, but it also seemed liked the easiest for me to use. Those features might be in the others, but along with ease of use i cant imagine anything better. 

Edited July 1, 2021 by dave_bass5

[51m0n]

1 hour ago, adamg67 said:

I'm sure there are good DAWs and bad DAWs, but one thing I do know from working with some fairly powerful software tools over the years is that something being intuitive and immediately easy to use isn't everything. In fact, some of the longest-lasting and most powerful tools I've used famously don't even try and be intuitive, they try and be simple and powerful but you have to learn some stuff before you can do anything at all.

Sometimes you need to learn a few concepts, and when you do everything clicks and it's easy to do quite powerful stuff. I found a few things in Studio One a bit confusing until I decided to spend a bit of time watching a few tutorials and reading the effing manual as the saying goes. Now I find it very easy to work with, it's not that it's complicated and I've had to learn lots of difficult things, you just need to know what represents what, like what they are representing with tracks and channels and why they're not the same, that kind of thing. I'd definitely not judge a DAW without spending a bit of time with it.

I'm a software architect by trade. Big stuff with huge data is my bread and butter.

But a solution with a hard to understand UI or poor UX is not ever going to cut the mustard, it has to be intuitive.

 

That's not to say anyone can use it without knowledge of the subject, but it should always guide such a user to make appropriate choices.

[lowdown]

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

Oh yes, totally agree. I was just stating from my point of view. I can work with Cakewalk just fine, but some of the things it makes you do just seem too longwinded compared to Cubase. I think when you have found ‘the one’ then you stick with it. If something looks daunting, but i know it doesn’t offer everything i can see in another DAW then i just wont put the time in. 

I used Studio One for a while, actually really liked it, but at the time i didnt have much use for a DAW so after a few test recordings i stopped using it. 

To be honest some of the cooler features like the audio quantising/hit points etc in Cubase, some of the VST plugins, along with really liking Halion’s sounds swung it for me anyway, but it also seemed liked the easiest for me to use. Those features might be in the others, but along with ease of use i cant imagine anything better. 

 I have been a Cubase user since the late 90's ( Nuendo the last couple of years). Although I consider myself a power user, I'm still finding new surprises quite regularly.

A couple of days ago I learned how to use the Logical Editor for the first time...  Now, I'm not sure how I got by without it. 

Dom Sigalas did a tutorial on the benefits of it's use earlier in the week. 

 

Steinberg have a 40% off for Cubase Updates & Upgrades this month.

[dave_bass5]

19 minutes ago, lowdown said:

 I have been a Cubase user since the late 90's ( Nuendo the last couple of years). Although I consider myself a power user, I'm still finding new surprises quite regularly.

A couple of days ago I learned how to use the Logical Editor for the first time...  Now, I'm not sure how I got by without it. 

Dom Sigalas did a tutorial on the benefits of it's use earlier in the week. 

 

Steinberg have a 40% off for Cubase Updates & Upgrades this month.

Yeah, the logical end it’s was something i was attracted to, but hardly use it yet. Mostly for making high hats a bit more realistic. 

Did you get the presets Dom posted a couple  of days ago?

I used Cubase when it was called VST32 (IIR), although not much as my PC back then wasn’t really up to it. I dabbled but never really finished anything. Coming back to it last year I was amazed at how much its come on. My mindset now that i know i can do whatever i need to do, i just need to figure it out. 

Being able to manually line up my bass players notes to the beat has been a god send, also with my guitarist chords and rhythm. Also the ability to create vocal harmonies from one line is great. Its just so easy with CB, although I’m sure other programs can do this.

I got the Ai (free) to Pro upgrade for £245, and it seems crazy that Steinberg don’t actually do this upgrade path on their website. 

[adamg67]

2 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

Oh yes, totally agree. I was just stating from my point of view. I can work with Cakewalk just fine, but some of the things it makes you do just seem too longwinded compared to Cubase. I think when you have found ‘the one’ then you stick with it. If something looks daunting, but i know it doesn’t offer everything i can see in another DAW then i just wont put the time in. 

I used Studio One for a while, actually really liked it, but at the time i didnt have much use for a DAW so after a few test recordings i stopped using it. 

To be honest some of the cooler features like the audio quantising/hit points etc in Cubase, some of the VST plugins, along with really liking Halion’s sounds swung it for me anyway, but it also seemed liked the easiest for me to use. Those features might be in the others, but along with ease of use i cant imagine anything better. 

Yeah, I'm not trying to sell Studio One, just using it as an example as it's what I happen to use - I have no idea if it's better or worse than any other DAW except from hearing what other people who've used both say about it. It could just be that I like it because I know it, but then again I'm not very tolerant of bad design or things that don't work well, so I can probably say fairly safely that it's pretty good.

[adamg67]

1 hour ago, 51m0n said:

I'm a software architect by trade. Big stuff with huge data is my bread and butter.

But a solution with a hard to understand UI or poor UX is not ever going to cut the mustard, it has to be intuitive.

 

That's not to say anyone can use it without knowledge of the subject, but it should always guide such a user to make appropriate choices.

I suppose it all depends how you define intuitive. All I'm saying is, it doesn't always matter to me if I can use something immediately without having to take a bit of time to understand it. If it's an app on my phone for booking a train ticket I want to be able to just use it. If it's the next programming language or whatever that I want to learn, I expect to have to learn some stuff. I still want things to be consistent and something like "easy if you know how", but I don't expect to work things out without going off and learning something. The last language I learnt was Python, I found a book on it that I liked, read that, used it on a project, then read the book again and made a load of notes. My DAW is somewhere in between, I don't want to have to study to use it and want it to be easy once I understand it, but I don't expect to be able to use it without knowing anything about it.

Seemed like a half reasonable point to be making to me, but then I'm only a developer 😂

[51m0n]

18 minutes ago, adamg67 said:

I suppose it all depends how you define intuitive. All I'm saying is, it doesn't always matter to me if I can use something immediately without having to take a bit of time to understand it. If it's an app on my phone for booking a train ticket I want to be able to just use it. If it's the next programming language or whatever that I want to learn, I expect to have to learn some stuff. I still want things to be consistent and something like "easy if you know how", but I don't expect to work things out without going off and learning something. The last language I learnt was Python, I found a book on it that I liked, read that, used it on a project, then read the book again and made a load of notes. My DAW is somewhere in between, I don't want to have to study to use it and want it to be easy once I understand it, but I don't expect to be able to use it without knowing anything about it.

Seemed like a half reasonable point to be making to me, but then I'm only a developer 😂

Python is a superb example of a truly intuitive language, especially compared to C++, which has had so many bolt ons a rejigging it's forgotten what it set out to be, or Javascript which was initially written in two weeks, and suffered from interminable updates, not one of which has had the balls to properly sort it's gargantuan failings. It's powerful, sure, it's also utterly stinky poo, and I spent 15 years with it as a major part of my role, so I have enough real world  experience of it to draw a damning conclusion 😂

The other advantage of python is it runs fastr than any other language in AWS Lambda micro-services.

 

I love python, 3 hours to learn, a decade to master; I've used it daily for at least 15 years.

[lowdown]

9 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

Yeah, the logical end it’s was something i was attracted to, but hardly use it yet. Mostly for making high hats a bit more realistic. 

Did you get the presets Dom posted a couple  of days ago?

I used Cubase when it was called VST32 (IIR), although not much as my PC back then wasn’t really up to it. I dabbled but never really finished anything. Coming back to it last year I was amazed at how much its come on. My mindset now that i know i can do whatever i need to do, i just need to figure it out. 

Being able to manually line up my bass players notes to the beat has been a god send, also with my guitarist chords and rhythm. Also the ability to create vocal harmonies from one line is great. Its just so easy with CB, although I’m sure other programs can do this.

I got the Ai (free) to Pro upgrade for £245, and it seems crazy that Steinberg don’t actually do this upgrade path on their website. 

Yes, I did. Actually the tutorial video I mentioned had the links underneath.

The colouring of large track counts, and placing them into folders and related busses etc was what initially pricked my interest. Dom has some decent tips and tricks on his own and the Cubase YouTube channels.

Edited July 2, 2021 by lowdown

[dave_bass5]

6 hours ago, lowdown said:

Yes, I did. Actually the tutorial video I mentioned had the links underneath.

The colouring of large track counts, and placing them into folders and related busses etc was what initially pricked my interest. Dom has some decent tips and tricks on his own and the Cubase YouTube channels.

Ah cool. Yeah, Dom is a master of CB. I was already subscribed to his channel for the Montage/MODX synth stuff, so that was also a deciding factor to me going for Cubase, as i like what he teaches and his style. 

I got his 80’s drum set for Halion when it first came out, and was free back then. Ive also now got the same sounds for my MODX. Cant wait to start using them with the band 😂

[SteveXFR]

I've just switched from Ableton Live Lit 10 to Reaper after reading through this thread. The difference is huge. My PC is running so much faster with it, it's nicer to use and just better.

[51m0n]

1 hour ago, SteveXFR said:

I've just switched from Ableton Live Lit 10 to Reaper after reading through this thread. The difference is huge. My PC is running so much faster with it, it's nicer to use and just better.

Yeah, one of its strengths for me is it is very lightweight and super robust.

 

I've done some really huge mixes on a laptop over ten years old (120 tracks and more).

[SteveXFR]

1 hour ago, 51m0n said:

Yeah, one of its strengths for me is it is very lightweight and super robust.

 

I've done some really huge mixes on a laptop over ten years old (120 tracks and more).

Mine is  struggling a bit to run an amp sim and overdrive while recording but if I record clean then add plugins it's fine

[lowdown]

On 01/07/2021 at 21:10, adamg67 said:

Yeah, I'm not trying to sell Studio One, just using it as an example as it's what I happen to use - I have no idea if it's better or worse than any other DAW except from hearing what other people who've used both say about it. It could just be that I like it because I know it, but then again I'm not very tolerant of bad design or things that don't work well, so I can probably say fairly safely that it's pretty good.

 

I had some time this week, so decided to get stuck into both St1 and Notion. I'm blown away with the drag and drop work flow in ST1.

Plus, the articulation management for sample libraries they are using is top class. Music symbols, articulations and music dynamics all combined under their system that they call ' Sound Variations'.

Very easy to use and works a treat. The way ST1 deals with Track Presets is very good as well. Certainly saves time when hunting around for stuff.

 

This morning, I noticed a new tutorial video on the PreSonus YouTube channel. Part 1 of two on drag and drop:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But

[BigRedX]

On 01/07/2021 at 18:53, funkle said:

Good points all. I really like the ‘just use it’ attitude; it’s waaaaay too easy to get lost in customising it.

My main use for Reaper was as MIDI editor. It was not usable for me out of the box, at all. I had to bend it to my will, or find something different. And I didn’t really get on with some of the other things I trialled, so….Reaper it was. 

I’d be strongly tempted by Ableton now. But I committed to Reaper about 8 years ago. 

If you want to do lots of MIDI manipulation or editing your are much better off using a DAW that has it's roots in MIDI sequencing such as Logic, Cubase, Performer or Reason. Unfortunately in most other DAWs MIDI is very much an afterthought.

[funkle]

Good advice!!

Logic I would have gone for, but Mac only. Too spendy for me to get into when I was starting out. I actually did start in Cubase but at that point didn’t properly commit well enough to make a go of it. I wonder what I would do with it now. Probably make better sense of it  

Reason was cool but the ‘back’ of it and the cabling confused me at that point. Performer I just plain haven’t heard of, I’ll have to go check it out.  

I committed to Reaper about 8-9 years ago and just decided to bend it to my will. It’s grown hugely in that time and improved a lot IMO. I’m always finding more as I keep using it. 

As an aside. I picked up @Beedster’s old RME Fireface 400 and the drivers are amazing. I have tweaked it and I can get stably down to 48 samples latency in my little projects. I’m a convert for life now.