Why you use multiple DAWs ?

[lwj]

Do I? Hmm, actually I don't. Probably because I try to be musician first, producer second. Rather have one environment, warts and all, that I know well than constantly having to consider a bunch of technical options. To me that gets in the way of actually being creative. I can see how for someone else it might be the complete opposite.

I have used a bunch of different ones in the past, so I'm not stuck to this one either...
not even stuck to the concept of using a DAW. I can see myself going full hardware if budget allows, especially for live performance.. software is always gonna be unreliable in a way.

[jclosed]

It's simple. Some DAW's are better for mixing down and mastering. For that stuff I use Cubase. Other DAW's are better for creating stuff. For that I use Bitwig. Combining those two gives me more than enough to do about everything I want to do.

I've used other DAW's in the past, but they do not seem to "click" with me. A few examples: I used to do a lot with Ableton Live, but Bitwig fits me far more (probably because Bitwig looks more like Project 5 that was my DAW to go in the past), than Ableton Live. I also bought FL Studio in the past, but although I gave it a fair chance, it did not "clicked" with me at the end. Sure - It can be powerful, but it's simply not my "cup of tea". I tried Reason for a while, and still have the full version (albeit not the latest version). I liked it better than FL Studio, but I still prefer Bitwig for the creative stuff. I also tried the demo from Studio One, but found it lacking for my needs compared to Cubase.

So - At the end I settled down with the Bitwig and Cubase combination. It just works for me.

[TheMaestro]

I don’t use multiple DAWs. Just Reaper and Reason.

[kvotchin]

I use more than one because the work flows differently, man. Gotta go wi’ dat.

[Hanz Meyzer]

I use Renoise, because I love this most efficient, streamlined workflow regarding composition. I can see all notes side by side, it is a nice overview (once you got used to excel table style ). No other DAW provides such overview. Also I can very exactly edit every note using the keyboard. Also here most DAW lack of full keyboard support. I also can play a single line in Renoise, by pressing return. A very simple yet effective feature for composition. Didn't see this in any other DAW either. Or thanks to the pattern structure, I very quickly can navigate thru the song, even while having enabled a 16 lines loop! The pattern sequence view is a bliss, like Future Composer only in good!

On the other hand, Renoise songs tend to sound a bit statical, because of not being able to comfortably adding shuffle and groove, and because of the repetitive pattern structure and limitations around the pattern boundaries. Of course this only is a question of discipline, you can work-around this.

Then I use Bitwig, because I think it has the most modern concept regarding routing and flexibility. Just like Renoise, it provides endless "meta" modulation for any kind of parameter, only it has a better thought concept here, using a receiver instead of a sender concept. So everything related stays very nicely in place, e.g. if you copy over a whole track to another song, you will already have all related modulation in place usually. In Renoise, the sender concept will cause a lot of cluttering of related devices. Copying over is a lot of copy-paste work and reconstruction. But then there is the pianoroll. I so much hate pianorolls. Even it provides features like multilayering, and usually editing multiple notes is a hell lot faster than in a tracker, I still cannot wrap my brain around using the keyboard with it (I think this is much faster than using the mouse, I already have muscle ache in my forefinger like Arnold), plus for me it totally lacks of multitrack overview. In renoise, I see the chord notes in with one glimpse next to my lead notes, in Bitwig (or any other pianoroller), I have to multiply click/scroll around like an idiot. I actually think the pianoroll concept has its weakpoints, like wasting a lot of gui space, just to have this silly piano representation on the left. This concept also did not change since... 1979??

You already guessed it, I use Renoise and Bitwig, due both have strong and weak parts. They would greatly complete each other. Bitwig with a pattern/tracker editor and Renoise DSP would be my ultimative weapon of mass destruction. I think both DAWs are design wonders and could learn from each other.

[antic604]

Probably because there is already too much going on in this project. Bouncing projects to audio gives you a clean state in channel inserts and an opportunity move this project to a different DAW with a better mixer. Live's mixer is not in the same league as Cubase's or Studio one's.

But you can bounce to stems in Bitwig or Live and use them for mixing still in the same DAW. In Bitwig you can actually disable all source tracks, which frees up CPU and RAM, hide them and mix stems in the same project file, as if it was a clean slate. I don't really see any advantage in mixing in S1 vs. Bitwig, unless one really cares about 20cm fader throw to dial the levels with a mouse.

[JoaquinAce]

It's simple. Some DAW's are better for mixing down and mastering. For that stuff I use Cubase. Other DAW's are better for creating stuff. For that I use Bitwig. Combining those two gives me more than enough to do about everything I want to do.

I've used other DAW's in the past, but they do not seem to "click" with me. A few examples: I used to do a lot with Ableton Live, but Bitwig fits me far more (probably because Bitwig looks more like Project 5 that was my DAW to go in the past), than Ableton Live. I also bought FL Studio in the past, but although I gave it a fair chance, it did not "clicked" with me at the end. Sure - It can be powerful, but it's simply not my "cup of tea". I tried Reason for a while, and still have the full version (albeit not the latest version). I liked it better than FL Studio, but I still prefer Bitwig for the creative stuff. I also tried the demo from Studio One, but found it lacking for my needs compared to Cubase.

So - At the end I settled down with the Bitwig and Cubase combination. It just works for me.

I was going to post but this would’ve been my post . Almost 99% same for me, except I use FL Studio for collaborating and some of the fx, like the waveshaper, actually works really well when I need a certain sound. But yeah, Bitwig and Cubase for me. Same reasons. Works great and fast enough to meet production and sound design deadlines. Tried to like Studio One but Cubase did it for me already and I want to use Reason but never got around to it.

[whyterabbyt]

DAWs are used for more than just music.

I imagine

i doubt it.

[vurt]

cos av got multiple rooms in me owse.

[machinesworking]

Why? Mixing is the one thing I don't see any advantage in one host over another. They all have a mixer, the mixers all allow for insert and send effects, why would you go to the effort of transferring a half-finished piece to another host at that point? Honestly, it seems like the stupidest idea ever to me.

In composition until recently DP, Cubase, Logic etc. have no clips,

In mix down Live has no VCA faders, full mix versions like presets, you can't hide tracks you're not working on, it's pretty clunky looking with more than 30 tracks etc. etc.

It's simple. Some DAW's are better for mixing down and mastering. For that stuff I use Cubase. Other DAW's are better for creating stuff. For that I use Bitwig. Combining those two gives me more than enough to do about everything I want to do.

This sums it up.

[BONES]

It's simple. Some DAW's are better for mixing down and mastering. For that stuff I use Cubase. Other DAW's are better for creating stuff. For that I use Bitwig. Combining those two gives me more than enough to do about everything I want to do.

So how do you get a project form one to the other and how is that less hassle than just doing it all in Cubase? I come from a pattern-based host, Orion, and I don't have any problem being creative in Cubase. It works fine if you use it the right way. The big breakthrough for me was learning the shortcut for quickly changing your loop points to match a clip while you work on it. It makes it a lot like pattern mode in Orion, except you don' teed to mute the parts you don't want/need to hear.

A quick browsing through the manuals of some EDM vs some "mixing" DAWs will answer this question.

No, it won't. Why would it? You are right that basic functionality is there, but it's not all about basic functionality when you have to deal with like a hundred stems.[/quote]
Why would you be using all those stems in an application you started working in from scratch? Surely you'd only be using stems because you've pre-rendered all your channels from some other application so you can work on them in that one? So, right there, you are giving us an excellent example of why working in multiple hosts is stupid. And, honestly, if your songs are running to hundreds of stems, I'd have to question if you know what you're doing. Most of our stuff is 6-8 VSTi, 2 or 3 audio tracks, plus one or two FX tracks for sends. Remix kits we've received from bands who are far more successful than us have all contained fewer than 20 stems to build the full original track. Bands we've toured with who use stems for their live sound also seem to be in that ball park, too.

Plus, some DAWs were plagued for years with bad synchronization - not sure if even now you won't get phasing, if you try more complex routing in most EDM daws.

So why would you use those applications in the first place? Surely that's the most basic requirement of your host?

Probably because there is already too much going on in this project. Bouncing projects to audio gives you a clean state in channel inserts and an opportunity move this project to a different DAW with a better mixer. Live's mixer is not in the same league as Cubase's or Studio one's.

So why bother with Live at all if it's not a competent DAW and is going to complicate your process far more than putting up with the compromises of a different host?

I can see myself going full hardware if budget allows, especially for live performance.. software is always gonna be unreliable in a way.

35 years of live performance tells me the precise opposite. There are way too many possible points of failure in a hardware rig and building in redundancy is far too expensive and difficult. OTOH, I have three computers I can work on so if one fails, I can use another. In fact, KMFDM have two MacBook Pros on stage - they have a problem with overheating in small, crowded, sweaty venues so they run two systems, side-by-side and in sync so they can switch fro one to the other mid-song, if necessary. Try doing that with your hardware. Of course, we work on PC so we've never had even the slightest problem on stage since we moved to working ITB. The worst thing that's happened is one of my hardware synths slipped off the keyboard stand we were supplied for a festival gig. Fortunately it didn't break.

In composition until recently DP, Cubase, Logic etc. have no clips,

Really? Well they do now so why keep bashing your head against a brick wall?

In mix down Live has no VCA faders, full mix versions like presets, you can't hide tracks you're not working on, it's pretty clunky looking with more than 30 tracks etc. etc.

So use less than 30 tracks. But if you have 30 tracks, you are going to have to mix as you work anyway, which we all do, so why bother with the duplication of effort to do it all over again in another host. What's that value display above the pan pot in Live's mixer? Is that just giving you the current output level or is that where you set the channel volume? I mostly enter values that way because decimals are untidy.

[WatchTheGuitar]

In mix down Live has no VCA faders, full mix versions like presets, you can't hide tracks you're not working on, it's pretty clunky looking with more than 30 tracks etc. etc.

Stick tracks you aren't using in a group and then collapse the group.

I do agree though Live is pretty gash for projects with lots of tracks and I'd never use it as my sole DAW owing to its shitty audio and MIDI editing capabilities.

[machinesworking]

In composition until recently DP, Cubase, Logic etc. have no clips,

Really? Well they do now so why keep bashing your head against a brick wall?

In mix down Live has no VCA faders, full mix versions like presets, you can't hide tracks you're not working on, it's pretty clunky looking with more than 30 tracks etc. etc.

So use less than 30 tracks. But if you have 30 tracks, you are going to have to mix as you work anyway, which we all do, so why bother with the duplication of effort to do it all over again in another host. What's that value display above the pan pot in Live's mixer? Is that just giving you the current output level or is that where you set the channel volume? I mostly enter values that way because decimals are untidy.

This is really down to different workflows, that's all. It's trivial to render all tracks as audio and export them to another DAW. You very clearly see the benefits of knowing and using one DAW, and I'm easily board, get inspiration from "best of" set ups, and get frustrated when everything is a workaround. It's no mystery that Live and Bitwig for the most part have the most mature and feature rich Clips / Session type composing environment, and I'm not intimidated by learning new software, so I choose not to wait around for Live to get MPE, VCAs etc. but I'm not interested in selling it ATM since I have a couple dozen tracks written in it.
Some people own multiple cars because they have too much money and aren't good at committing, some own an SUV a sports car and a truck, because they're all better at certain aspects of driving.
^^^ This thread is officially dead now, do I need to invoke Godwins Law to completely kill it?

[Robert Randolph]

^^^ This thread is officially dead now, do I need to invoke Godwins Law to completely kill it?

If you browse the thread titles in this forum, you'll see there's already been a DAWlocaust. No need to evoke it manually.

[BONES]

This is really down to different workflows, that's all.

Yes, good workflow versus bad workflow.

It's trivial to render all tracks as audio and export them to another DAW.

Yes, it is but it also rules a line under that part of the process and makes it very difficult to go back and make changes. Let me give you an example of why that's a terrible idea. Just today I was working on a song in Cubase that we wrote about two years ago, which I finished in Orion a year ago. The arrangement has been set in stone for most of the last two years so by far the easiest way to get it into Cubase would have been by rendering stems out of Orion but today I wanted to get a bit more punch into a Lead line and it turned out the best way to do it was to play with the filter envelope in the synth that is playing it, something I couldn't have done if I'd pre-rendered that part. It is likely the very last thing I will do before rendering it out and considering it done. That's a very common situation in my production process so maintaining as much flexibility as possible is crucial to doing the best job.

You very clearly see the benefits of knowing and using one DAW, and I'm easily board, get inspiration from "best of" set ups, and get frustrated when everything is a workaround.

And you don't think ruling a line under everything mid-way through the process is a massive workaround? That it doesn't involve far more compromise and have a critical bearing on the quality of the end result? For me it's not about the "knowing" one DAW, because I doubt I know even 10% of everything Cubase has to offer. It's about the best workflow which, as far as I can see, has to involve only one host application.

Maybe you've never had to think about workflow but when I started I had two mono sequencers, a drum machine and a four track cassette recorder. I had to think long and hard about how to get a finished song out of that set-up. What was important and what wasn't. Things got better as time went by but there were ever-present limitations that forced you to be disciplined. A lot of you guys have never had that, you can just keep adding stuff and adding stuff until your CPU can't handle any more, so that's what you do. But I still stay focused on keeping things as simple as possible because you are always going to do a better job mixing 10 tracks than you are trying to juggle 30. Every track, every instrument, every effect has to earn it's place in the song, nothing gets a free ride.