My DAW research

Manning

Manning

Experienced
Our business recently decided to completely divorce ourselves from Apple - we are tired of the instability, the inferior quality hardware and the exorbitant prices. We run several Pro Tools HD rigs, and we've moved all of them to Windows machines, (and this has been a truly superb decision, not just for the astounding amount of money we saved).

Now personally I do NOT like Pro Tools for composing - I find it clunky and cumbersome. (For traditional recording it is beyond fantastic however). I've used Logic for the last 13 years. However no Apple means no Logic.

So off I went into DAW land. I checked out Live, Cubase and Studio One. By "checked out" I mean I was able to download the entire software and trial it for several hours. I want to stress how REALLY impressed I was with everything I looked at.

The major thing I realised is that DAWs are not DAWs. The DAW I want may be completely different to the one you want. I'm a classically trained musician who is very comfortable writing directly as notation. I also write a lot of orchestral and film/tv music.

Here are my notes:

ABLETON LIVE: Live was just not for me, it doesn't suit how I like to do things. BUT - it is a truly brilliant piece of software. Ableton really have their act together, the tutorials, the "try-before-you-buy" setup, the support are all excellent. I was very impressed, particularly after coming from Apple "You must LOVE us even though you are scum" land. If you tend to think in terms of "chunks" of music (ie loops) this will suit you down to the ground. It comes with an excellent library of sounds. It is not that strong for MIDI editing, but extremely strong in terms of audio recording/editing.

STUDIO ONE: The word here is "elegant". This is a tool designed from scratch in recent times and it shows. All the legacy hangovers are gone and there is clean, efficient simplicity. If it had had a score edit window I would have gone for it. It is the cheapest of the three, yet I can't find any weakness. It is also very simple to use, without compromising functionality. It has a multi-channel piano roll, and anyone who has had to constantly switch piano roll windows in Logic will know how cool that is. I highly recommend that people give it a look.

CUBASE: This is the most familiar choice for an ex-LOGIC user, and that was a huge factor in why I bought it. Cubase does everything, but there is a learning curve that goes with that. Version 6.5 is quite elegant as well. It comes with a huge array of sounds. I own enormous libraries of Virtual Instruments, and Cubase supports this well.

Other elements - I've just received my i7 Windows machine with a 256GB SSD, two separate 1TB RAID arrays and 24GB of RAM, and paid considerably less than what I paid for my i5 Macbook Pro. Oh my, that feels good.
 
I'm glad it is working out for you. Interesting to me since most of the experiences I've read about on other forums were ones of people going the opposite route. Switching out Windows for Mac. Just curious if you tried running a Mac Mini or two. I know it's too late now but I've read of some major composers who get great results using Mac Minis in there recording rigs. Just like to hear your feedback so if I ever run into those kinds of problems I'll have a solution in mind.
 
It's interesting to hear instability and hardware issues for Mac. I've been nothing but stable and the hardware is great. Not getting into platform wars AT ALL.
 
Wow, amazing to hear you go the opposite route indeed! :eek: Matter of fact, I'm one who switched from windows to mac and never looked back since - I actually had much BETTER experiences with everything apple so far....but everyone is different. Mind elaborating on some stuff that really sealed the deal for you? I must admit I'm quite curious now.....
 
All up I've spent $36000 on Macs over the last ten years. My problems have overwhelmingly been due to bad hardware.

OSX is perfectly stable assuming your hardware is fine. When it isn't, you'll have nightmares. Of 8 Macs since 2002, the first three (G4, G5 1.8, G5 2.5) were brilliant, but since then I've had five bad Macs in a row. I've had to replace three motherboards, I've had four drives fail, and I've had numerous problems which were eventually traced to bad memory (Apple sourced) on three different machines. I've got no idea what is wrong with the current MacBook Pro and to be honest I just can't be bothered trying to find out anymore.

I'm of the opinion (based solely on my own experiences) that Apple is cutting corners on quality. Because I don't know what components they are using (apart from the CPU), I have no real control. With a Windows machine I can control every single element and make sure everything is top notch.

No hardware war here either. All I know is that having Macs has been bad for my business, and moving to Windows has been very smart. There is no difference in functionality, and the stability, plus the lower cost of hardware, plus the ability to rapidly/cheaply replace a failed component (although none have as yet failed) makes it an easy winner.
 
I know G5,Dual 2.7 had a motherboard that was known to die after 3 years or so. Mine did and I know others. I've never had a MacBook pro. I have two MacPros and I love them. But good luck with your windows machine. I have never had a PC and have own a ton of macs over the years. So what do I know?
 
Thanks for the insight. While I have not yet had these problems (but I've replaced the drives and memory), I agree with you - if it doesn't work for you, get something that will! So far it has been the complete opposite for me tho, but I do hear and appreciate what you are saying. Thanks for sharing ;)
 
Manning said:
All up I've spent $36000 on Macs over the last ten years. My problems have overwhelmingly been due to bad hardware.

OSX is perfectly stable assuming your hardware is fine. When it isn't, you'll have nightmares. Of 8 Macs since 2002, the first three (G4, G5 1.8, G5 2.5) were brilliant, but since then I've had five bad Macs in a row. I've had to replace three motherboards, I've had four drives fail, and I've had numerous problems which were eventually traced to bad memory (Apple sourced) on three different machines. I've got no idea what is wrong with the current MacBook Pro and to be honest I just can't be bothered trying to find out anymore.

I'm of the opinion (based solely on my own experiences) that Apple is cutting corners on quality. Because I don't know what components they are using (apart from the CPU), I have no real control. With a Windows machine I can control every single element and make sure everything is top notch.

No hardware war here either. All I know is that having Macs has been bad for my business, and moving to Windows has been very smart. There is no difference in functionality, and the stability, plus the lower cost of hardware, plus the ability to rapidly/cheaply replace a failed component (although none have as yet failed) makes it an easy winner.
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Being a Pc user for 25 years now, I have used Mac's and Linux OS's over those yearsl, but let me say that I 100% agree with you, no loyalty issues, I just use what works the best for what I need a computer for. Not looking for a PC vs Mac war either just wanted to show some support.
 
Manning said:
We run several Pro Tools HD rigs, and we've moved all of them to Windows machines
Click to expand...
If you have a solid build for a Windows PC for PT, please PM me the ingredients... I would really love to update the Sticky for windows HD TDM Systems on the DUC.
 
I started using Mac and Logic a little over a year ago, and last week I went back to Windows and Cubase. I just work 1000 times faster on a computer. But I guess it's because I'm more used to it. Luckily we can chose whatever works best for us.
 
I'm with you on StudioOne. I used Cubase years ago (this is all as a novice by the way) and to be honest my favorite for years was Adobe Audition 3. Its just a very stable app (based on Cool Edit Pro which has been around for ever) and it supported VST's and VSTi's well. With Cubase it was powerful, but a bit complicated at times; I was also a beginner and basically cut my teeth on it so there was a learning curve, perhaps I'd feel different today.

But StudioOne has really impressed me a lot. It wasn't love at first site because I did think that there were things that were oversimplified or lacking until I really dug into it. Its got more than enough stuff for me to just go nuts if needed, its extremely reasonably priced and the bottom line is that it just works.
 
Manning said:
Our business recently decided to completely divorce ourselves from Apple - we are tired of the instability, the inferior quality hardware and the exorbitant prices. We run several Pro Tools HD rigs, and we've moved all of them to Windows machines, (and this has been a truly superb decision, not just for the astounding amount of money we saved).

Now personally I do NOT like Pro Tools for composing - I find it clunky and cumbersome. (For traditional recording it is beyond fantastic however). I've used Logic for the last 13 years. However no Apple means no Logic.

So off I went into DAW land. I checked out Live, Cubase and Studio One. By "checked out" I mean I was able to download the entire software and trial it for several hours. I want to stress how REALLY impressed I was with everything I looked at.

The major thing I realised is that DAWs are not DAWs. The DAW I want may be completely different to the one you want. I'm a classically trained musician who is very comfortable writing directly as notation. I also write a lot of orchestral and film/tv music.

Here are my notes:

ABLETON LIVE: Live was just not for me, it doesn't suit how I like to do things. BUT - it is a truly brilliant piece of software. Ableton really have their act together, the tutorials, the "try-before-you-buy" setup, the support are all excellent. I was very impressed, particularly after coming from Apple "You must LOVE us even though you are scum" land. If you tend to think in terms of "chunks" of music (ie loops) this will suit you down to the ground. It comes with an excellent library of sounds. It is not that strong for MIDI editing, but extremely strong in terms of audio recording/editing.

STUDIO ONE: The word here is "elegant". This is a tool designed from scratch in recent times and it shows. All the legacy hangovers are gone and there is clean, efficient simplicity. If it had had a score edit window I would have gone for it. It is the cheapest of the three, yet I can't find any weakness. It is also very simple to use, without compromising functionality. It has a multi-channel piano roll, and anyone who has had to constantly switch piano roll windows in Logic will know how cool that is. I highly recommend that people give it a look.

CUBASE: This is the most familiar choice for an ex-LOGIC user, and that was a huge factor in why I bought it. Cubase does everything, but there is a learning curve that goes with that. Version 6.5 is quite elegant as well. It comes with a huge array of sounds. I own enormous libraries of Virtual Instruments, and Cubase supports this well.

Other elements - I've just received my i7 Windows machine with a 256GB SSD, two separate 1TB RAID arrays and 24GB of RAM, and paid considerably less than what I paid for my i5 Macbook Pro. Oh my, that feels good.
Click to expand...


Have you heard about Hackintosh?
Hackintosh is a PC where you can run MAC OSX or Windows or both, so, you can still use your favorite apple software without a MAC.
 
Strataxe said:
Have you heard about Hackintosh?
Hackintosh is a PC where you can run MAC OSX or Windows or both, so, you can still use your favorite apple software without a MAC.
Click to expand...
I've been led to believe that they've got their own set of quirks though and the bonus is that you get zero support from Apple. I mean if stability is his primary requirement I don't know if that would be a good route to go down. Plus I believe that there is a pretty limited set of drivers that have been hacked to make it work properly. Its all community driven in that regard isn't it?
 
shasha said:
I've been led to believe that they've got their own set of quirks though and the bonus is that you get zero support from Apple. I mean if stability is his primary requirement I don't know if that would be a good route to go down. Plus I believe that there is a pretty limited set of drivers that have been hacked to make it work properly. Its all community driven in that regard isn't it?
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yes I use a Hackintosh to port some of my software (I'm a software developer) and it works great for my use but is a lot of work to make them work properly. Once you get there the work fine, but I wont go that route for a production system of any kind.
 
I have been using cakewalk products for years and Highly recommend trying sonar X1, its 64bit with a lot of great features. I do dual boot my system and run it as a hackintosh sometimes for video editing. I think the hackintosh is no better it is only really an advantage if you need apple specific software. It is stable but it took alot to get it there.
 
Strataxe said:
Have you heard about Hackintosh? Hackintosh is a PC where you can run MAC OSX or Windows or both, so, you can still use your favorite apple software without a MAC.
Click to expand...
I would never use a Hackintosh for anything in a business or production environment. MediaComposer and Protools are funky enough when it comes to hardware environments. Using non-standard hardware is asking for trouble.
 
nateb said:
I would never use a Hackintosh for anything in a business or production environment. MediaComposer and Protools are funky enough when it comes to hardware environments. Using non-standard hardware is asking for trouble.
Click to expand...
Its the same hardware....... (if you build it right)
 
Yeah I'm well aware of Hackintosh, but to be honest, there is no problem running PT9 under W7. We aren't planning the move to HDX until next year, at which point PT10 HD should be out for W7 as well. As I've switched to Cubase. there are no Mac-only apps left. All of my VIs migrated to W7 without a hitch.

As far as Cubase, man it ROCKS! I could never go back to Logic now.
 
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