Best and worst DAWs?

[Phorous]

I think "best" is really subjective when you have major subcategories of DAW's catering to an entirely different workflow. Would the best one simply cater to your preferred way of production and the worst be buggy with an offensive workflow?

Out of the DAW's I have tried I like REAPER the most for advanced routing / customization / mixing and mastering. However, over time I learned I liked it the least as far as the process of actually making music goes.

I think you should try different DAW's and find one that speaks to you, then look for other similar DAWs before making a decision.

[Aleatoriac]

Best DAW = Reaper
Worst DAW = Ableton Live.

Of course with caveats. I find Ableton immensely inspiring when it comes to designing and manipulating sounds or making loops. It's just a major inspiration-murderer when it comes to trying to actually PERFORM a piece of music - which may be an issue with my ancient processor...

Reaper... Just fantastic at being something to record and perform live in (audio, midi, doesn't matter). That said I hate editing midi in it. If I could combine the best of Ableton with the best of Reaper I'd probably... Well that's what I do anyway, so

[hibidy]

I you wait long enough here, you'll get every possible answer outcome

[Katelyn]

In reference to some of the posts saying it's subjective... that's kind of the point; everyone has their own favorites and hated ones for various reasons. Variety is the spice of life.

[Kriminal]

Best: OctaMED Pro
Worst: Reaper

[hibidy]

In reference to some of the posts saying it's subjective... that's kind of the point; everyone has their own favorites and hated ones for various reasons. Variety is the spice of life.

Ok, host ho here. Lemme break it down from my perspective (let the flame wars begin! ) I like most hosts, but many of them fall short in one way or another.

Live is still my A#1. It's stable (if you don't use M4L) is plenty efficient in CPU use and does allow me to actually make music instead of it getting in the way. But the PDC thing is an issue (I'm back to my old projects having a latency) and could really use some love with the arranger. But hey, as much as I've put into it, I've gotten my moneys worth. Someone else said "worst" ...... see, you'll get all points eventually

Bitwig is my new muse. It's not like other hosts. If I really want to be experimental, this is the one I open. I'll not bore you with all the details (which you can read elsewhere) but I find it refreshing in some situations. I hate to buy something on "potential" but I really couldn't resist with this. Looking forward to the future and enjoying the present.

Studio one is just a BEAST. As you can tell, I like the "clip" based recording paradigm a lot. But for a linear concept, S1 is terrific. Short list: Stable, nice one window handling, very robust. But the downfalls are crappy CPU handling (I've actually worked with presonus on this, trust me, they are aware that for people doing a lot of midi and multi timbrel there are issues) some really strange bugs, and atrocious handling of folders-mixer to arrangement relationships, and certain midi actions. Most of which can be worked around, but ffs, it's gonna be 2015 in a few days

The worse it sonar for me. But the fanboi's will bring their toxic reasons why since I didn't update (again ) that it's all my fault. So we'll stop there.

The point is, man.......they are all so different. I'm one of those people that gets frustrated with workarounds and workflow stoppages. Kills my buzz instantly. If ANY of the hosts I mentioned above worked w/o bizarre issues, I'd stick to one

[hibidy]

In reference to some of the posts saying it's subjective... that's kind of the point; everyone has their own favorites and hated ones for various reasons. Variety is the spice of life.

Ok, host ho here. Lemme break it down from my perspective (let the flame wars begin! ) I like most hosts, but many of them fall short in one way or another.

Live is still my A#1. It's stable (if you don't use M4L) is plenty efficient in CPU use and does allow me to actually make music instead of it getting in the way. But the PDC thing is an issue (I'm back to my old projects having a latency) and could really use some love with the arranger. But hey, as much as I've put into it, I've gotten my moneys worth. Someone else said "worst" ...... see, you'll get all points eventually

Bitwig is my new muse. It's not like other hosts. If I really want to be experimental, this is the one I open. I'll not bore you with all the details (which you can read elsewhere) but I find it refreshing in some situations. I hate to buy something on "potential" but I really couldn't resist with this. Looking forward to the future and enjoying the present.

Studio one is just a BEAST. As you can tell, I like the "clip" based recording paradigm a lot. But for a linear concept, S1 is terrific. Short list: Stable, nice one window handling, very robust. But the downfalls are crappy CPU handling (I've actually worked with presonus on this, trust me, they are aware that for people doing a lot of midi and multi timbrel there are issues) some really strange bugs, and atrocious handling of folders-mixer to arrangement relationships, and certain midi actions. Most of which can be worked around, but ffs, it's gonna be 2015 in a few days

The worse is sonar for me. But the fanboi's will bring their toxic reasons why since I didn't update (again ) that it's all my fault. So we'll stop there.

The point is, man.......they are all so different. I'm one of those people that gets frustrated with workarounds and workflow stoppages. Kills my buzz instantly. If ANY of the hosts I mentioned above worked w/o bizarre issues, I'd stick to one

[sbj]

MuLab

Great workflow. As simple or complicated as you want.

Gets updated all the time.

Worst: I wouldn't know.

[OutCider]

I'm not a power user and working on the premise that no matter what I come up with at home, if I had a hit on my hands everything would be re-done by a studio anyway, I only use a daw to sketch out songs to a reasonable level a professional would be able to translate and record properly.

Worst daw - Reaper. Looks great, love the skins, just a shame it's been designed to death by committee and feels like it's been built by an engineer with a right click fetish. Sure it's customisable, but I'm an out of the box sort of person. It's obviously not the worst daw, but sadly isn't for me.

Worst toy daw - Fruityloops.

Best - Studio one. Easy to use how I want to use it, rock solid for me and not a dog to look at. Could be improved and I'm sure it will be, but even if it's not, I'm productive in it and it doesn't hinder, and isn't that all that counts for any of us making music?

Worst daw launch - Catwig. Year of hype followed by bugs, missing bits and way too many cat pics. It wasn't psi that broke the internet, it was www. cat pic .com

Daw I'd use if I wasn't satisfied - Mulab, Mixcraft and possibly Bitwig.

All subjective, some inflammatory, but all with a smile on the dial.

[wesleyt]

I really enjoy working in Logic. I do all my mixing there. I occasionally get really inspired in Numerology, so I make sure to stay sharp with it. Live also occasionally inspires me as well, so I spend time there regularly too.

It's so nice that they all can use the same plugins; switching is relatively easy.

Which of these is the best? Well, I spend most of my time in Logic, so if I had to chose one, that'd be it. It's far from the best, but it's the best for me I guess.

Which is worst? Well, Reaper and I don't get along. I want to like it. But it feels so wrong on my Mac, like it was thoughtlessly ported from Windows. It fell by the wayside for me.

Honorable mention: Renoise. Such a beautiful concept. I need to make more time for it.

[jancivil]

I haven't had a really bad experience. I did launch REAPER like twice and it definitely isn't for me.
I had such a sluggish response on Mac with Cubase I bought DP and Logic. Then VE Pro came out and more or less solved the latency issue that moved me to those two, and as it turned out VE Pro does not like either of them, and it feels like the developers are real Cubendo exponents. I still have Logic on my system. It's a big PITA as per VE Pro, and that's that. DP is an odd-looking thing, there are a couple of its ways that I would love to explore, but I sold it, VE Pro and it hate each other a lot, it looks like.

I wanted to work with notation the other day and I must have forgotten how to do anything and nothing got done in three different hosts because I didn't want to learn from the ground up that day. I'm sticking with Cubase (albeit a real notation fail). I only know of one other host that deals with the timeline properly, Samplitude, anyway. I'm an old dog in this sense; I'm not into new synth interfaces either, I go with what I know and I want to record something once I'm in the zone, and 'in the zone' is all about 'go with what I know'.
Things I would hate, someone else would only ever want to use.

I have a pretty stable setup. I have practically abandoned (the abandonware known as) Kore 2 out of frustration and time wasters owing to change I had no real call for anyway (with the workaround typically bringing more dodgy change [*cough* Absynth *cough*]), but I have a setup that works day in/day out, barring exceptions like that one.

[Katelyn]

if I had a hit on my hands everything would be re-done by a studio anyway,

...why? If it was a hit, why would it need to be changed?

I mean, at least if it was me and I had a hit, I'd say screw it to any kind of company trying to rebrand me and change my art. Independent artists have it so much better these days what all with the internet ect ect. At least for me I hate being controlled so I can't fathom working with a studio unless I knew I would retain all rights and have final say.

[UltimateOutsider]

The best: SAWStudio
The worst: Anything else

[OutCider]

if I had a hit on my hands everything would be re-done by a studio anyway,

...why? If it was a hit, why would it need to be changed?

I mean, at least if it was me and I had a hit, I'd say screw it to any kind of company trying to rebrand me and change my art. Independent artists have it so much better these days what all with the internet ect ect. At least for me I hate being controlled so I can't fathom working with a studio unless I knew I would retain all rights and have final say.

Hit as in good, well written song, but not produced/engineered to record quality standard, or with timing errors, or a host of other imperfections that wouldn't make it on to cd. I don't have the ears for it either, which doesn't help

I wouldn't go for being controlled or the re branding either, but as a realist, I'm a songwriter and not a studio bunny, I'd take the sessions and expertise without blinking.

[trimph1]

Best: OctaMED Pro
Worst: Reaper

Can one still get OctaMED Pro?