Challenge - who has the most (paid) and actively used DAWs ?

[antic604]

How do they do that ? They smuggle themselves back aboard by stealth. Time for a cull.

For me it's even worse - I'd sell them and then I own all of them back few months later

How?!

Those sneaky f**kers!

[pekbro]

I have a lot of DAW's and used to use them all. Though having moved mostly to hardware, most of them are no longer current, not to mention all the latest versions are for win 10, while I am on Win 8. I still use 5 or 6 of them, but not for much beyond 2 track recording. I think the most I've had and actively used was 11 or 12 maybe a couple more.

[apoclypse]

I don’t even use templates or anything like that because I just want the music to come to me

Well, there is something we can both agree on. Nothing kills creativity faster than working from templates.

I open a DAW start playing some patches or creating some maybe mess with a feature and then my ideas come. I may have a melody or chord progression in mind

You don't need a DAW for that, you can do it in your head. I usually work from standalone softsynths and a controller or from one of my hardware synths. I don't even think about my host until I am ready to start work. Within an hour of having to put it on a timeline, it starts to get boring.

I don’t make one type of music sometimes it hip hop, or pop, sometimes it’s rock, sometimes its drum and bass.

I think your idea of "one type of music" and mine are probably quite different. But whatever type of music I am making, I make it all the same way, often using exactly the same instruments and effects.

I will never understand the mindset of someone who only ever uses one tool.

That just tells me you've never found the right tool.

As long as you know what you are doing versatility and flexibility is imo a very important skill a lot of people need to learn.

Every DAW has versatility and flexibility in spades. I think if you feel you need to go from one to another to do different things or to do things differently, it's probably because you don't know enough about any of them.

Relying on one tool has burned me in the past.

How so?

I hate playing the quote by paragraph game so I'm just going to address things in order.

Quote1: I agree I don't like being put in a box when making music a blank canvas and possibility is more my lane. I'm not knocking templates if you work in a specific genre of music and need to pump out music constantly they get you'll get there faster with templates than without. I have a created a few templates myself that are pretty complete but never really use them. I know I'm repeating processes that I do in pretty much every DAW and it's inefficient on my part but that's my process.

Quote2: That you not me. I'm inspired by sounds not melody or chords. The melody or chord comes from the sound. So I can't hear the song in my head because I haven't heard the sound yet. More often than not a patch (a preset or one I've made) will inspire whole song for me. I don't sample as much now but the process there is the same. Playback the sample mess around with it until you start hearing the song. I don't do that in my head. I make music with my heart (as cheesy as that sounds, I go by feeling rather than a lot of thinking).

Quote3: Like I pointed out to another user, its not my processes change. I do a lot of the same things across all DAWs that I use. It's the tools. Some DAWs do things differently and forced adaptation puts me in a different mindset as I adapt the workflow of that DAW. For example Bitwig's Piano Roll isn't my cup and my SLMK3 works amazingly with it, so I'm more likely to play in something with my controller until I get it right. The SLMK3 doesn't work as well with Studio One or Logic so I tend to use it less there.

Quote4: LOL. I've used pretty much every DAW there is out there now. If I haven't found it yet, I'm never going to find it. Like I said I don't like be beholden to one company because I've been burned before so I make sure I'm versatile enough too jump ship if I need to.

Quote5: I've been making music and using DAWs for decades. I'm not really going to argue with you on my proficiency with each DAW I use as I don't really care what you think about my process. It's my process, I wasn't asking for opinions on it.

Quote6: As I mentioned to another poster. I've been a very long time Logic user (5.5 Platinum). In LP9 after Lion came it seriously impacted performance and caused freezes crashes etc. Apple didn't "address" that until 2 years later with LPX. LPX was a buggy mess on release (this is well documented on the internet). The first thing I do when I get a new DAW is work on a song to see what the tools look like. I worked of a song for hours everything was fine. Closed the DAW went to sleep, next day the sessions wouldn't play without crashing. No amount of copy the whole session to a new project deleting things would fix it. 2 years later LPX .3 comes out and the session works fine with no issues. I wasn't going to wait 5 years for Apple to get their crap together. I moved to Studio One after the LP9 fiasco (S1 2.0). I don't like being beholden to one company. If I want to move elsewhere I can with very little impact to my workflow or musical output. Whether you believe that or not is not really my concern.

[melomood]

Is their a prize or does the one with the most get put in the wicker man?

[Passing Bye]

...

[RunBeerRun]

I paid for Reaper 4 and I use it.

That's one if your ass is counting.

[antic604]

Is their a prize or does the one with the most get put in the wicker man?

If it's theirs, I don' think they're going to want to share it

[melomood]

Oh that's a given

[jancivil]

I def do not want a particular tool or environment to have an impact on my mindset, I have the ideas I have and tools are at my command, not vice versa. I have templates where a whole lot is available to me, and I have a sound world already, as far as 'the music coming to me'. I'm not stuck with it, I'm free to add or subtract or replace as the idea calls for it.
nor do I find it limiting like genre attributes, I don't care in the least about meeting generic attributes to begin with.

Unlike the remark 'I will never understand the mindset', I understand the different mentality or approach; but maybe an indication is called for how one may think entirely differently than all of that and not be limited at all by having... a coherent, streamlined workflow

it looks like someone is relying on "the DAW" for its instruments and whole sound, tho. I have not used an instrument strictly proprietary to Cubase, ever.
My palette is wide and deep, so for me that notion is a bit absurd.

If I needed a recording studio, I know the exact engineer and room I'd choose, no guesswork, because I have no use for a particular subjectivity of the environment or a shakeup or any psychological placebo effect, I want predictable and solid.

[jancivil]

"I agree I don't like being put in a box when making music a blank canvas and possibility is more my lane. I'm not knocking templates if you work in a specific genre of music and need to pump out music constantly"
I think one may affirm what they like without coming up with stories about 'a box' (or people cranking out the same thing every time) as though what could be a simple affirmation needs to be against something; both of which are total straw man. There's no reason to argue possibilities are limited for another person (instead of trying understanding), it looks insecure.

believe me, the piano roll is usually quite empty (blank slate) when I begin. an idea may correspond with a sound in mind, it may be a more explorative process, but Cubase is not stopping me by not being Ableton Live

[juno987654321]

Is their a prize or does the one with the most get put in the wicker man?

I could have asked the same!!!

[apoclypse]

I def do not want a particular tool or environment to have an impact on my mindset, I have the ideas I have and tools are at my command, not vice versa. I have templates where a whole lot is available to me, and I have a sound world already, as far as 'the music coming to me'. I'm not stuck with it, I'm free to add or subtract or replace as the idea calls for it.
nor do I find it limiting like genre attributes, I don't care in the least about meeting generic attributes to begin with.

Unlike the remark 'I will never understand the mindset', I understand the different mentality or approach; but maybe an indication is called for how one may think entirely differently than all of that and not be limited at all by having... a coherent, streamlined workflow

it looks like someone is relying on "the DAW" for its instruments and whole sound, tho. I have not used an instrument strictly proprietary to Cubase, ever.
My palette is wide and deep, so for me that notion is a bit absurd.

If I needed a recording studio, I know the exact engineer and room I'd choose, no guesswork, because I have no use for a particular subjectivity of the environment or a shakeup or any psychological placebo effect, I want predictable and solid.

How you feel about using multiple software depends on if you are interested in the process or if you are interested in just the output. If you are interested in the process, the output is nice, but how you get to the output is the more interesting journey. If you are interested in the output, getting through the process as soon as possible is you goal so you are not interested in the process as much. It's two different points of view to get to the same destination imo.

[apoclypse]

"I agree I don't like being put in a box when making music a blank canvas and possibility is more my lane. I'm not knocking templates if you work in a specific genre of music and need to pump out music constantly"
I think one may affirm what they like without coming up with stories about 'a box' (or people cranking out the same thing every time) as though what could be a simple affirmation needs to be against something; both of which are total straw man. There's no reason to argue possibilities are limited for another person (instead of trying understanding), it looks insecure.

believe me, the piano roll is usually quite empty (blank slate) when I begin. an idea may correspond with a sound in mind, it may be a more explorative process, but Cubase is not stopping me by not being Ableton Live

That's not what I said so I don't see the straw man here. If you need to work fast and are producing music on a constant basis and don't have the time and inclination to just go with the flow (as in you have a deadline to meet or a deliverable) a template is probably the better option here. I never mentioned anything about producing the same thing every time. When I mean specific genre of music I mean if you work with synths mostly your template will consist of synths, if you work with audio your template will most likely have a lot of audio tracks.

I don't always know what I'm making so it could be synths, it could be guitars, it could be external instruments (which I have a lot of at this point). So a template makes no sense for what I'm doing unless I made a template for every kind of music I want to make. Since I'm not always sure what I want to make when I sit down for a session that doesn't make sense either. I would have to have the same templates created for every DAW I use. I don't want a whole bunch of synths that I will have to delete later in my session if I'm making a guitar track, just like I don't want a whole bunch of audio tracks polluting my session if I'm making a synth based track. I add tracks as I go.

Templates can be as simple or a complex as you want them to be. I wasn't knocking templates so stop getting your underwear in a twist.

[jancivil]

So direct verbatim quote is: "I'm not knocking templates if you work in a specific genre of music and need to pump out music constantly"
^ you doubtless tied using templates to a specific use case. You know from other people's templates how, exactly?

"I never mentioned anything about producing the same thing every time."
direct verbatim: "if you work in a specific genre of music and need to pump out music constantly"
I don't think I'm reading a lot in. "When I mean specific genre of music I mean if you work with synths mostly your template will consist of synths,"
sounds like doing the same thing all the time, to me.
"if you work with audio your template will most likely have a lot of audio tracks. I work with audio frequently, my template has no audio tracks. So the argument in both cases is that someone that uses templates is doing the same thing and limited. the entire reason I replies was to give an example I know from, me, which has no resemblance to your imaginary problems.

Again: why not simply affirm your ways, why is there a story about a box, about imagined modes of operation? None of it has even any particular correspondence.
who is in this box you're avoiding? It's you talking about you, there is no box: strawman.

[apoclypse]

So direct verbatim quote is: "I'm not knocking templates if you work in a specific genre of music and need to pump out music constantly"
^ you doubtless tied using templates to a specific use case. You know from other people's templates how, exactly?

"I never mentioned anything about producing the same thing every time."
direct verbatim: "if you work in a specific genre of music and need to pump out music constantly"
I don't think I'm reading a lot in. "When I mean specific genre of music I mean if you work with synths mostly your template will consist of synths, if you work with audio your template will most likely have a lot of audio tracks."
sounds like doing the same thing all the time, to me. I work with audio, my template has no audio. Again: why not simply affirm your ways, why is there a story about a box, about imagined modes of operation? None of it has even any particular correspondence.
who is in this box you're avoiding? It's you talking about you, there is no box: strawman.

WTF are you on about? Do you want to have a coherent conversation or do you want to accuse me of something I didn't actually intend. It's the latter then I have nothing else to say to you. Get back to me when you want to actually have a conversation.