DAW Opinion

richb

richb

Inspired
I've been out of the DAW game for some time and I would appreciate some opinions.

I'm looking for some DAW that I can interface with a Focusrite 18i20 into my MAC Pro Book. My goal is to get some nice, hobbyist recordings of my 4 piece band for promo's (for local gigs, etc.). I'm not recording material for an album release or anything like that. I don't see my self using a lot of plug ins or doing any serious post production. I just need a "nice" recording. The band plays pretty straightforward cover tunes, of pop, rock, country & funk. I have used Pro Tools a bit in my last band, but that was 5 years ago. PT might be too much DAW for me. Key features for me are:
Easy to set up tracks
Cut, paste, move tracks
Easy to export the finished product (to post on social media to promote the band)
If I can keep the price under $300.00, even better.
Thanks for any advice. I appreciate it.
 
iaresee said:
I think Logic is the best bang-for-buck DAW out there. $200 gets you an excellent DAW and a metric ton of useful plugins, VSTi instruments and samples.
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Agreed, but I sure hope Matt and his engineers can make Logic and AxeEdit III play nice together soon! (They are supposedly looking into it now....)
 
How are they not playing nice? I have the latest Logic but almost never use it. I have the PT Native and Ableton Live but favor Digital Performer 9.5. I haven’t fired it up in a few years.
 
Reaper is amazing for the price, but IMO it is not the simplest to learn.
I have really enjoyed using Presonus Studio One.
When Cakewalk went out of business (before getting then purchased by Band Lab), I decided I needed a new DAW (after using Cakewalk/Sonar for years).
I found Presonus Studio One as my new favorite.

Both Reaper and Studio One work on both PC and MAC, so that is also something I was looking for.
 
henryrobinett said:
How are they not playing nice? I have the latest Logic but almost never use it. I have the PT Native and Ableton Live but favor Digital Performer 9.5. I haven’t fired it up in a few years.
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There's some issues running the editor and Logic at the same time. I will confess I haven't had a problem with it, myself. But I also spend maybe an hour a week, tops, in Logic doing any work because it's a hobby and not a job for me.
 
henryrobinett said:
How are they not playing nice? I have the latest Logic but almost never use it. I have the PT Native and Ableton Live but favor Digital Performer 9.5. I haven’t fired it up in a few years.
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The main issue I and others have (including @Admin M@ who confirmed the bug and is actively pursuing it), is somehow AxeEdit III when running concurrently with Logic ,interferes with incoming MIDI from controllers and borks the sounds of virtual instruments. There may be other symptoms as well.
 
Any free or light version of the well-known brands should be ok if you don’t need a lot of plugs and a lot of tracks. No ?
 
I recommend REAPER. It's a great DAW for any skill level from beginner to pro.

You can download it from https://www.reaper.fm and you can try the full version with no limitations. It's only $60 bucks and you don't have to pay for an upgrade until the next full version, so if the current version is 5.95, you don't have to pay again until version 7 and they do hundreds of free updates. I think I bought mine 2 years ago and I still haven't had to pay again.

There are great tutorials on YouTube by REAPER Mania, The REAPER Blog and ReaperTV that will get you up and running quickly.

If you have a PC with Windows OS, you can use Cakewalk by BandLab for free https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk
 
I'd second GarageBand as the easiest to get into, cheap/free with your Mac, and will get the job that you describe done.

Reaper is super powerful but it might take a while and a decent effort to get it looking and acting the way you want it to...ymmv. I love it and it's what I use, but I had to find the right theme and some extensions and custom menus and so on and so forth.

Haven't used anything else but I'm always tempted to buy logic because I like Apple's style¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Another vote for Reaper. Been using it since 2012'ish after HATING my experience with Pro Tools (UGH!). My DAW path was:

Cake Walk Home Audio
Cake Walk Studio
Sonar
Sonar XL
Sonar 3 XL Producer
Acid Latin
Acid Pro
Pro Tools 9
Pro Tools 10
Reaper
Reaper
Reaper
Reaper
Reaper

YOu get my drift, I'm sure. =)

YMMV
 
One nice think about Reaper is you can take it across operating systems. That's definitely a nice thing if you want compatibility with more computers.
 
Studio One is very nice and comes in a free version, a $100 version that comes free in some hardware bundles, and the full pro version for $400
 
richb said:
I've been out of the DAW game for some time and I would appreciate some opinions.

I'm looking for some DAW that I can interface with a Focusrite 18i20 into my MAC Pro Book. My goal is to get some nice, hobbyist recordings of my 4 piece band for promo's (for local gigs, etc.). I'm not recording material for an album release or anything like that. I don't see my self using a lot of plug ins or doing any serious post production. I just need a "nice" recording. The band plays pretty straightforward cover tunes, of pop, rock, country & funk. I have used Pro Tools a bit in my last band, but that was 5 years ago. PT might be too much DAW for me. Key features for me are:
Easy to set up tracks
Cut, paste, move tracks
Easy to export the finished product (to post on social media to promote the band)
If I can keep the price under $300.00, even better.
Thanks for any advice. I appreciate it.
Click to expand...

Reaper!
 
I just upgraded to Studio One 4 Pro which is really nice. But there's nothing wrong with Reaper - and Reaper is free to try - pretty-much forever..

The thing about a DAW, is the amount of time you spend learning the software. Ease of workflow comes with familiarity with the software, So changing to another DAW later on can be just more of that kinda tedium.

All DAWS pretty-much do the same thing though. More expensive DAWs tend to contain more premium samples and instruments - which cost money later on if you need them and don't have them; or they offer applications and workflows that are more suited to certain types of music production or even live performance use (Ableton Live for ex.), or etc.

Because I don't particularly enjoy learning new software, I just imagined the biggest, most complex job I could possibly need to throw at a DAW, and chose a DAW based on that scenario.

Ideally you would want to get an idea for a piece of music and be able to rough that idea out at-least, within your workstation. So, depending on the type of music you might want to produce, more included samples and instruments come in handy for that. But you can always buy instruments later on if need be - if you need to buy them at all.

Reaper might not offer some of the bells and whistles as some of the Big Names out there. But it is always being improved on, updates are free and frequent up until the next major version, it's dirt cheap, and for most applications it will get the same job done as any other DAW.
 
^^^ I more or less agree with the above. One DAW is another. Workflow and what it comes bundled with is a consideration. I’m less interested personally in having a tone of built in VIs. But they’re cool. There’s a bloat factor. Logic. I do mostly live real instruments but write OR preproduce often with VIs. I buy those separately. I have several DAWS for different purposes. I don’t have Reaper though. I haven’t found the need. I think the attraction seems to be it’s good and very cheap. Which is cool. I have no problem paying though. I like to support developers.

As I said for me it’s DP. It’s layout and operation is much like PT, which I also have. I just know it really well. Logic, PT and Reason I use when I’m working with a client who uses those. I keep planning on using Live for Mj band but only done it on one gig. It’s a great application though. I keep updating and playing with it. Who knows?
 
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