What do you think of the DAW market right now and for 2020?

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there was a great travesty in the world of hosts a few years ago

i havent recovered, and prob never will

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Really? I'm not finding it particularly stable, it often hangs on exit and sometimes crashes when loading a project. But it seems stable enough once something is loaded and running so I'm confident it won't cause us any grief on stage.
machinesworking wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 6:24 amBesides comping, comping sucks in it
What do you mean by "comping"? In my world, comping means compositing, which I would most closely match with mixing.
Oh, and you know that Cubase is the other DAW out there that continually chases new features right? I'm not put off by that, but it you are, you chose the wrong DAW for sure. Cubase is the only DAW I know of that has more features than Reaper.
That was a concern before I started using but the fact that it mostly exposes only one way of doing things makes it easy to ignore the layers of legacy stuff they would probably love to ditch but can't. A couple of times I've got advice from long-time users who have talked about features I couldn't even find. As long as I stick to v10 videos, I reckon I'll be OK. I certainly won't be in a hurry to upgrade, though, just because there are new features. They will have to really convince me.

I think when a product gets to a certain age, like Cubase, it probably makes sense to rule a line under it and create a new product line alongside it. Keep the old one running on newer OS versions but stop trying to cram new features on top of old ones and make something new. Sort of like what Adobe did with Lightroom and Photoshop.
NOVAkILL : Asus RoG Flow Z13, Core i9, 16GB RAM, Win11 | EVO 16 | Studio One | bx_oberhausen, GR-8, JP6K, Union, Hexeract, Olga, TRK-01, SEM, BA-1, Thorn, Prestige, Spire, Legend-HZ, ANA-2, VG Iron 2 | Uno Pro, Rocket.

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AnX wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 6:30 am there was a great travesty in the world of hosts a few years ago

i havent recovered, and prob never will

it's time to move on man, i know, it was an awful day, one that will go down in history, but dont let it define you, dont let it ruin your future :hug:

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BONES wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 7:35 am Really? I'm not finding it particularly stable, it often hangs on exit and sometimes crashes when loading a project. But it seems stable enough once something is loaded and running so I'm confident it won't cause us any grief on stage.
I checked out Cubase and Logic extensively in 2001 when DP went unstable on my system, and Cubase was a mess compared to Logic, over the years the general consensus has been that Cubase is a supremely powerful feature rich DAW at the sacrifice of stability. Or in the case of the OSX version at the sacrifice of ugly CPU hits at low latencies. They fixed the latency issues and people haven't complained as much here and other places about stability.
I'm not surprised it's still not the most stable DAW by any means, that generally is the domain of DP, Logic etc. and even those DAWs have their version upgrades that hose things.
What do you mean by "comping"? In my world, comping means compositing, which I would most closely match with mixing.
Composite takes, Cubase, Logic, DP and PT all have fantastic comping to piece together a great take out of 2-6 or more recordings of a part. Most of us have day jobs, we can't spend a solid year in the studio like Pink Floyd did for Dark Side of the Moon, so comping a good take out of multiple OK takes is the compromise, of if you're simply not that good I suppose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbqsFbuy0rU
Oh, and you know that Cubase is the other DAW out there that continually chases new features right? I'm not put off by that, but it you are, you chose the wrong DAW for sure. Cubase is the only DAW I know of that has more features than Reaper.
That was a concern before I started using but the fact that it mostly exposes only one way of doing things makes it easy to ignore the layers of legacy stuff they would probably love to ditch but can't. A couple of times I've got advice from long-time users who have talked about features I couldn't even find. As long as I stick to v10 videos, I reckon I'll be OK. I certainly won't be in a hurry to upgrade, though, just because there are new features. They will have to really convince me.

I think when a product gets to a certain age, like Cubase, it probably makes sense to rule a line under it and create a new product line alongside it. Keep the old one running on newer OS versions but stop trying to cram new features on top of old ones and make something new. Sort of like what Adobe did with Lightroom and Photoshop.
Yeah I don't see a 1-1 comparison between features and stability, it's IMO as much a matter of time and money. Nuendo seems to be Steinbergs stable DAW (with features I would never use), and that was/is a concern to me, I'm not willing to pay over a $1000 for a DAW when most are $350 and logic $200, Reaper $60. Add on the stability of Reaper and Logic and I can't justify it.

I'm also a bit confused by your logic here? How exactly are modern just implemented features or improved features going to be more stable in a 30 year old DAW than old features? Parts of a DAW that haven't been changed would logically have been through multiple beta testing phases compared to newer code, whereas parts of a DAW that have been improved or are new are far more likely to fail on someones configuration. It's possible I suppose to have old features conflict with some new OS tweak, but that's far more rare than DAW X implementing some feature without fully bug testing it on the multiple configurations possible out there. Reaper is not unstable, they release new versions all the time. The times I've used features in DP that are from the stone age, like this one that allowed me to take out a high hat from a MIDI track on every second measure on the third beat, it wasn't at all unstable. :shrug:

In comparison I would say you're exactly on the money when it comes to not upgrading right away with DAWs like Live and Cubase that have a year or 4 between upgrades, let others bug fix the dammed things. That many new features all at once is going to cause issues, waiting for at least the first bug fix update to roll out will save your sanity.

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vurt wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 1:50 pm
AnX wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 6:30 am there was a great travesty in the world of hosts a few years ago

i havent recovered, and prob never will

it's time to move on man, i know, it was an awful day, one that will go down in history, but dont let it define you, dont let it ruin your future :hug:
Apple dropping Windows support for Logic? Gibson buying Studio Vision and killing it? Gibson dropping Sonar? Which death blow are we talking about here?

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machinesworking wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 4:56 pm
vurt wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 1:50 pm
AnX wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 6:30 am there was a great travesty in the world of hosts a few years ago

i havent recovered, and prob never will

it's time to move on man, i know, it was an awful day, one that will go down in history, but dont let it define you, dont let it ruin your future :hug:
Apple dropping Windows support for Logic? Gibson buying Studio Vision and killing it? Gibson dropping Sonar? Which death blow are we talking about here?
orion going eol of course :cry:
the true armageddon of the daw world :(

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vurt wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 4:57 pm the true armageddon of the daw world :(
Renoise development stops right after they release version 3, and right after I renew my license up to version 4.1. Hey, they released 3.1, but I'm still waiting for .2, .3, .4, .5, .6, .7, .8, .9, 4 and 4.1.

The bad thing about this is that I'm not immortal, and cannot wait indefinitely for them to stop tinkering with video software, and taking up what they should have been doing all along - developing Renoise. :x :x :x

Typical Germans - unreliable, unpredictable, lazy, and bad businessmen! :hihi:

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perfumer wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 5:15 pm
Renoise development stops right after they release version 3, and right after I renew my license up to version 4.1. Hey, they released 3.1, but I'm still waiting for .2, .3, .4, .5, .6, .7, .8, .9, 4 and 4.1.
?? What's the details here? Are you saying they're discontinuing it or working on other things??

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machinesworking wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 5:45 pm
perfumer wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 5:15 pm
Renoise development stops right after they release version 3, and right after I renew my license up to version 4.1. Hey, they released 3.1, but I'm still waiting for .2, .3, .4, .5, .6, .7, .8, .9, 4 and 4.1.
?? What's the details here? Are you saying they're discontinuing it or working on other things??
The details are that since releasing Renoise 3, they stopped working on it, created Redux, then stopped working on it too, and then went to develop a video editing application. This is going on for several years now - don't want to think how many exactly. And the main developer lacks communication skills and wouldn't confirm or deny anything. They have ideas what to do next with Renoise, eventually, but he wouldn't say if, when, or how definite such plans are. So Renoise is in limbo.

This is his last posta bout updates, from March 2019:
https://forum.renoise.com/t/stuff-we-ac ... d/48346/36
Last edited by perfumer on Tue Aug 20, 2019 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Reason is VERY stable here. VST's are sandboxed (or whatever it's called) and they crash occasionally but the host remains active (like bitwig)

I love it so much, I'm so happy every time I use it.

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machinesworking wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 4:51 pmI'm also a bit confused by your logic here? How exactly are modern just implemented features or improved features going to be more stable in a 30 year old DAW than old features?
I don't think I said anything about that, because I hadn't thought about it in that way, but hopefully new features will have been made for the latest and greatest hardware and OSes. After all, the main reason people stick to Win7 is because their old software doesn't work as well on Win10, so you'd have to think that features developed on Win10 and for Win10 would work, where older features might cause problems.
In comparison I would say you're exactly on the money when it comes to not upgrading right away with DAWs like Live and Cubase that have a year or 4 between upgrades, let others bug fix the dammed things.
That's not why I think that. I think that because upgrades are good for developers/companies, not necessarily for customers. I will upgrade when/if there are compelling reasons to, not just because there is a new version available.
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BONES wrote: Wed Aug 21, 2019 3:38 am
machinesworking wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 4:51 pmI'm also a bit confused by your logic here? How exactly are modern just implemented features or improved features going to be more stable in a 30 year old DAW than old features?
I don't think I said anything about that, because I hadn't thought about it in that way, but hopefully new features will have been made for the latest and greatest hardware and OSes. After all, the main reason people stick to Win7 is because their old software doesn't work as well on Win10, so you'd have to think that features developed on Win10 and for Win10 would work, where older features might cause problems.
OK I've never run into that. I'm on OSX and the closest I can think is when it went Intel over PPC chips, but since then so far older software doesn't run badly on the latest OS, mostly the latest software might use more resources than your old computer can handle, or the whole Massive X thing with older Xeon chips.
For the most part when companies add new features, the new features can be broken and will sometimes break older features, but mostly they will be the cause of instability etc. not the older feature.

In comparison I would say you're exactly on the money when it comes to not upgrading right away with DAWs like Live and Cubase that have a year or 4 between upgrades, let others bug fix the dammed things.
That's not why I think that. I think that because upgrades are good for developers/companies, not necessarily for customers. I will upgrade when/if there are compelling reasons to, not just because there is a new version available.
No big deal there, mostly I will upgrade for the same reasons, but if a feature is missing from a DAW and an upgrade adds it, I'm all about it. If an articulation manager like Cubase and Logic have came to DP I would see that as a valid reason, it's a sweet feature. DP10 added about the smartest easiest to use and fastest key command feature I've ever seen in a DAW, worth the upgrade price on it's own. They add in an amp simulation I don't need and want $200 for it, and I'm skipping that upgrade.

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BONES wrote: Mon Aug 19, 2019 3:16 amExcept it isn't. It certainly was the first time I owned it, at version 3.5, but today the way it works with clips makes way more sense to me than the way Live and Bitwig do it. I find it much better for working through ideas and putting down arrangements, mostly because there aren't the two modes you get in Live/Bitwig, you do it all from the same timeline window. It has been a true revelation to me and I think it is really, really good for the way we are used to working. Orion is pattern-based but we used that in a very different way to the way you work with clips in Live/Bitwig. To me that feels so clunky, where Cubase feels super-slick.

It's almost like the way Song Mode works in a Korg Trinity, where you can copy a pattern or you can "Place" it. When you Place it, it becomes a unique copy and you can change it without it changing all the other copies. Cubase does the same sort of thing, depending on the way you duplicate a clip it can either remain linked, so changing the original changes all of them, or it can be a standalone copy you can edit individually. Great for doing drum fills and stuff.
I don't think you've delved into Bitwig enough. You can work only in the Clip Launcher view if you want and build whole arrangement there, incl. it automatically advancing from one scene to the next. You can grab a clip or whole scene and duplicate it to independent instance. It atually lacks the option to have the copies linked, which is one of my biggest feature requests for Bitwig devs.

However, I agree that Bitwig is tailored to specific type of user and for them it works really well, with some things being implemented brilliantly compared to all the other DAWs. For others though, it definitely lacks some fundamental features.
Music tech enthusiast
DAW, VST & hardware hoarder
My "music": https://soundcloud.com/antic604

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Back to Cubase, did they ever optimize the CPU usage like Studio One did? That was one of several "gripes" I had with it. And I didn't like how it implements midi learn, I felt like I have to jump through hoops to get that right with automation/etc.

Overall though, it was pretty sweet. Again, I just wasn't making music with it which is why I use Reason. Hard to explain.

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No need to explain. That was my experience with Fruityloops back in the day and, more recently, Bitwig. In the end, if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you and that's that.

The problem is that vendors try to fix that by throwing ever more features at their product but what if someone came up with a modular DAW? Something that allowed you to assemble only the features you wanted/needed with no excess clutter? Want to work with patterns? Here's a pattern mode sequencer. Prefer something like a clip launcher? Plug that module in instead. Only ever use linear arrangements? Don't bother with any of those things and just work from the arrange window and piano roll.

One area where I think this could really work is with mixing. The mixer in Cubase has about 100 times more features than I will ever use, which makes it very cumbersome. What if I could choose to have a simple mixer with just the basics, like 3 or 4 band EQ, a couple of inserts and a couple of sends? On the odd occasion I might need more, give me effects containers like Orion does. I'd be willing to pay extra for a mixer like that over the giant mess that Cubase currently offers. I only discovered last weekend that my bandmate uses the mixer in an entirely different way to how I've been using it, which is a giant PITA when it comes to sharing our work. So now we share links to the tutorials we use to learn so we are at least learning the same stuff.
NOVAkILL : Asus RoG Flow Z13, Core i9, 16GB RAM, Win11 | EVO 16 | Studio One | bx_oberhausen, GR-8, JP6K, Union, Hexeract, Olga, TRK-01, SEM, BA-1, Thorn, Prestige, Spire, Legend-HZ, ANA-2, VG Iron 2 | Uno Pro, Rocket.

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