KVR Audio

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:36 pm

First, sorry to get back to a thread more than two years after the last post, but this is good to show how any poll can lead to very different conclusions, and we should always suspect of the results, especially when we don't know how the poll was organized, what kind of universe was it made with, and the respective backgrounds of the people enquired.

Ask Audio published the results of their own poll. Allegedly, more than 30.600 musicians answered this query (no wonder, there were prizes involved). I don't remember if I answered (I think not). Here is the link to the site publication: https://ask.audio/articles/top-12-most- ... -voted-for

Anyway, the results led to Live being the most used DAW, with 20,52%, followed closely by Logic Pro X, with 19,2%, and Pro Tools, with 16,13%. Cubase only came fourth, with little more than 10% (I confess this result surprises me), and REAPER came in 7th place almost tied with Reason (8th place).

Personally, I am convinced that Ask Audio customers are most of all producer/DJs, and most of them (the vast majority) Mac users. and that may lead to distortions in the results. But any poll can lead to distorted results unless we carefully select the polled universe. The poll published in this thread has just little more than 1.000 answers (against the quoted 30.600 from Ask Audio), yet the tendency is completely different.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:39 pm

Indeed it will be very different in different places. Also, the questioning of the poll already differs. Your host/DAW of choice /= The best DAW. I doubt that it makes any difference for most people participating in the polls though.

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:54 pm

Yeah, the question isn't the same. One could use LMMS as his DAW of choice and think the best DAW is Ableton Live without using it.

In my SampleScience survey I asked "what us your main DAW?", as I suppose a lot of people will use more than one. The results are different from the results here and the ones at Ask Audio. I'm at 600+ answers so far, you can see the survey here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Vlckjt ... UxuFsUVzw/

Overall, the answers to this question are split almost equally between Ableton Live, Logic, Reaper, FL Studio and Cubase. The rest is fragmented in very small portions (Studio One, Sonar, Renoise, etc.).

That being said, there isn't much I can do with these numbers. For instance, I have regular demand for Pro Tools plugins and Pro Tool seems only popular in the Ask Audio pool. I could create a product for an obscure DAW and get great sales out of it. etc..

EnGee · Post by **EnGee** » Fri Apr 20, 2018 11:23 pm

Oh I couldn't guess what was my DAW of choice 4 years ago! When I looked at my vote, it is Ableton Live. It is still a great choice I believe if I still have the standard edition, but I only have the intro edition now and I use it rarely!

I think after sometime with Live I went with Reason 7/8 and then Studio One 3 for sometime then Bitwig and finally Cubase (which I still use it a lot), but now it is mostly Reason 10 as I really like the synths, instruments, effects, design, colours, simple workflow and shortcuts, even more than Cubase! Nektar P4 is integrated well with it as well

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 12:27 am

I don't remember if I answered this, but I am in the 7%--Logic Pro. I have a little experience with Reaper, enough to know it wasn't for me, and I briefly tried the demo of Studio One, I forget which version, and found it lacking, in comparison to Logic. Given that there's so much to know about music production, I decided a while back not to spread my intellectual resources too thin (they're thin enough as it is) and stick to one DAW, in my case, Logic. I made the same decision regarding drum software. I've thought of getting EZDrummer 2, but have held back because I have a fair amount invested in Addictive Drums, and concluded that I didn't need anything else. Same goes for orchestral and synth programs. I've got plenty. The important thing is to learn the tools I have, and make the best music possible. I went through a period where acquisition was a kind of displacement behaviour for actually making music, because my perfectionism gets in my way. For some people, I guess its the journey. For others, it is the goal, and my goal is to make my music the best I can possibly make it. For some people, it's both, but I am too old and don't have the time to dick around with all the newfangled thingies out there.

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 12:47 am

I don't think it makes any sense to trust a poll done by a tutorial video company that doesn't have tutorial videos on all the DAWs in the poll. I've no doubt that Bitwig and Digital Performer are going to be at the bottom in terms of DAWs, but I doubt either are across the board at less than 1% as this poll shows.
Groove 3 would be a better choice for a company to do a poll. Maybe KVR...

zzz00m · Post by **zzz00m** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 1:55 am

The best DAW is the best DAW for YOU!!!

Tj Shredder · Post by **Tj Shredder** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 5:11 am

The biggest flaw of this poll is, I cannot check any of the listed DAWs, because it is missing almost all I use! At least it should have an "other"...

Michael L · Post by **Michael L** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 6:58 am

Tj Shredder wrote:The biggest flaw of this poll is, I cannot check any of the listed DAWs, because it is missing almost all I use! At least it should have an "other"...

Start an Other poll, with all the DAWs missing from this poll. Yours would certainly be bigger (I can think of 25 more), and we can never have too many polls!

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 7:01 am

jackdaw

pekbro · Post by **pekbro** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 7:41 am

My answer would be approximately 50%

bleepbleepnonsense · Post by **bleepbleepnonsense** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 9:12 am

Just started to get into recording again after a lengthy lay off and decided on Reaper after everyone kept recommending it. Not perfect but really does suit my needs at the mo.

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 9:23 am

I did not recommend it.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 9:28 am

SampleScience wrote: Overall, the answers to this question are split almost equally between Ableton Live, Logic, Reaper, FL Studio and Cubase. The rest is fragmented in very small portions (Studio One, Sonar, Renoise, etc.).

Your results seem more in line with what I would expect. I would not certainly expect that Pro Tools have more users than Cubase and that Cubase is so behind Logic and Live. But coming from a company whose tutorials are concentrated in Logic and Live, one can't be surprised if those two are the big winners of the poll. It's their target market, after all.

The same applies to the low end. As others said, I don't believe Digital Performer values around 1% of the market. The same goes for Bitwig. This shows how polls can lead to really distorted views, and support arguments completely divorced from reality.

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Sat Apr 21, 2018 9:53 am

The other elephant in the room:
I use- Digital Performer, Live, Reaper, and sometimes Logic.
I also have used Reason and Renoise and own copies of those programs.

Mostly I use at this point DP and Live, but it's very possible in the next year I switch over to Reaper for most everything.

I could name the strong and week points of any of the DAWs I use and most of the ones I don't. Naming a DAW of choice is really a matter of time and place. To me it's not a marriage, and I seem to get up to pace pretty quickly in any DAW really.

KVR Audio

Your host/DAW of choice (Poll)

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