Which DAW is MIDI king?

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lfm wrote: Cubase - support for vst midi plugins and editing is said to be quite capable from what I read. Haven't used so advanced editing in Cubase Elements and Cubase Pro is not up and running yet. But no scripting available.
Cubase has "logic editors" , an "Input Transformer" as well a detailed macro system, which are far more comprehensive than Sonar's clunky CAL set-up (steep learning curve tho). There are also Cubase's various midi chord/harmonizing functions (chord track, chord assistant, chord pads, etc.) to consider as well, in addition to it's fairly detailed roster of MIDI plug-ins. Not to mention all the transpose and scale options. Etc., etc.

Cubase is insane for MIDI.
vespesian (sean)

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Seeing as Cubase was born to be a professional MIDI sequencer (on the Atari ST, and well before multitrack digital audio was available), it should indeed be powerful with MIDI.

This same reasoning goes for the other DAWs that started their development at the same time and built as MIDI studios (like Logic... and even Sonar, honestly).

Sadly, MIDI is falling by the wayside and developers are neglecting and even dumping the most advanced MIDI tools already extant in their DAWs (looking at you, Cakewalk).
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One of the reasons I wish I could get Angry Red Planet's Temper to run properly is its apparent MIDI capabilities.
Music can no longer soothe the worried thoughts of monarchs; it can only tell you when it's time to buy margarine or copulate. -xoxos
Discontinue use if rash or irritation develops.

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Legit owner of:

Studio One v3
Reaper 5
Cakewalk Platinum
Cubase 8

Cubase wins for MIDI every time. There's so much you can do, transform, etc. Chord track is exceptional. Cubase has the highest PPQN of all the hosts, and it shows. Love the program, and it's my default host while composing.
What sound do dreams make when they die?

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For now id say fl studio, if you are using mouse (no double click nigthmares), but ableton step recording is awesome (and often overlooked), the perfect middle ground beetween mouse input and real performance.
FL studio also has step input but it mute every other sounds.

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We're talking about external MIDI, right? Cubase, by a fair margin. Did anyone notice the timing on external MIDI seems better after version 7 or so?

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For Midi and Audio Cubase is the leading DAW in the market.
Cubase has not only the best timing/latency correction with my testings (this includes external hardware), it has also the best Midi implementation/editing features. Besides the raw Midi editing there are a also a lot of Midi related features like track versions, chord tracks etc not found in other DAWs. The arranger is also some of this unique feature but it's not only for Midi...
The crazy thing: many DAWs are not supporting the recording of sysex data! Cubase has not only support for sysex, it has also a own sysex editor to load/save a complete sysex bulk as a file...
This is a bit the same with audio, no DAW has such audio manipulation features including this "melodyne style" pitch correction stuff.

Not to praise Cubase to the skies, there are of course also some downsides like stability problems with new released versions, the GUI etc.

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Cubase.

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Feature for feature, Cubase is miles ahead. Oh, and Reaper will never ever be even close to Cubase, DP or Logic in midi functionality. Reaper has a million checkboxes but very few are checked properly for midi workflow. If you need the best midi capabilities then don't waste time on any DAW other than Cubase, DP, Logic or FL Studio (PC only).

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Like Hans Zimmer said - "The best DAW is the one that you know" :wink:

They've all got their strengths and weaknesses...

You just have to pick your poison and learn to deal with it :tu:
No auto tune...

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digitalboytn wrote:Like Hans Zimmer said - "The best DAW is the one that you know" :wink:

They've all got their strengths and weaknesses...

You just have to pick your poison and learn to deal with it :tu:
Hans knows Cubase real well as does Harry Gregson Williams and numerous other top composers.

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I'm a heavy midi dude who has spent over ten years learning different DAWs in search of the perfect midi editor.

Your question is a very very loaded one. Short answer: there isn't one.

On paper, I would say that Cubase is up there, but logic is too. However, even though I learned both of these apps really well (shortcut Ninja and all), I ultimately decided not to use them. FWIW I liked Cubase the most.

But yea,&5 depends on your style. From my perspective, you could say there are 2 major paradigms of how one would go about working with midi. One is using your mouse and key shortcuts to go through and hands on edit things the way you like. The other is by using macro type of tools. You set the parameters and and it applies some actions to a group of notes. Every daw has a combination of these two aspects of editing.

For me, how it handles in the "hands on" way, is most important. I tend to not use many macro tools. This is why I use to Presonus studio one and FL studio. They handle very efficiently when you want to go through and have precise control over every detail. I like the key commands, and just little things like that in S1 you can hold ctrl and press space bar and it will move the playback position to wherever the mouse is hovering. To me, this makes midi editing more "powerful" in S1. Also I like the way it handles editing multiple midi channels at once.

If FL studio had multi channel editing the way S1 does, I would probably use it exclusively, because I absolutely love the way the piano ro handles when you learn all the key commands. It's wonderful. Alas, editing multiple channels at once is a big deal to me.

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ccDuckett wrote:One of the reasons I wish I could get Angry Red Planet's Temper to run properly is its apparent MIDI capabilities.
glad someone mentioned Temper :)

It's modular system allows you tailor make tools, plus it introduced per note expression years ago.
Just wish they'd implemented the pipeline system that allows to chain the tools.

Of course it runs midi Vst plugins just like the other Daw.

The built in Arp is IMO the best of them all, so easy to create shifting phased phrases that sound like they're being generated by a tangled modular patch

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4damind wrote:For Midi and Audio Cubase is the leading DAW in the market..
I'm not sure who paid you for writing this. I agree that Cubase is top notch regarding MIDI, but definitely not audio.
4damind wrote:This is a bit the same with audio, no DAW has such audio manipulation features including this "melodyne style" pitch correction stuff.


That's simply wrong. Samplitude Pro X(2), for example, has similar (if not the same, or even more) features for manipulating audio, including a pitch correction for single notes.

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