Why do people use multiple DAWs?

[antic604]

I doubt I use 10% of the features of Cubase so I find it hard to fathom how anyone might think it has missing features

This is so flawed logiclly that I can't believe one would type it and decide to click "submit"

It would be if what you quoted had been my entire post but it wasn't, was it? It should have been obvious that what I was asking was to clarify what Passing Bye thought of as a "missing feature", on the assumption that it would be very different to what I think of as a "missing feature"

Regardless of definition of "missing feature", the sole fact that you think if you're not missing anything then no one can, is logically false. That's my point, in addition to that I disagree that Cubase has everything that anyone can need.

[fuzzlightyear]

Let's not forget, that not having something (feature) can also help one's creativity, by inventing another way of doing something. There's usually more then one way to do something anyways, but it's the time and effort you're trying to reduce through convenience that can be a problem for professionals working on deadlines. Which may not be so important for slow working bedroom hobbyists that have no intention of releasing anything anyways.

[Passing Bye]

Workarounds are workarounds, let's get that out of the way, they aren't helping anyone's creativity, they are more time consuming and even if I'm not on deadline I don't like to waste my time on things like that, sorry, I don't like to put labor into hacking my way through DAW to feel like I'm doing something special, it's freaking tool that shouldn't get in the way of me making something special.

[fuzzlightyear]

Workarounds are workarounds, let's get that out of the way, they aren't helping anyone's creativity, they are more time consuming and even if I'm not on deadline I don't like to waste my time on things like that, sorry, I don't like to put labor into hacking my way trough DAW to feel like I'm doing something special, it's freaking tool that shouldn't get in the way of me making something special.

Hey, I'm for features that make workflows better, faster and stronger. But, a lot of the features being requested have nothing to do with that, rarely being about music playing, making, arranging or composing.

Most DAW companies focus on the features that the general public wants, not one off obscure or niche types of features that cater to a certain need for a small group of people. Such as 4k graphics with the ability to resize everything to fit their tiny little laptop screens.

A playing musician or a skilled composer knows that being in the creative zone is priceless, and some missing features are far from the answer. There are the types that are always looking for something better, faster and stronger with their tools instead of their abilities, skills and experience.

[Passing Bye]

Hey, I'm for features that make workflows better, faster and stronger.

Exactly, more useful features, less workarounds.

But, a lot of the features being requested have nothing to do with that, rarely being about music playing, making, arranging or composing.

Disagree, most people ask what they need the most, but there's always smaller percentage of niche audience that just have some niche requirements.

Most DAW companies focus on the features that the general public wants, not one off obscure or niche types of features that cater to a certain need for a small group of people.

Exactly, only that small group ask for niche, not most.

Such as 4k graphics with the ability to resize everything to fit their tiny little laptop screens.

People actually use 4/5K screens, for many years laptops and desktop computers come with one, it's nothing strange.

A playing musician or a skilled composer knows that being in the creative zone is priceless, and some missing features are far from the answer. There are the types that are always looking for something better, faster and stronger with their tools instead of their abilities, skills and experience.

There's everything, there's who do all of that too, let's not generalize.

[fuzzlightyear]

There's everything, there's who do all of that too, let's not generalize.

Glad we cleared that all up.

[antic604]

Most DAW companies focus on the features that the general public wants, not one off obscure or niche types of features that cater to a certain need for a small group of people. Such as 4k graphics with the ability to resize everything to fit their tiny little laptop screens.

This is silly. You can't even buy certain laptop models with non-high DPI screens anymore, especially if you want it to be a touch-screen and/or offer professional color reproduction accuracy (Surface stuff, Razer, XPS). So it's unthinkable that e.g. Cubase still defaults to either 100% or 200% scaling on such screens, for any setting in between. In my book that's missing a feature, even though one can work around it by connecting external screen or forcing the laptop into a lower resolution.

[Passing Bye]

There's everything, there's who do all of that too, let's not generalize.

Glad we cleared that all up.

Me too, it's getting little ridiculous with generalizations and stereotypes being thrown around here, just because one have a need for an feature, he must be unskilled hobbyist, no pro ever wanted improved workflow, no pro ever hang out on forum, no pro ever this and that...

[dellboy]

Me too, it's getting little ridiculous with generalizations and stereotypes being thrown around here, just because one have a need for an feature, he must be unskilled hobbyist, no pro ever wanted improved workflow, no pro ever hang out on forum, no pro ever this and that...

You are contradicting yourself.

"Pro" is a generalization and a stereotype.

You should define what you mean by "Pro" and in what field of music do they work in as a full time job earning their wages.

It used to be that a Pro was a skilled musician who had the mastery of at least one musical instrument and could be hired as a session musician. Or a "Pro" worked in a studio with other professional musicians and was maybe a mixing and mastering "Pro" etc.

Nowadays it seems on this forum to be someone in front of a computer laying down EDM tracks with mouse clicks.

The former types of "Pro" worked through the 50s to the 80s using primitive equipment by todays standards and most editing was done with a razor blade.

So what is a "Pro" ?

[whyterabbyt]

So what is a "Pro" ?

A 'professional.' Its in the dictionary.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Here's an example of why it's useful to have multiple DAWs. I bought UVI Mayhem of Loops in a sale a while ago and only tried using it in anger yesterday. Turned out that out of all the DAWs I own only Reaper would accept files dragged out of it, all the others moaned about corrupt or incorrectly formatted files. There'll be other occasions I'm sure where another DAW will do something I can't do as easily in Reaper. It's handy to have options.

[fuzzlightyear]

Most DAW companies focus on the features that the general public wants, not one off obscure or niche types of features that cater to a certain need for a small group of people. Such as 4k graphics with the ability to resize everything to fit their tiny little laptop screens.

This is silly. You can't even buy certain laptop models with non-high DPI screens anymore, especially if you want it to be a touch-screen and/or offer professional color reproduction accuracy (Surface stuff, Razer, XPS). So it's unthinkable that e.g. Cubase still defaults to either 100% or 200% scaling on such screens, for any setting in between. In my book that's missing a feature, even though one can work around it by connecting external screen or forcing the laptop into a lower resolution.

The number of high DPI screens pales in comparison to those who work on a 1080p screen. Laptops are weaker in all aspects of computing, cpu, memory, data, storage and a whole list of other things they aren't really designed for, like displaying large detailed images on a tiny screen.

The future will probably have more coding for high DPI monitors, when the high demand actually exists, that's just good business sense. Now if you were complaining to a video game developer that their graphics sucked, that's a different story.

[Passing Bye]

You are contradicting yourself.

I'm not, you seem out of touch with context of conversation I had with another member, so really have no desire to get into meaningless debate with you on that sole premise, as pointed out, check out dictionary.

Maybe start a new thread with that notion, can someone who earns living penciling in notes in a DAW be called professional, but that's not even slightly connected to snipped of conversation I had with another member, you are so off I'm seriously not gonna bother getting into semantics of it with you, probably someone will if you open new thread.

[antic604]

Most DAW companies focus on the features that the general public wants, not one off obscure or niche types of features that cater to a certain need for a small group of people. Such as 4k graphics with the ability to resize everything to fit their tiny little laptop screens.

This is silly. You can't even buy certain laptop models with non-high DPI screens anymore, especially if you want it to be a touch-screen and/or offer professional color reproduction accuracy (Surface stuff, Razer, XPS). So it's unthinkable that e.g. Cubase still defaults to either 100% or 200% scaling on such screens, for any setting in between. In my book that's missing a feature, even though one can work around it by connecting external screen or forcing the laptop into a lower resolution.

The number of high DPI screens pales in comparison to those who work on a 1080p screen. Laptops are weaker in all aspects of computing, cpu, memory, data, storage and a whole list of other things they aren't really designed for, like displaying large detailed images on a tiny screen.

The future will probably have more coding for high DPI monitors, when the high demand actually exists, that's just good business sense. Now if you were complaining to a video game developer that their graphics sucked, that's a different story.

Sorry, but that's pretty ignorant:
1) Good laptop nowadays are more than enough in terms of CPU, GPU, storage, etc. for most producers, unless you're running some huge orchestral templates
2) On a small laptop screen it's much more important to have high resolution, because it makes a lot of difference in clarity of the picture, especially if you have lots of small objects
3) Most people nowadays don't buy desktops anymore, so it's obvious their needs should be taken into considerations, in particular because it's those people - hobbyists, beginners - that but the DAWs, because most established artists are few versions back with their software, because they don't want to touch what works for them

[whyterabbyt]

The number of high DPI screens pales in comparison to those who work on a 1080p screen. Laptops are weaker in all aspects of computing, cpu, memory, data, storage and a whole list of other things they aren't really designed for, like displaying large detailed images on a tiny screen.

Its reasonable to say that laptops are generally less powerful than desktops of an equivalent price, but its not reasonable to extend that to all laptops being less powerful than any desktops. There are plenty of exceptionally poweful laptops.

My workstation-class laptop from work, which is getting on for 5 years old now, came with a 15" 4K screen. Amongst the other similar workstation-class laptops at the time, 4K screens were available on almost all of them. As were Quadro (or AMD equivalent) graphics cards.
Four generations on, 4K screens and Quadros are basic options on similar classes of laptop.

And then there's Mac laptops with Retina screens.