Tried:
FLS
Sonar
Cubase
MuLAB
Reaper
Stayed:
Reaper
How many DAWS have you tried and what's the winner?
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- KVRAF
- 23101 posts since 7 Jan, 2009 from Croatia
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- KVRAF
- 3623 posts since 5 Jan, 2006 from UK
Chronological order:
TCB Tracker
Fast Tracker II
Scream Tracker 3
Renoise
FL Studio
Orion
EnergyXT
Tracktion
Sonar
Reaper
Cubase
- Now just using Cubase. Sometimes Reaper to work on exported Cubase projects.
TCB Tracker
Fast Tracker II
Scream Tracker 3
Renoise
FL Studio
Orion
EnergyXT
Tracktion
Sonar
Reaper
Cubase
- Now just using Cubase. Sometimes Reaper to work on exported Cubase projects.
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musical android musical android https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=298141
- KVRist
- 251 posts since 5 Feb, 2013 from spain
Sunvox for making electronic music.
Reaper for acoustic music and for mixing / mastering.
Mjaiuuu
Reaper for acoustic music and for mixing / mastering.
Mjaiuuu
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- KVRist
- 91 posts since 11 May, 2006
Cubase (from VST 3.something up to C7)
Pro Tools
Adobe Audition/Cool Edit Pro
Logic
Reaper
FL Studio/Fruity Loops
Live
The first four in my list I have used for work with various studios and broadcasters. I have never really liked Logic, but can find my way around it quite well.
The last three on my list I have only used in my home studio:
Reaper is good and I do use it occasionally (usually just for a quick acoustic project).
FL Studio I haven't used for a couple of years, but I have used it to create loops/samples that I then imported in to a different host to use in a project.
I have only tried Live a few times and it never clicked for me.
My favourite host is (and has been for over a decade) Cubase.
Pro Tools
Adobe Audition/Cool Edit Pro
Logic
Reaper
FL Studio/Fruity Loops
Live
The first four in my list I have used for work with various studios and broadcasters. I have never really liked Logic, but can find my way around it quite well.
The last three on my list I have only used in my home studio:
Reaper is good and I do use it occasionally (usually just for a quick acoustic project).
FL Studio I haven't used for a couple of years, but I have used it to create loops/samples that I then imported in to a different host to use in a project.
I have only tried Live a few times and it never clicked for me.
My favourite host is (and has been for over a decade) Cubase.
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- KVRAF
- 7237 posts since 7 Mar, 2003
This isn't meant to be a flamey follow up, but I just wanted to add, before I settled on Studio One, I used Reaper heavily. I just got so sick of trying to customize it to my perfect workflow, and waiting for improvements, that it actually started to get in the way of the actual music creation and recording.
Studio One is just really transparent - I hardly notice it is there.
Studio One is just really transparent - I hardly notice it is there.
Studio One, and I'm on a Mac 
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- KVRist
- 115 posts since 14 Sep, 2011
Started with Logic 9. Still the DAW for me. If they introduced drag and drop I would be pretty much happy with that.
Ableton- Used Ableton Lite on my BTEC. Loved it on the first go, but after spending a bit more time with my mates Ableton Suite, I still prefer a linear DAW for songwriting.
Ableton is incredibly fast for ideas, but I found writing songs in Logic easier. I am also a big fan of the audio and midi effects on Ableton. I might buy Ableton 9 when I have the cash, or wait for Bitwig.
I also didn't like the way I couldn't assign individual channels for each drum hit from Geist in the mixer. Geist in Ableton also sounds completely different to Logic. Abletons drum racks are pretty good though, so I really doubt I would need an external drum plug in.
Reason- Hated everything about it !! Can't say why exactly, just didn't work for me.
Pro Tools 9- Used this recently for audio editing/recording for my Music Technology BTEC. Quite liked the editing functions, but didn't see any reason why I would buy it once I owned Logic.
Ableton- Used Ableton Lite on my BTEC. Loved it on the first go, but after spending a bit more time with my mates Ableton Suite, I still prefer a linear DAW for songwriting.
Ableton is incredibly fast for ideas, but I found writing songs in Logic easier. I am also a big fan of the audio and midi effects on Ableton. I might buy Ableton 9 when I have the cash, or wait for Bitwig.
I also didn't like the way I couldn't assign individual channels for each drum hit from Geist in the mixer. Geist in Ableton also sounds completely different to Logic. Abletons drum racks are pretty good though, so I really doubt I would need an external drum plug in.
Reason- Hated everything about it !! Can't say why exactly, just didn't work for me.
Pro Tools 9- Used this recently for audio editing/recording for my Music Technology BTEC. Quite liked the editing functions, but didn't see any reason why I would buy it once I owned Logic.
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- KVRAF
- 4278 posts since 14 Nov, 2008 from UK
Cubase since SX3, tried demo's of the rest, Still a Cubase user on 5, waiting for 7 demo, nothing seems as intuative as Cubase right of the bat, I just wish it never crashed, hoping 7 will be more stable!
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- KVRAF
- 10077 posts since 2 Jan, 2005 from somewhere in the woods
i've tried a lot of stuff and spent a lot of money in hosts and upgrades, but only Ableton Live offers the workflow, i like. Reason is in use too and sometimes i do some funny things with Studio One v.2 and Melodyne.
"It dreamed itself along"
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- KVRAF
- 1691 posts since 11 Nov, 2004 from Kansas City, MO
Sonar 8.5 PE - started with v. 3, made my 1st record on it, still use 8.5 for "real" sounding instruments, vocal & guitar recording and professional(to me) audio editing. Session Drummer 3 is the 1st thing I call up in any new project. Sonar's also my mastering DAW.
Energy XT 2.5 - Best browser ever, all your plugins & samples right there and no fuss. With VSTs it's superior to Sonar in that you can click to import a preset or patchbank and it will automatically go to the correct folder, whereas with Sonar you have to find it over and over again. XT is also great for rendering little snippets of MIDI to a new audio track. I wouldn't record vocals and audio into XT, though, and wouldn't use it for editing & mastering, since I think Sonar's tools & included plugins are better.
Orion 8.504 - Neat little pattern-based recording system that I'd love to get better used to if I could get over the fact that there is no portamento available from the front panel of any of the included instruments(except Toxic), and I refuse to get over it. I need to play melodies with my keyboard to be creative, and this glaring omission just kills it for me. I do like that I can use the DX instruments & FX from Sonar in Orion, and the Drum Rack is just heaven. I've brought the portamento issue up on the Synapse forum a couple of times and no one seems to care but me, so I guess it won't be fixed.
There isn't a winner between Sonar & XT since I'll keep them both for what they're good at, but for right now Orion is definitely the loser.
Energy XT 2.5 - Best browser ever, all your plugins & samples right there and no fuss. With VSTs it's superior to Sonar in that you can click to import a preset or patchbank and it will automatically go to the correct folder, whereas with Sonar you have to find it over and over again. XT is also great for rendering little snippets of MIDI to a new audio track. I wouldn't record vocals and audio into XT, though, and wouldn't use it for editing & mastering, since I think Sonar's tools & included plugins are better.
Orion 8.504 - Neat little pattern-based recording system that I'd love to get better used to if I could get over the fact that there is no portamento available from the front panel of any of the included instruments(except Toxic), and I refuse to get over it. I need to play melodies with my keyboard to be creative, and this glaring omission just kills it for me. I do like that I can use the DX instruments & FX from Sonar in Orion, and the Drum Rack is just heaven. I've brought the portamento issue up on the Synapse forum a couple of times and no one seems to care but me, so I guess it won't be fixed.
There isn't a winner between Sonar & XT since I'll keep them both for what they're good at, but for right now Orion is definitely the loser.
Last edited by Moe Shinola on Mon Feb 18, 2013 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"The Law speaks too softly to be heard amid the din of arms." -- Gaius Marius {Roman consul,soldier}
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- KVRAF
- 2973 posts since 18 Oct, 2004
I hope you weren't actually expecting to get a definitive answer from this thread.deep'n'dark wrote:The title is asking your opinion of the best DAW in your opinion
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- Banned
- 22457 posts since 5 Sep, 2001
Read my sig.
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- KVRian
- 909 posts since 26 Nov, 2005
I started with Cakewalk around 20 years ago. It ran on a Compaq 8086 machine with very limited graphics. After that I used Cubase. I think it was either version 2 or 3. Then I used a version Logic back when it would still run on Windows. After that I went to Magix Music Studio because it had the same basic layout and workflow as Logic. When I upgraded computer hardware, I went to Cakewalk Home Studio, and have since upgraded to X1 and then X2. Mixed in there were some attempts to use Ableton Live and Tracktion 3. I didn't really care for their workflow as much as Sonar, so I have settled on Sonar X2.
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