The Most Unified DAW

[THE INTRANCER]

Feels like months since I last made a thread.... so here's one.

What DAW / DAW's have the most unified and consistent environments to work in ?

[Obsolete462444]

My vote goes to Ableton Live.

[antic604]

Feels like months since I last made a thread.... so here's one.

What DAW / DAW's have the most unified and consistent environments to work in ?

Reason. Just watch the "Reason 10 Explained" on Groove3 to see how logical, complete and coherent it is. Sure it might be not on a deep level feature wise, but it really seems like a very well though out, consistent environment for intermediate level producers.

[THE INTRANCER]

Nope, I think, Reason is actually one of the least out of all the DAWs on the market... it's pretty much like a set of different interfaces joined together. Open up the Regroove mixer..., when you change the GUI to a dark theme does the SSL Mixer change to match... and so on, and so on... but anyway's... just throwing that out there. Having not slept since yesterday evening and with, walking and cycling this evening as well I'm pretty sleep deprived trying to keep my eyes open to watch Jaws 2 as well....going for a nap...

[Forgotten]

Reason. Just watch the "Reason 10 Explained" on Groove3 to see how logical, complete and coherent it is. Sure it might be not on a deep level feature wise, but it really seems like a very well though out, consistent environment for intermediate level producers.

Definitely. It has its roots in a self-contained system where everything can be hooked up to everything else, so it's very well put together.

[Yorrrrrr]

Live is consistent and streamlined.

Reason? The developers don't even know what to do with the software anymore. FL Studio has turned into a mess too.

[antic604]

Nope, I think, Reason is actually one of the least out of all the DAWs on the market... it's pretty much like a set of different interfaces joined together. Open up the Regroove mixer..., when you change the GUI to a dark theme does the SSL Mixer change to match... and so on, and so on... but anyway's... just throwing that out there. Having not slept since yesterday evening and with, walking and cycling this evening as well I'm pretty sleep deprived trying to keep my eyes open to watch Jaws 2 as well....going for a nap...

You asked for 'consistent environement to work in' which is much, MUCH more than GUI theming and I still think that for moderately demanding user Reason has that, unlike many other DAWs.

For instance elsewhere the connection between Sequencer, Rack and Mixer is symbolic and artificial. In Reason it's "real" and tangible. That's what - for me - consistent means. The way pattern sequencers work hand in hand between Sequencer and Rack is awesome. So is players integration (dumping notes to track). No other pitch editing & comping tools feel as belonging to everything else as they are in Reason. And Reason's mixer is one of the most consistent workflow environments for this particular set of features, despite not being really a SSL emulation in terms of sound coloring. Not to mention awesome integration of devices - native and 3rd party REs - into not only the Rack, but also to the user account & shop as well.

The above is not to say that all or any of those features are best of class (they mostly aren't), but they connect and work so well together, which I thought was the spirit of your question?

Also, why start a thread if you're not willing to accept you'll get subjective opinions?

[Michael L]

MuLab is a fully integrated DAW, synth, sampler, modular, sequencer, etc. Try it and you will see.

[antic604]

Reason? Not so much. It lacks personality now, the developers don't even know what to do with the software anymore.

1) I totally disagree with this - Reason is one of the most unique and distinctive DAWs, with TONS of "personality"

2) Even if 1) wasn't true, how is that in any way relevant for judging how 'consistent environment to work in' it is?

[Yorrrrrr]

I think I used wrong words. Sorry. I don't know man..I mean..I don't see much coherence between the whole Rack/skeuomorphic concept and the rest of the GUI elements which seem flat and modern.Take Live or Bitwig, for example...they don't pretend to be a software version of pieces of hardware from the past, mixed with modern elements; they just feature consistent and functional software GUI design, they show their own original concept (Live more than Bitwig, though; Bitwig is a copy of Live original concept, plus some added features)

[Eclectrophonic]

Reason isn't consistent. It's consistent in the back of the devices wiring aspect but not in others. Let me explain.

1) The 3 windows don't act as one. You mute or solo a rack mix channel and that mix channel is directly linked to the main mixer so they both do the same thing. The sequencer however is a separate entity. I get the logic but as a daw, it becomes frustrating. You can sort selected device groups to overcome this but people (including myself) have been asking the devs for years for sync'd windows on the fly. I want muting, solo'ing, labelling, colouring and order of tracks, devices and mixer channels to sync with each other in all 3 windows in real time.

2) There are 2 browsers (1 in the sequencer and 1 in the rack). They again don't talk to each other. You can spend ages navigating to patches in the sequencer to go to the rack, a fresh new rack in a completely different place and you want to go to a previous patch or look in the same folder, back to the sequencer you must go lol!

3) Device parameter readings are not in the right readings but are in some. Thor - all parameters are in the right readings. Frequency in Hz, volume in dB etc but then go to Subtractor, that 0-127 nonsense.

4) Parameters that read in 1 measurement don't read in the same measurement in the automation lanes. The Main Mixer Faders as one example in the automation lanes are displayed in 1-1000, what is that? the Faders work in dB.

4) As stated above, the themes don't affect the menu's or mixer. Not consistent.

5) You can do things on one stock device that others won't. Such as it will live quantize a loop (to trigger on the next 1/16th or bar or whatever) on the Dr.Octo.Rex but you can't do the same with a pad sound on Kong. I'm sure there are devices which have parameters that you can automate and then won't on another but that's just a guess.

There's 5 examples.

Also, not to do with consistency but just annoying, you click a midi clip in the sequencer and if you have a blank area before the notes then it will take you there to edit a blank area. You'd think it would be programmed to go to the part of the clip where the midi notes are surely, that's what you want to edit. Also in Slice Edit, you can slice a transient but you can't move or delete either of the clip parts without clicking out of the clip to do so and then back in again and then it takes you to a different place than where you were. You can slice notes in the midi editor but can't join them again. Loads really lol! no linked clips or undo history causes problems and is very time consuming for me a lot of the time.

Saying all that though, it has very nice looking devices, well designed (apart from consistent readings) it's easy to get things down, is fun to use and inspirational as sure is fun to use and has tons and tons of nice patches and it doesn't feel as clinical as some daw's.

[antic604]

Reason isn't consistent. It's consistent in the back of the devices wiring aspect but not in others. Let me explain...

And yet, it's the most inspiring DAW I used, because - for me - it all flows so well, which I equate to it being consistent and coherent. It's not perfect, it's actually infuriating sometimes. But so is every other software.

And just for completeness sake:

1) Is actually consistent with "virtual hardware studio" paradigm, as muting a sequencer is something completely different than muting channel's output. Same with labelling, colouring. You can not like it or even don't understand, but it's nothing but consistent.

2) You may disable the one in the Rack window and never use it. But it also makes perfect sense to have both and them not talking to each other. The one in sequencer is - mainly - to initialise new tracks, be it audio (by dragging samples) or MIDI (by dragging instruments) tracks. The one in Rack is to enhance the already existing audio or instruments with insert effects, setting up send devices, etc.

3) & 4) This I agree with on principle, but that never really bothered me in practice - I do most of my automations by ear and I don't loose sleep over not being able to insert -3dB exactly and having to settle with either -3.06dB or -2.84dB To be perfectly honest, I love how you can't really type in exact values almost anywhere, because you wouldn't be able to do so in real studio for the most part either - that's consistency with overarching paradigm.

5) Describes literally every DAWs native devices, not to mention the VST world. Specific devices are always a compromise between full possible range of features and an optimal set that the designer has chosen to facilitate the function and workflow.

So I'd say you're nitpicking a lot and/or mistake the fact you don't like some solution with it not being consistent & coherent, where in reality it is.

To be fair, if I was to list particularly annoying incoherences in Reason I'd point out to MIDI routing that's - for the most part - implied and doesn't really use CV/gate cables; and routing of final audio from mix channels to SSL mixer that's represented by a 'digital' label instead of a cable.

[Eclectrophonic]

Reason isn't consistent. It's consistent in the back of the devices wiring aspect but not in others. Let me explain...

And yet, it's the most inspiring DAW I used, because - for me - it all flows so well, which I equate to it being consistent and coherent. It's not perfect, it's actually infuriating sometimes. But so is every other software.

You're right, I bet you're like me in that you have love / hate (hate might be too strong a word here) relationship with it?

[antic604]

I bet you're like me in that you have love / hate (hate might be too strong a word here) relationship with it?

You bet: https://forum.reasontalk.com/viewtopic. ... 4d#p408399

[machinesworking]

My vote would be for Live as well. I don't think it's the best environment, but it's very consistent. IMO anyway, people mix up easy UX with workflow once you know a program.

Some of the harder to learn DAWs have amazingly fast workflows once you get the methods they propose to you to work with. In Logic around v7 I had it streamlined for instance, but it isn't the easiest DAW to learn. Live on the other hand is super fast to get up and running in, but it has a limit of what you can to do speed things up after that, the mouse is king in Live.

So to me the question is too open ended, and ripe for things like the OP thinking it's cool to contradict peoples choice on what DAW fits his one sentence proclamation..