If you had to stick to one DAW, which one would it be?

[dlandis]

I'm surprised to see FL Studio that far behind.

Yes, like S1, Waveform/Tracktion and even the free (!) Cakewalk. Especially S1, given their rep on this forum.

But there are less than 300 votes spread out over 18 DAW possibilities. And there are definite biases here (as there are anywhere; I'm not mentioning this in a pejorative manner). Looking at it another way, Studio 1 is fifth out of eighteen. It's main competition has often been seen to be Protools, which it soundly beats (in terms of placement). Cubase is 30 years old or so and has a huge built-in user base, Live and Bitwig seem geared more to the sound designer/composer who doesn't have to worry about sharing the duties of writing with anyone (not that you can't do that, obviously). Reaper is very low-cost (I'm assuming that one does eventually pay the suggested fee). Studio 1 kind of hits a bunch of different areas. It's a bit like the old Cakewalk with new code.

And while I always enjoyed reading poll discussions like this one, I'm not sure how much one should gauge what is said in terms of personal integration. Use what works for you regardless of what you'd like to work for you.

I've not voted yet, FWIW. I use Studio 1 and Bitwig for most things, occasionally stab at Waveform and when I need to resurrect something I did earlier, return to Cakewalk. So, I'd have to say now Studio 1 or Bitwig, but I can't decide.

[Smasha]

Cubase AI has officially died on my PC.

There is signal on the mixer but no sound.

My connections are correct.

Quadriple checked them.

Reaper is like a whore ,it will play any old obscure plugin you throw at it.

Cubase AI can't even play it's own plugins but Reaper says hold my plugin.

[BONES]

With Battery, I'd have to open each single patch used in a project and save it separately.

Actually, you have the option of saving the samples with a Battery preset so you just do that and it collects all the samples for you. Battery 4 is the only version I've used so I have no idea how/why it might be worse than B3. I've pretty much stopped using it, though, in favour of various Ujam drum plugins.

Thing for me is, I started using Logics content quite early. Actually back when there was almost no third party stuff to be had (end of the 90s). So it has grown quite naturally on me

I was the same with Orion. When I moved from Orion to Cubase, I couldn't take much of that stuff with me, or I didn't want to, but I didn't want to replace it with Cubase content, either. That turned out to be a good thing 18 months later, when I ditched Cubase for Studio One. The move out of Orion made me realise how incredibly hidebound I had become. Escaping was, ultimately, very liberating for us.

Apart from that, some of the Logic plugins and content are absolutely great

Again, it was the same for us with Orion. Wasp had pretty much defined our sound for a decade and we still haven't found anything that can do what it did. And when Rich started including sample content, he made sure it was really good.

[Spencer Maddox]

I agree that on paper there’s no need to truly care about stock content if you aren’t just starting.
That being said I will say in a strange way I found limiting myself to stock instruments, especially in DAWS with very well rounded stock content like Live Suite and Logic, can actually help my creativity. I sometimes will turn off plugins period In live and just make all my sounds with the basic plugins they give and mabye some Max4Live audio effects and honestly, good songs and melodies come from it.


There are plugins I cannot truly leave however obviously. And that’s a probably a very specific example to me, I’d guess many people would find deliberately not using their VSTs to be the absolute worst.

[Spencer Maddox]

It used too but now all of a sudden it doesn't.

I actually Felt this.
I had Cubase 10 and it straight up broke. A Mac update came along and it became borderline inoperable. Cubase 10 wasn’t a very old program, so it was incredibly disappointing. No other program was having issues with the update either.

But me, in my wonderful wisdom, reluctantly trialed and eventually upgraded to 11 and it works bug free.
If that happens again I don’t know if I will give them another chance

[Sascha Franck]

Actually, you have the option of saving the samples with a Battery preset so you just do that and it collects all the samples for you.

I'm quite aware of that - but you need to do that for each instance and for each project over and over again. Whereas in Logic, I just activate a checkbox and it'll save all the used samples of the internal plugins automatically each time I save my project (which, btw, can become a bit of a data amount issue, too, because it doesn't delete samples you're not using anymore - but in times of large drives it's barely ever even flewn into my radar). Very comfortable.

Battery 4 is the only version I've used so I have no idea how/why it might be worse than B3.

Well, it's a lot, even some pretty relevant things, at least IMO. And unfortunately, as I won't be able to use version 3 anymore once I buy a new computer, I will have to go through any projects containing Battery 3 content (which is pretty much all of them) should I plan to properly open them in the future, simply because 4 isn't replacing 3, there's just file compatibility but you need to export and re-import manually. It's like that with all NI plugins and it's super annoying (yeah sure, you can blame Apple for coming up with new backwards-incompatible OSes as well - and believe me, I do), especially when you take a look at other company's products not suffering from these issues (say, Zebra 2, which loads songs using it created over a decade ago just fine, even if you're using the most recent version).

These very kinda things speak a lot in favour of internal plugins (at least for me). In case there's only internal plugins used, I can load any Logic song from, say, 2004 without any issues.

Again, it was the same for us with Orion. Wasp had pretty much defined our sound for a decade and we still haven't found anything that can do what it did.

Thing is, with Logic there's a whole plethora of plugins I'd had to replace - and I'm not even using all of them regularly. Just to replace those constantly in use I'd likely have to shell out something around 1k. And I'd obviously lose all my precious presets I'm very familiar with.

[antic604]

Yay, Live caught up to Cubase - 48 vs. 48

[whyterabbyt]

Technically, Live is the only one anyone can stick to, because its the only one that has Glue.

boomtish, ithangyew.

[chk071]

It's Live though, so, you can only use it live. I don't play live, so, I stay away from it.

[whyterabbyt]

I don't play live

zombie.

[xbitz]

btw. the secondary DAW voting also was interesting
https://sleepfreaks-dtm.com/en/dtm-mate ... w-ranking/ (in Japan) S1 mastering capabilities seems a needed feature, anyway seems 'creative' DAW + Cubase/S1 is the preferred, I also would choose that combo

[skijumptoes]

Even Groove Agent SE and Halion Sonic SE do not work standalone or in Cubase AI but loading those same instruments into Reaper and they work every time.

I don't think anyone understands this design decision from Steinberg.

For some reason they decided for their own plugins to not work within their own DAW's like Cubase AI, but specifically DO work every time in Reaper.

Maybe someone should tell them it's not a logical concept?

[AdvancedFollower]

Currently my strategy is to not lock myself in with a particular DAW.

I used Reason for far too long and missed out on the first wave of VST plugins.
Then I used Studio One for a long time until I finally got too annoyed with the poor QC - like the sidechain APDC bug that stuck around for 9+ months, or the automation failing to render on offline exports bug that has been around since v3.5 at least. Every update is anxiety inducing because you don't know what they'll break or how long it will take them to fix it.

Now I'm using Cubase but given the VST2 shenanigans over at Yamberg that might also be quite temporary.

My standby DAW is probably FL Studio. Once they implement ghost notes from any pattern rather than just other channels in the active pattern, and coloring of notes by pattern or channel instead of just MIDI channel, I might switch over. The good thing about FL is that I only had to pay for it once, and then I can always come back and check on the progress they've made without having to pay again for an upgrade. It means I always return to FL for a while every time another DAW has annoyed me to the breaking point.

[cryophonik]

Technically, Live is the only one anyone can stick to, because its the only one that has Glue.

boomtish, ithangyew.

True, but Dub Turbo sucks hard, so it sticks to you

[whyterabbyt]

Technically, Live is the only one anyone can stick to, because its the only one that has Glue.

boomtish, ithangyew.

True, but Dub Turbo sucks hard, so it sticks to you