Your favorite Daw

Cut my teeth on Cakewalk Pro Audio many moons ago, then Sonar, and have been using Reaper for the past decade or so. It gets it all done for me.
 
I keep up-to-date copies of most DAWs since I never know in what format a collaboration is going to show up. Currently, I have:
  • Ableton Live
  • Cubase
  • Mixcraft
  • Reaper
  • FL Studio
  • Studio 1
  • Cakewalk
  • Pro Tools
Mixcraft used to be my go-to, but Acoustica's unwillingness/inability to keep software current had me looking elsewhere. I had always dabbled with Reaper, but finally committed to it as my full-time DAW about 4 months ago. I only wish I had done it sooner. There is nothing Reaper can't do for me and once you understand the methodology, you are like "of course, that's how a DAW should operate."

I used to use Ableton for live backing tracks and really liked it, but have since converted over to LiveTraker. Reason being...In order to control Abelton via MIDI, you need to limit yourself to 128 tracks at at time. Not a problem for a gig per se, but for practice or jam sessions when anything is on the table, I found it too limiting as I literally have hundreds of backing tracks.

I keep the all other DAWs around, but only to open others' projects.
 
I use Cubase. Like you it was bundled years ago with an interface and I learned how it works (for the most part) and stuck with it. I had an aversion to Protools because at the time and really still is in many ways expensive and proprietary. I started to to mess with Ableton, but didn’t always like the way it could push my music into the looping arena. I really try to avoid the repeated loop based music of today with canned samples, etc.. It is a good platform to access virtual instruments and honestly have been meaning to install it on my new system and give it a go again.

In a totally different way I have been using Roland Zenbeats solely on my iPad. The irony is it’s basically an Ableton style system that’s probably even more dependent on loops and samples. I use it a bit differently (I used Ableton this way too) to quickly get some drum beats down and quick ideas while relaxing or to just jam over, but then would start anything serious in Cubase.

I used Reaper when it first came out and was totally freeware. It obviously has caught on, but at the time I didn’t want to get wrapped up in something that might disappear or have proper support. I had paid for Cubase and wasn’t going to just waste that investment. Now that PC’s have reached the level where memory and CPU are not an issue most all DAWs are good and are stable on a properly configured system. It seems like whatever people started with they stay with or if they’re in the industry then Protools is it.

I forgot to add that Cubase comes with some of the best virtual instrument platforms and drum making tools around. It actually is packed with a lot of useful stuff. So much that I can’t keep up with it all sometimes.
 
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When I bought in 1986(?) an Atari ST as my first computer, the only available sequencer software at that time was Steinberg 24 and so I bought it.
A later year they made a big relaunch and from then on it was called Cubase.
In the time until today I had several periods, where I didn't make music at all. Starting again was then every time a real challenge to learn the new versions of Cubase with all the added features, but I could at least convert the old discs/files from the round before.
There might be better/easier DAWs out there, but I don't want to spend even more time with learning the handling of them and therefore I stick to Cubase.
 
I use Cubase. Like you it was bundled years ago with an interface and I learned how it works (for the most part) and stuck with it. I had an aversion to Protools because at the time and really still is in many ways expensive and proprietary. I started to to mess with Ableton, but didn’t always like the way it could push my music into the looping arena. I really try to avoid the repeated loop based music of today with canned samples, etc.. It is a good platform to access virtual instruments and honestly have been meaning to install it on my new system and give it a go again.

In a totally different way I have been using Roland Zenbeats solely on my iPad. The irony is it’s basically an Ableton style system that’s probably even more dependent on loops and samples. I use it a bit differently (I used Ableton this way too) to quickly get some drum beats down and quick ideas while relaxing or to just jam over, but then would start anything serious in Cubase.

I used Reaper when it first came out and was totally freeware. It obviously has caught on, but at the time I didn’t want to get wrapped up in something that might disappear or have proper support. I had paid for Cubase and wasn’t going to just waste that investment. Now that PC’s have reached the level where memory and CPU are not an issue most all DAWs are good and are stable on a properly configured system. It seems like whatever people started with they stay with or if they’re in the industry then Protools is it.

I forgot to add that Cubase comes with some of the best virtual instrument platforms and drum making tools around. It actually is packed with a lot of useful stuff. So much that I can’t keep up with it all sometimes.

I would add that if I was left on an island with only Cubase, I wouldn't be all that upset!
 
When I bought in 1986(?) an Atari ST as my first computer, the only available sequencer software at that time was Steinberg 24 and so I bought it.
A later year they made a big relaunch and from then on it was called Cubase.
In the time until today I had several periods, where I didn't make music at all. Starting again was then every time a real challenge to learn the new versions of Cubase with all the added features, but I could at least convert the old discs/files from the round before.
There might be better/easier DAWs out there, but I don't want to spend even more time with learning the handling of them and therefore I stick to Cubase.

I’ve walked a similar path re: Steinberg/cubase … stepped away too

Recently, I downloaded Audacity for a quick comp challenge and that was fun as hell.

So I ended up buying Logic for $200 (wow!) and then buying the crazy expensive laptop for 1500% more. 😢

I’ve only bought two plug-ins (neutron 4 and ozone 10 for mixing and mastering). They seem to do a pretty good job so far.

I dig it!
 
Cubase & Logic

Logic was my main DAW for the last 10 years, but I switched to Cubase 12 last year. On my M1 iMac its audio engine runs even more efficiently than Logic, which is really great. And in Logic I was always missing a decent MIDI drum editor.
 
GarageBand is a go-to for quick, fun projects. So quick and easy to use! And it allows me to focus on the music rather than getting tripped up on the engineering process.

As I stretched the limits of GarageBand, I tried many other DAWs and landed on Reaper with the Logic Pro theme. Reaper is only $60, has a small footprint, and performs really well on my Mac Mini. It can be annoying when I'm trying to do something new that I haven't tried before, but there's plenty of YouTube videos to get me over the hump.

I tried Logic Pro and it didn't run or perform any different than GarageBand.
 
Been on Cubase since v5 (in 2006 I believe). Currently on v12 Pro. Upgrades over the years has been pretty much on a two year cycle. That usually jumps me one full version (5 to 6, so skip over 5.5). They seem to release in November or so every year, a .5 update. The reason I do it on two years is, if you did not "activate" your new version, then you could get grandfathered in to the one after the next version. So you could upgrade for like $50, a couple of times even less. The last update was pricey, I think $150 or something, but I had waited a bit longer and jumped from 10 to 12. The new v12 is a login model, so dongle no longer needed. Steinberg "claims" that it will not move to subscription based, and I hope that is true (I had subscription based software). In 2006, I downloaded cracked versions of all the big players at the time, and felt most comfortable in Cubase. I then did some research on the company and that pushed me even more in it's direction.
 
Digidesign Avid Certified Pro Tools Op here since 2011 - I use Ableton Live. PT is fine if it's a session with all audio i.e. live band in the studio with a dozen mics or so but for being creative and actually writing songs I find Live to be the better tool for me.

The reason I love Live is that I can use it as a linear DAW in the Arrangement view, much like PT and the others, or I can use it in a non-linear fashion with the Session view.

These days I don't really write songs from start to finish but rather record a pile of variations on an idea as Clips in Live and then build them into a scene of music before connecting one scene to another.

Separating the act of recording from the act of arranging has helped me be less precious and more productive.
 
Yeah, Apple's upgrade cycle is why I built my first hackintosh in 2009.
Almost the same here. Built the first hackintosh a decade ago and the current one last summer with TB3 so I can run Logic, including to the UA Apollo (4ms latency @ 48k, 2 ms @ 96k) and can keep current as long as Apple supports Intel macs. Logic has so much functionality already included.
 
Started with cakewalk, moved to cubase, tried studio one that came with the presonus firewire interface, then saw a few videos with logic which seemed to have all I needed so I tried it on a hackintosh first and was really happy with it. Got an older real mac server and I'm happy since.
I've seen Reaper in a professional recording studio and was really impressed by it but for home, logic/garage-band has enough features for demo recordings. Drummer and Flex Pitch were some of the factors that kept me with logic (two left hands in writing drum parts and when I sing I'm probably 90% right - the rest can be fixed with flex-pitch). That eliminated the need for plugins like easy drummer or melodyne.
also easy to exchange projects with friends using cubase/reaper. does the job.
 
I own a few DAWs. I was a Pro Tools guy but that became much more money than I was willing to pay since I am not making any money with this. I have Cubase and that was going to be my PT replacement. However, I also downloaded Cakewalk on my Windows machine and would use that if I were to start recording with that machine. I also purchased Logic for my Mac. That is the one that I seem to go to the most because it has everything built into it that I need. I don't have to purchase anything more to do what I want to do.
 
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