Best free - or nearly free DAWs

[SLiC]

Of all DAWs worth their salt, Cockos Reaper is the best bang for buck hands down. More importantly, it always has been. Other 'elitist' brands eventually realized they better do something similar after destroying your wallet for years.

I think Sonar is comparable to Reaper in terms of features and is completely free which is very hard to beat (and may also be a little more new user friendly)

Sounds like this thread neds a vote button!

[rlared]

Cakewalk by Bandlab for sure. Comes with nice effects including prochannel plugins and Breverb2 and Rematrix (lite versions). Nice workflow and if you have Melodyne it integrates with ARA.

Reaper is excellent as well and is an excellent value. I would definitely go with Reaper over a lite version of another DAW.

But keep in mind that Reaper and Cakewalk don't come with virtual instruments (ok technically they come with super basic synth plugins), so if you use those then you have to factor that into the cost.

[dellboy]

Cakewalk by Bandlab for sure. Comes with nice effects including prochannel plugins and Breverb2 and Rematrix (lite versions). Nice workflow and if you have Melodyne it integrates with ARA.

Bandlab Sonar is the no1 DAW for use with external synths.

When I use it with my Roland XV88 (Roland XV3080 with keyboard) I can quickly dial up all the presets. Cubase can also do this, but I could never get the patch scripts to work properly . Apparently Reaper can also use Cubase patch scripts but it requires jumping through hoops to make it work.

[AnX]

mulab

[MattmaN]

Podium free (cool DAW but not developed actively)

It's still being developed. There was an update just about 2 months ago.(albeit on the paid version)
If your on an older system Podium runs nicely btw.
I have had the free version running on winXP sp2 like a champ!

[pdxindy]

Of all DAWs worth their salt, Cockos Reaper is the best bang for buck hands down. More importantly, it always has been. Other 'elitist' brands eventually realized they better do something similar after destroying your wallet for years.

On the Mac, I'd say Logic is an even better bang for the buck. You get a wide range of top notch instruments, effects and other useful content. It would cost a lot more to add the equivalent to Reaper.

[Russell Grand]

Another vote for Cakewalk by Bandlab.

[ghettosynth]

Of all DAWs worth their salt, Cockos Reaper is the best bang for buck hands down. More importantly, it always has been. Other 'elitist' brands eventually realized they better do something similar after destroying your wallet for years.

On the Mac, I'd say Logic is an even better bang for the buck. You get a wide range of top notch instruments, effects and other useful content. It would cost a lot more to add the equivalent to Reaper.

If we disregard the free or close to free part, I'd agree.

[THE INTRANCER]

The best DAW and one that is free, is the one in my head.

[Topcheese]

No question hands-down Cakewalk by Bandlab! They also offer a pretty robust music sharing site you can corroborate with other musicians online, so you get more bang for your buck.
I don't even use the DAW but I do use their website. I'm not going to lie about my concerns of who now owns the product, but obviously I'm not that concerned about it and use their online service. I never really liked the DAW in the first place, so it doesn't matter it's now free.
I still thought it was a fairly solid DAW at the time.

[chk071]

Of all DAWs worth their salt, Cockos Reaper is the best bang for buck hands down. More importantly, it always has been. Other 'elitist' brands eventually realized they better do something similar after destroying your wallet for years.

On the Mac, I'd say Logic is an even better bang for the buck. You get a wide range of top notch instruments, effects and other useful content. It would cost a lot more to add the equivalent to Reaper.

Actually, this holds true for about any DAW out there. Which makes... Reaper NOT the best bang for the buck. Just a DAW which is stripped off all the expensive stuff which is present in any other DAW. Actually, when you buy a commercial Repaer license, i'd consider it pretty expensive.

[Tj Shredder]

Had been mentioned already, but Ardour belongs to the best. Advatanges over others: its cross platform and open source.
As its tied to Harrison Mixbus, the professional developement in the future is secured as well...

[sprnva]

If you have a Mac and don't need high sample rates or external MIDI don't overlook Garageband.

[AdvancedFollower]

Had been mentioned already, but Ardour belongs to the best. Advatanges over others: its cross platform and open source.
As its tied to Harrison Mixbus, the professional developement in the future is secured as well...

I keep getting discounts for Mixbus so I'd almost count that into the "nearly free" category too. E.g. a few days ago it was $39 including 5 plug-ins.

[Danilo Villanova]

Cakewalk is actually super nice. I have no idea how Gibson brought it to the ground. The UI is one of my favorites in any DAW and the ProChannel workflow, with a really cool selection of effects right there on the channel strip, make it a breeze for mixing.