Which DAW is fastest to load?

[WotEva]

...On the new PC it takes all of 11 seconds to get going.

But is it consistent?

On my laptop - that I power off completely for the night - plugins scan (it says 548, although this includes various formats & bit depths) lasts 15-20s normally, but almost 2 minutes when I launch it after cold boot.

I really wish Presonus added background plugin scanning like Bitwig does, for example (Ableton seems to have added it also, but it still scans something at the start).

Yes it is pretty consistent. The 11 seconds is after cold start-up. The only thing that significantly slows down the plugin scan is whenever I have recently updated Waves plugs. Then it probably adds about 4 or 5 extra seconds of that spinning W. For info I have a smidge over 1,000 plugs to scan as well.

If I have already opened and closed Studio One. Restarting the program only takes about 7-8 seconds. I am not 100% sure where the incredible speed difference comes from compared to my old PC? I suspect it is the nvme program drive working like a beast, but here are the main differences between my new rig vs old rig:

Nvme M.2 program drive VS old rickety sata ssd (and a fairly slow one)
16 cores VS 4 cores
32gig of RAM VS 8gig of RAM
Windows 10 from the get-go VS Windows 7 updated to 10

I'm not sure if it is just one of, or a combination of the above factors, but yes it has brought Studio One start-up time down from multiple minutes to a few seconds.

[EvilDragon]

FLS is pretty fast to start up with a clean project, but Reaper is faster still (it has an option to disable the startup splash AND also an option to disable scanning for new plugins on startup - and these make it absolutely stupid fast to load).

[RugerioDelStereo]

Logic Pro X is pretty fast on my 2018 MBP with 16GB RAM: about 5-7 seconds for a new project. Reaper is even faster, launches in 3-5 seconds.

[Googly Smythe]

This is important because...? Other than just being a pissing contest. Does the extra few seconds saved/lost really matter in a session lasting hours?
Ftr Cubase on my (old) machine takes about 40 seconds, loading a project takes about 2 minutes. While it's doing that I'm making coffee.

[zvenx]

I was about to simply chime in with I know for sure it isn't my beloved Cubendo.

Then I saw Googly Smythe's post above mine.

Why? For me it matters a lot, I have an idea in my head and I want to go record it or make a sketch of it before I forget it, whilst it is still fresh. Cubendo is a killer with that for me.

Often my best idea comes when I am doing something completely unrelated to music, then I have to dash to my computer and start my DAW to record it in quickly.

I usually end up booting Maschine which boots up quickly to jot down the idea.
rsp

[Googly Smythe]

I was about to simply chime in with I know for sure it isn't my beloved Cubendo.

Then I saw Googly Smythe's post above mine.

Why? For me it matters a lot, I have an idea in my head and I want to go record it or make a sketch of it before I forget it, whilst it is still fresh. Cubendo is a killer with that for me.

Often my best idea comes when I am doing something completely unrelated to music, then I have to dash to my computer and start my DAW to record it in quickly.

I usually end up booting Maschine which boots up quickly to jot down the idea.
rsp

[Vee Nee]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYl5FcOIyhI
8s to get ready on my system for S1 with quick rescan and 6s with rescan disabled. And for me it is critical too when i need to quickly write down an idea. Though i usually use MPC1000 for this task.

[cryophonik]

I've never timed the different DAWs I've owned, but it seems to vary between computers. Sonar always loaded very quickly on my old desktop, but would take forever to load on my old laptop, while Cubase and Studio One seemed to be the opposite.

On my iMac, Logic seems to load quicker than my other DAWs that I routinely use, but they all load pretty quickly and much faster than any Windows machine I've ever owned (probably because it's the most current and fastest machine I've ever owned).

[vurt]

I was about to simply chime in with I know for sure it isn't my beloved Cubendo.

Then I saw Googly Smythe's post above mine.

Why? For me it matters a lot, I have an idea in my head and I want to go record it or make a sketch of it before I forget it, whilst it is still fresh. Cubendo is a killer with that for me.

Often my best idea comes when I am doing something completely unrelated to music, then I have to dash to my computer and start my DAW to record it in quickly.

I usually end up booting Maschine which boots up quickly to jot down the idea.
rsp

does your phone not have an audio recorder?
hum/whistle/tap it out all before you can even move to the computer

[Bulbizarre]

In the slow category Ableton is a freaking dinosaur. I tried Bitwig recently and ported a little project, controls are much more responsive and it goes really really fast. The audio engine separate from the daw process is a blessing, and you can load project side by side like in a web browser. It's day and night difference with Ableton...

[melomood]

Ableton is a dinosaur but so am I. I still jot ideas down with a pen & when I sit down to fire up the DAW it takes me just as long to get situated for the next few hours of not wanting to move from that spot once I'm started for a sesh

[zvenx]

I was about to simply chime in with I know for sure it isn't my beloved Cubendo.

Then I saw Googly Smythe's post above mine.

Why? For me it matters a lot, I have an idea in my head and I want to go record it or make a sketch of it before I forget it, whilst it is still fresh. Cubendo is a killer with that for me.

Often my best idea comes when I am doing something completely unrelated to music, then I have to dash to my computer and start my DAW to record it in quickly.

I usually end up booting Maschine which boots up quickly to jot down the idea.
rsp

does your phone not have an audio recorder?
hum/whistle/tap it out all before you can even move to the computer

Thats how I did it circa 2000 and earlier.....or send it to my phone's voicemail..... but that can only allow you melodies. not chord structures or an interesting beat... well I can't do those on that anyway. And when I compare what I can do in a DAW vs this method it is highly inefficient. Although I still do that if I am stuck in traffic, but surely not when I am home (I also work from home even before Covid)
rsp

[killmaster]

I have Bitwig, Logic, Cubase, Reason and Studio One and Studio One is the fastest. (I'm on Mac)

[vurt]

I was about to simply chime in with I know for sure it isn't my beloved Cubendo.

Then I saw Googly Smythe's post above mine.

Why? For me it matters a lot, I have an idea in my head and I want to go record it or make a sketch of it before I forget it, whilst it is still fresh. Cubendo is a killer with that for me.

Often my best idea comes when I am doing something completely unrelated to music, then I have to dash to my computer and start my DAW to record it in quickly.

I usually end up booting Maschine which boots up quickly to jot down the idea.
rsp

does your phone not have an audio recorder?
hum/whistle/tap it out all before you can even move to the computer

Thats how I did it circa 2000 and earlier.....or send it to my voice note..... but that can only allow you melodies. not chord structures or an interesting beat... well I can't do those on that anyway.
rsp

fair enough
good for those moments you're too far from the computer, whatever the year
maybe someone else didn't think of it though.

but yup, we'd all like instant host opening, but computers are only so powerful and time is inevitable.
that said, my most recent pc, actually shocks me still, how fast it goes from switching on the plug to being fully booted mebbe 2/3 seconds.

opening programs is less speedy though.

[Danilo Villanova]

REAPER, Waveform and Mixcraft load pretty fast. Studio One is pretty slow on my machine. Reason is kind of in between.