mr_fender
Axe-Master
I've used various versions of Cakewalk over the years. Demoed Sonar X2 most recently. Dabbled with an old version of Cubase a tiny bit too. Made the switch to Reaper and really like it. It's been dead stable and I'm constantly surprised by how polished and feature rich it is. It's very flexible and the themes support is really cool too. You can make it look however you want from stripped down and simple to super flashy and photo realistic. With constant free updates, they are always adding new features. With any software, there's always a bit of adjustment to learn where everything is, but I like how customizable everything is. You can create shortcuts for just about anything, do scripting, automation, even write your own java script based plugins. For a measly $60, it's hard to find anything to complain about.
All these DAWs cover the same basic functionality. Some might include more extras than others, but I think it really just boils down to which interface you prefer and how much money you are willing to spend.
All these DAWs cover the same basic functionality. Some might include more extras than others, but I think it really just boils down to which interface you prefer and how much money you are willing to spend.