Disadvantages of DAWs in comparison to others

[jancivil]

"So Studio One and Reaper should easily pull out ahead of the others in any test really. FL Studio and Reason, like Bitwig and Live are not as concerned with CPU as performance in everyday use. To the point. Studio One and Reaper are far more likely to be choices of people doing 128 tracks of orchestral libraries etc. and..."

The people who do massive templates for orchestral are using VE Pro anyway, and the real choice is ergonomics/workflow. I mean some people are gluttons for punishment. The workaround for getting multiple MIDI Ports in REAPER is a kludge, out of poor initial design considerations, wrong tool.
The workaround in Logic is less tortuous, maybe but also a kludge. Integration with DP leaves a lot to be desired.

So, CPU. I don't need to know. It's about realtime performance and it may be seen that the most robust CPU on earth is not necessarily going to out.
When I have performance or stability problems, it's not that I'm out of cycles or RAM, the problem has perhaps more drivers, and more subtle drivers.
A whole lot of realtime problems gets down to some issue with the hardware, locally or attached as peripherals.

With onboard audio drivers I could need as high a buffer as the system can use before balking, with 500+ ms of latency, or "192" and RT 8.5 ms with my interface (and only something quite extraordinary [Equator 2 ] makes me increase), with the same load exactly. So I think the 'which hosts are the more efficient' is a bit sketchy as a goalpost, too many factors and differences among users and their setups. The diff between Cubase with ASIO Guard and turning off VST3 plugins unless in active use vs leaving all that alone can be huge.

[machinesworking]

"So Studio One and Reaper should easily pull out ahead of the others in any test really. FL Studio and Reason, like Bitwig and Live are not as concerned with CPU as performance in everyday use. To the point. Studio One and Reaper are far more likely to be choices of people doing 128 tracks of orchestral libraries etc. and..."

The people who do massive templates for orchestral are using VE Pro anyway, and the real choice is ergonomics/workflow. I mean some people are gluttons for punishment. The workaround for getting multiple MIDI Ports in REAPER is a kludge, out of poor initial design considerations, wrong tool.
The workaround in Logic is less tortuous, maybe but also a kludge. Integration with DP leaves a lot to be desired.

So, CPU. I don't need to know. It's about realtime performance and it may be seen that the most robust CPU on earth is not necessarily going to out.
When I have performance or stability problems, it's not that I'm out of cycles or RAM, the problem has perhaps more drivers, and more subtle drivers.
A whole lot of realtime problems gets down to some issue with the hardware, locally or attached as peripherals.

With onboard audio drivers I could need as high a buffer as the system can use before balking, with 500+ ms of latency, or "192" and RT 8.5 ms with my interface (and only something quite extraordinary [Equator 2 ] makes me increase), with the same load exactly. So I think the 'which hosts are the more efficient' is a bit sketchy as a goalpost, too many factors and differences among users and their setups. The diff between Cubase with ASIO Guard and turning off VST3 plugins unless in active use vs leaving all that alone can be huge.

I don’t really disagree with you. I mostly used Live for years, even though it’s a total pig compared to DP or Logic. Mostly though, large templates in VEP etc. it’s always the same, you’re still going to benefit from a lower CPU eating DAW if you’re pushing the limits of your computer, but it’s perfectly valid to use what you like even if it’s not the most “efficient”. If you get no joy from using an efficient CPU DAW then you’re defeating the point IMO.

I don’t find DP a problem at all with multi out instruments though, I’m not sure where that’s coming from? DP’s issue for most people is it treats a single out VSTi AUi like a multi, you have to create a separate MIDI track. Probably because DP’s Chunks and V-Racks allow for midi in multiple sequences to address the same V-Racked instrument. In Fact with DP you need just a single instance of VEP for over 700 MIDI tracks. The advantage of Vienna making a MAS plug in for DP. Logic on the other hand has a pretty involved workaround to combat it’s more CPU using tendencies with multi out instruments, wiring MIDI tracks to the VEP instance in the Environment to save on CPU VS Logic essentially making 16 “VI’s” for every multi.
Basically this is the sort of stuff I appreciate, getting an idea of relative weaknesses and strong points of various DAWs. I think we’ve all bought something only to realize it doesn’t really work for us, and the more you know the less that might happen.

[jancivil]

Well, no, the reasons I have the working situation I do are in spite of Cubase and that kind of metric for efficiency. 1) I have very fast SSDs; 2) I have the best audio interface for me; 3) I have enough cores and VE Pro uses cores better than some.

It's more efficient in a larger template or load to use ASIO Guard. It used to screw with people using VE Pro, it was advised to avoid, now it's a great boon. The mystery latency...
Cubase does seem to have improved around version 9, possibly with 8.5. The point here is that if I were trying to plug 10% or, 5% or worse of what I'm using currently straight into Cubase I would be freezing tracks constantly, having to commit so soon to audio either that way or rendering straight up.
Cubase is still not very efficient on the platform. I began to move away from Cubase, bought Logic and DP back in '09, right before VE Pro was released. It changed everything. Orders of magnitude...

Logic is more efficient for a certain use case, but to take full advantage of VE Pro in it requires a high-maintenance kludge. So, it's not more efficient in my life. CPU efficiency is not the point of anything, I'm not striving for it (I've spent enough), it is what it is.
I'm not arguing with trying to know stuff but just an observation, not as simple as some want it to be. So arguably there are a couple worse things than Cubase.

In sum: having to plug everything straight into the DAW does not present a more efficient use case to me at all, what DAW has little to no relevance.

[machinesworking]

Well, no, the reasons I have the working situation I do are in spite of Cubase and that kind of metric for efficiency. 1) I have very fast SSDs; 2) I have the best audio interface for me; 3) I have enough cores and VE Pro uses cores better than some.

It's more efficient in a larger template or load to use ASIO Guard. It used to screw with people using VE Pro, it was advised to avoid, now it's a great boon. The mystery latency...
Cubase does seem to have improved around version 9, possibly with 8.5. The point here is that if I were trying to plug 10% or, 5% or worse of what I'm using currently straight into Cubase I would be freezing tracks constantly, having to commit so soon to audio either that way or rendering straight up.
Cubase is still not very efficient on the platform. I began to move away from Cubase, bought Logic and DP back in '09, right before VE Pro was released. It changed everything. Orders of magnitude...

Logic is more efficient for a certain use case, but to take full advantage of VE Pro in it requires a high-maintenance kludge. So, it's not more efficient in my life. CPU efficiency is not the point of anything, I'm not striving for it (I've spent enough), it is what it is.
I'm not arguing with trying to know stuff but just an observation, not as simple as some want it to be. So arguably there are a couple worse things than Cubase.

In sum: having to plug everything straight into the DAW does not present a more efficient use case to me at all, what DAW has little to no relevance.

Well yeah, exactly everything is a trade off in terms of use case for sure. Cubase had a huge improvement in OS X in terms of latency around v 9. It used to suffer heavily in any setting below like 256 or so. It was a weird bug, probably due to the whole dual buffer thing that Logic, Cubase and DP etc. do. Back to DP, it's super efficient with VEP, but they still don't have an articulation management system in place. I'm not using orchestral libraries all the time, so I haven't spent the time to come up with workarounds for this, so Logic and Cubase look really good to me there. The trade off is MOTU got lucky that Vienna made a MAS plug in for it, so it's super efficient to use DP as a VEP master host. So you pick your poison and live with it.

Mostly I've learned that I can get lost in the weeds if I'm thinking one DAW will meet all of my "perceived" requirements. It's how I ended up with 6 or so on the computer here, well and compatibility with various collaborators.

[jancivil]

I think DP's relationship with VSL, who do consider it important has meant a different implementation than what I saw in late 2009. It kind of seems like there wasn't always the MAS plugin so it was some workaround to get the multiple ports. Growing pains.

I could get lower latency than that with an RME card on the PCI-e, I could even do 64 samples buffer on a MacPro 4,1, 2009, which I did for drumming but this is either drums are all that's happening or everything else is committed to audio.
Yeah, no, 128 was ambitious. lotta 512 or worse...

I don't use the expression maps, I'm not bothered really by keyswitches as I'm not converting to scores. My keyswitch notes look a certain way and out-of-the-way enough usually. VSL has developed a whole system with Studio One for it that's probably cuter than Cubase's.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

Man, you all sound nerdy and experienced with multiple DAWs. I have only used a few. Started on Sonar back in its crash fest days. Tried Cubase but nah. Found Orion Platinum and went for that until it was given up. Had a few affairs with Reason along the way, and now I am back to Reason. I guess I never felt inclined to test all the others...if it ain't broken

[jancivil]

Nah, I've never completed any music of mine on any DAW that wasn't Cubase. I wrote a couple four-part exercises in Logic for a studentonce, because its score editor is very easy to use (may as well do it in Musescore tho, tbh). I jammed all night once with Maelstrom in Reason 2.5 before I bought Cubase SX1. I didn't even know how to record what I did in it, I didn't like the look of the joint and was pretty brain-injured.

[lpr]

All DAWs are at a disadvantage compared to FL Studio. It's like comparing a clown to a king.

[anttimaatteri]

All DAWs are at a disadvantage compared to FL Studio. It's like comparing a clown to a king.

"f**k the king"
by Sandor Clegane

well just to add something more cosntructive

ableton - capture
bitwig - no capture

[jancivil]

ignorant-ass analogy

like the king is never a dipshit or a moron.
fruity loops had no viable way to create a time signature until a couple years ago. Its coder lacked the very first clue how it works in music. And their idiot rep constantly trolled us only to gaslight us it's just not that necessary even after they finally decided to be real about what it even is.
avoid like plague

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

FL studio was the clusterfuck of last millenium and still is in this one too. It deserves a price, all right.

[ghettosynth]

Just yesterday I used Reaper to cut cheese with. It's so versatile.

[jancivil]

Thing is, I'm generous, it's ok by me if someone doesn't care about time signatures or any particular felicities I do, and thinks this is the greatest tool ever made for their music.

"It's like comparing a clown to a king" and a mocking emoji is rather uncalled for. Do better insults FFS.

People might use other things because they are more suitable for their thought and habits, or whatever.

[jancivil]

FL came into being as a way to do nothing but loops, as suggested in the name (along with artificial fruit frosting). So its fundaments differ from basic musical concepts. All of teh loops music is naturally in 4/4, it was probably a given in its coding from the get-go, apparently nothing else registered as real.
So we got a guy who never bothered to check to see what the numbers in a time signature the f**k mean. Their rep would argue it here and stick with it, time signatures are not needed, it's just a visual aid and we already did you that favor so you lot are wrong for noticing and you shouldn't even care, we clearly don't.

Ok, it's not my problem, takes all kinds to spin a world but not everyone gets into music from that perspective. Some people may even want waltz time or a nice hemiola in 6/8
Bitwig did the same trip, but didn't have an obtuse prick arguing it in fora. That being the face of the company might be offputting. CF: IK having a marketing guy be theirs here.

[ghettosynth]

All DAWs are at a disadvantage compared to FL Studio. It's like comparing a clown to a king.

Reaper has better stock colors though. I mean, if that's important to you. AFAIK, there isn't any orange anywhere.