For people who compose in one DAW and after they take the song and put it in another DAW to mix it ;)

[Jolaff]

Well,

How do you proceed ?

I mean, I never know where to stop. I often finally remake the song in the second DAW instead of just bounce everything.

Do you "pre-mix" in the first DAW, bounce everything and discipline yourself to stick to those audio tracks to do the final mixte ?

All this because, yeah, I prefer mixing in Cubase but I prefer composing in Ableton.

Thanx for sharing your experiences.

[enroe]

Since actually all current DAWs are pretty good and offer similar functions,
it is not a question of the DAW, but a question of your own workflow. This
means that the individual work steps require a different focus - regardless
of the DAW.

The main work steps for me are:

1. composing (most important!)
2. sound-design + mix
3. mastering (on a stereo-wav only)

I myself prefer to do all three steps in the same DAW (Cubase). I also believe
that it is better to really know a DAW inside and out than to know a lot of
DAWs a bit - and then just mess around.

[Kinh]

I used to do that from Ableton to Protools but then PTs started playing up (again!) so I tried mixing in Ableton and found it surprisingly easier. The reasons:

1. Ableton updates (10-11) make vocal automation actually "superior" to protools. You can, like in PTs highlight segments and lower or raise volume BUT you can also highlight segments that have already been automated and raise or low the whole lot without messing the automated parts (which is what pt does). Also you can do curves and fades easier.

2. Ableton is faster to assign modulation than PTs which takes around 10 - 15 seconds for any fx insert. I think Cubase is similar. Ableton you can do the same thing in under a second.

3. Ableton is easier to zoom.

4. You can sidechain much faster in Ableton.

5. You can solo the actual effected signal of a send. In protools you cant do that which is quite bizarre.

[ChamomileShark]

I sometimes do sound design and basic recording in Bitwig (using the grid and all the modulators) and then mix in Cubase. I'm more familiar with Cubase and it feels to me that it's more sophisticated for mixing, but it may be I've just not worked enough with Bitwig.

[bardaxx]

I moved from ableton to cubase 11 to handle production and mix in the same daw, now in cubase at the end of production I will save the copy of project as mix project and bounce all the midi part (without delete it) and then start mixing the steams. Waves are easier to handle than midi so IMHO bouncing midi tracks is mandatory

[Tj Shredder]

You can mix in any DAW. So the decision is based on what inspires the most for composing/producing. If I have to record instruments and edit a lot, Reaper could do it, if its experimental electronic sound design its Bitwig. Whatever tool I start I would also mix. Only exception, if I need a multichannel mix and started in Bitwig, I would need to switch to Reaper as Bitwig is limited there. Or if I improvise with my Max/MSP patch I would just master…
Mastering in Acoustica, delivering in Hofa CD-burn & DDP if necessary…

[legendCNCD]

I used to compose in Reason 2.5 and mixed in Cubase SX via rewire. That was quite the CPU drain.
These days its just all in Ableton Live. Compose, Mix, Master. I dont see any host that would actually be faster for me except I really wish Ableton would implement a real mixer view (and let me ditch the clip view completely if I choose so) ala cubase/logic/...