DAW for windows 10

[oldslapper]

Got a spare windows 10 laptop about 2 years old. I’ve just wiped it and reset 
I’m toying with the idea of using it exclusively for a DAW, but have no experience with windows music production, having only ever used Mac Logic Pro X and GarageBand.

 

What recommendations do you have? 

[Roger2611]

Reaper, I think it is the most intuitive of the DAW's out there, there are online tutorials for just anything you could wish for, their updates always seem stable and it is a fraction of the price of other DAW's 

[Doddy]

I'm pretty new to the whole DAW thing, but I went with Presonus Studio One. It's pretty easy to use. I've used Cubase a bit, and that's good too.

[SH73]

Ableton live, have been using it with Windows for 6 + years

 

[Nail Soup]

I use Studio One and it’s fine. I got it bundled with some hardware otherwise I don’t know what I’d use.

[neepheid]

Everyone has their favourite flavour of angry fruit salad

[Skybone]

Another Studio One Artist user. Used Cubase a lot in the past too.

[Nicko]

I'm a Cubase user and also have Ableton - both free versions that came bundled with hardware.  Personally I think Cubase is more intuitive if you are recording live instruments and Ableton is better if you are doing EDM.

 

The elephant in the room is cost and update capability.  If and when I change I'm likely to give Reaper a try because it probably does everything Cubase does at a fraction of the cost (or on a free trial to make sure it suits me) and doesn't require latest spec PCs.  It would be madness not to try that route first, unless you are buying hardware and get something for free. 

[Newfoundfreedom]

Another vote for Studio One here. 

 

Reaper is essentially free (you can evaluate it with no time limit) So that's definitely a large plus. But as a total DAW virgin I couldn't figure it out at all. I then tried Studio One and I found the user interface to be far better, and the whole system to be far more intuitive. 

[Leonard Smalls]

If your laptop has only 4Gb of RAM, you might find difficulty running any DAW with more than a few tracks! Personally I wouldn't use less than 16Gb...

[Nicko]

3 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

If your laptop has only 4Gb of RAM, you might find difficulty running any DAW with more than a few tracks! Personally I wouldn't use less than 16Gb...

And the processor needs to be decent too.  An intel i3 laptop chip won't cut it - an i5 might.  I've tried running Ableton on a 10 yo laptop which was good spec when it was new and it can't cope with a lot of vst processing.  It works fine on a similarly spec'd desktop.

[NancyJohnson]

I had a mate who worked for Adobe, so ran Audition for years, gave up with that about a year ago and went with Cakewalk.

 

It's free (this was the main thing), easy to use, intuitive etc etc.

[YouMa]

Ableton is by far the best I think used it for years after protools just became an expensive pain in the derrière.

[ambient]

3 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

If your laptop has only 4Gb of RAM, you might find difficulty running any DAW with more than a few tracks! Personally I wouldn't use less than 16Gb...

My MacBook has only ever had 4Gb- I believe the most it can have is 8Gb? it’s never struggled, some of my PhD pieces have over 50 tracks.

 

I would suggest Reaper, it does have a few - to my mind - quirks. Once you get over them it’s pretty straightforward to use, and very adaptable. There’s a ton of videos on YouTube, and a very helpful and friendly Facebook user’s group. 

[fretmeister]

Reaper for me.

[YouMa]

You can get by with less ram if you bounce down seperate tracks together to make one track and then reinsert this bounced down track. If however you had a high end vst synth running at the same time you are going to need quite a high end set up for most modern ones as they are Hungry.

[DiMarco]

Reaper is VERY powerful for its pricetag.

Been using it as a sidekick to Cubase, which is higher priced but comes with a lot of good plugins.

YMMV, ofc.

 

AND you need an audio interface that comes with ASIO drivers. Don't forget.

 

[andy67]

Two awesome free programs:

 

ProTools First,  https://www.avid.com/pro-tools

 

Bandlab (previously Cakewalk), https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk

 

All you need do is register to get both free with no time limit.

[rubis]

Another happy Reaper user here, the only thing I find lacking is my ability 

[Nicko]

46 minutes ago, rubis said:

the only thing I find lacking is my ability 

Yes, if someone could point the in the direction of a free download for that I'd appreciate it.  I would consider paying if necessary.

[YouMa]

If you need asio drivers which are pretty much the best universal ones for low latency you can get them at asio4all. Just google it mate.

[Nicko]

1 hour ago, andy67 said:

Two awesome free programs:

 

ProTools First,  https://www.avid.com/pro-tools

 

Bandlab (previously Cakewalk), https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk

 

All you need do is register to get both free with no time limit.

Cakewalk looks like a very interesting proposition.  Is anyone here using it?

 

I'd also be interested to know whether using Bandlab on a Chromebook and Cakewalk on a PC provides seemless integration.

[andy67]

4 hours ago, Nicko said:

Cakewalk looks like a very interesting proposition.  Is anyone here using it?

 

I'd also be interested to know whether using Bandlab on a Chromebook and Cakewalk on a PC provides seemless integration.

Cakewalk is awesome. It is intuitive and very easy to set up. It’s also, an awful lot of program for no money. I have a PreSonus Studio 24c hooked up to my main PC, Cakewalk is absolutely flawless with it. 

Edited August 15, 2021 by andy67

[SteveXFR]

I've recently changed from Ableton to Reaper. Ableton was good but my basic laptop runs a lot better with Reaper which seems to use a lot less power and is more intuitive. Reaper is also a lot cheaper for the full version which is only £60.

[Dad3353]

I tried to install Bandlab (ex-Cakewalk...) onto my PC (Intel i5, 12Gb, SSD, Win10 64 Pro...) and had to give up. I've been in IT since... well, even longer than that, but I renounced. It may well be splendid; I couldn't get it to work.