If you had to stick to one DAW - and ONLY its native 1st party devices + sounds - which one would it be?

[xbitz]

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[EnGee]

Yeah this is where I was going when I said Ableton's instruments in general sound better. They just do out of the box, no faffing about with chains or layering etc. Just drop in Operator and even without effects it sounds great and the presets are great. Bitwig has a lot of instruments and a lot of modulation possibilities but the instruments to my ears just sound flat and lifeless and require too much chaining etc to make them sound halfway decent. At that point I'm just going to use a VST and save myself the trouble.

The Grid instruments sound better but if I'm not mistaken the The Grid does things the regular instruments don't do like oversample at a much higher level. So for example some wavetable stuff that you can do in the sampler in The Grid, don't sound the same in the regular Sampler instrument. Polymer for example sounds better than any of their other instruments included but is inflexible by default.

In general I find working with Bitwig's instruments to be a better experience as some of Ableton's UI decisions I find questionable, but in terms of sound its no contest.

I agree that Ableton devices have a better sound quality.

Bitwig needs to up their synths, not only the Grid. They sound ok, but not excellent like Operator and Wavetable. The drums (samples) also are very weak even S1 has a punchier hits! Anyway, if you can do a good track in Bitwig, then you are going to do a very good track in Live (some exaggeration here )

Maybe they could make a contract with u-he or Synapse Audio and have them make special synths and effects native to Bitwig? I think it would be a win-win business

[machinesworking]

That one is easy... Logic

Have to agree, the samplers are top notch easy. Alchemy, Sculpture and the native FX are all great.
Add in all the drum instruments and you're set. A close second would be Live Suite with Max4Live, it's built in drum libraries, Wavetable etc. with Push 2. Then Bitwig and Reason. The rest are far far behind huffing and puffing.

It's IMO crazy how complete these 4 are compared to Cubase, DP, PT, Studio One etc.
Personally I wish they all were stripped down, or the plug ins were not embedded, but that's not really a thing in a capitalism where they want you tied to their DAW and update cycle.

[machinesworking]

Yeah this is where I was going when I said Ableton's instruments in general sound better. They just do out of the box, no faffing about with chains or layering etc. Just drop in Operator and even without effects it sounds great and the presets are great. Bitwig has a lot of instruments and a lot of modulation possibilities but the instruments to my ears just sound flat and lifeless and require too much chaining etc to make them sound halfway decent. At that point I'm just going to use a VST and save myself the trouble.

The Grid instruments sound better but if I'm not mistaken the The Grid does things the regular instruments don't do like oversample at a much higher level. So for example some wavetable stuff that you can do in the sampler in The Grid, don't sound the same in the regular Sampler instrument. Polymer for example sounds better than any of their other instruments included but is inflexible by default.

In general I find working with Bitwig's instruments to be a better experience as some of Ableton's UI decisions I find questionable, but in terms of sound its no contest.

My experience is that Bitwig's instruments are faster at tweaking to get sounds I want. The Sampler in Bitwig is better, the FM synth as well. I really need to sit down with Operator and attempt to get into it, I never have liked it much so that taints my view.

None of that is relevant to which DAW I'm using, the latest updates to Live are better for me than the direction Bitwig is going, so whether I like the built in instruments isn't important.

[apoclypse]

Yeah this is where I was going when I said Ableton's instruments in general sound better. They just do out of the box, no faffing about with chains or layering etc. Just drop in Operator and even without effects it sounds great and the presets are great. Bitwig has a lot of instruments and a lot of modulation possibilities but the instruments to my ears just sound flat and lifeless and require too much chaining etc to make them sound halfway decent. At that point I'm just going to use a VST and save myself the trouble.

The Grid instruments sound better but if I'm not mistaken the The Grid does things the regular instruments don't do like oversample at a much higher level. So for example some wavetable stuff that you can do in the sampler in The Grid, don't sound the same in the regular Sampler instrument. Polymer for example sounds better than any of their other instruments included but is inflexible by default.

In general I find working with Bitwig's instruments to be a better experience as some of Ableton's UI decisions I find questionable, but in terms of sound its no contest.

My experience is that Bitwig's instruments are faster at tweaking to get sounds I want. The Sampler in Bitwig is better, the FM synth as well. I really need to sit down with Operator and attempt to get into it, I never have liked it much so that taints my view.

None of that is relevant to which DAW I'm using, the latest updates to Live are better for me than the direction Bitwig is going, so whether I like the built in instruments isn't important.

I agree. In-terms of the UI, I definitely like Bitwig's interface a bit better for their instruments, everything is readable and understandable. Live's instruments are very dense (in-terms of UI elements) and can be hard to approach and tweak because of it unless you know what you are doing. But the way the actual instruments sound is just so much better for me in Ableton.

[pdxindy]

That one is easy... Logic

Have to agree, the samplers are top notch easy. Alchemy, Sculpture and the native FX are all great.
Add in all the drum instruments and you're set. A close second would be Live Suite with Max4Live, it's built in drum libraries, Wavetable etc. with Push 2. Then Bitwig and Reason. The rest are far far behind huffing and puffing.

Yeah, Alchemy and Sculpture are fantastic! I would love to see Sculpture get a GUI remake! Is there anything like Logic's Drummer in another DAW? The new Drum Machine Designer, Sampler and Quick Sampler are all fresh and forward thinking. Logic's recently updated Step Sequencer is worth the cost of Logic by itself. Then there is Auto Sampler. That thing is so useful...

[pdxindy]

My experience is that Bitwig's instruments are faster at tweaking to get sounds I want. The Sampler in Bitwig is better, the FM synth as well. I really need to sit down with Operator and attempt to get into it, I never have liked it much so that taints my view.

None of that is relevant to which DAW I'm using, the latest updates to Live are better for me than the direction Bitwig is going, so whether I like the built in instruments isn't important.

I quite like Operator soundwise. If you are using Live these days, it is worth the time to learn.

The Bitwig instruments (IMO) sound as good as the Ableton stuff, but require more learning to get there. The Ableton synths are definitely more instant gratification.

For a long time I didn't use Bitwig's Polysynth. Over time I came to like it more and more. Phase-4 is excellent as are Polymer, Sampler and the Grid. Crafting complex sounds is easy with the modulation system and voice stacking.

Some of my favorite pads I made using Bitwig's Organ device. It could hardly be simpler! But the modulation and voice stacking makes it possible to get complex additive sounds out of it. Each drawbar can be modulated, including FM... it uses so little cpu!

Bitwig's modulation system makes a big difference. Any idea I have, I can find a way to do it. One of the reasons I didn't use the Live instruments much back when I still used Live was cause they are fairly limited as far as modulation. I constantly ran into dead-ends so mainly used VST's for that reason. Operator was the only one I used with regularity.

[machinesworking]

I agree. In-terms of the UI, I definitely like Bitwig's interface a bit better for their instruments, everything is readable and understandable. Live's instruments are very dense (in-terms of UI elements) and can be hard to approach and tweak because of it unless you know what you are doing. But the way the actual instruments sound is just so much better for me in Ableton.

Agreed about the UI, Ableton's is still 1280 x 720 standards IMO, even with scaling. Too many tiny controls, that's the main thing I miss in Bitwig, that everything is touch screen ready for the most part.

I've never liked the stock sounds in Live, but I owned Komplete, Zebra, PSP FX etc. before Suite came out. I get liking them, but I really never had any issue at all with Bitwigs stock instruments and FX, Phase 4 for one is lovely. Plus the granular capabilities of Bitwig's Sampler, it's just better. My move to Live has as much to do with SysEx and it's possibilities in Live compared to Bitwig, where the closest you'll get is MIDIQuest, which brings up it's own issues. There's a Max4Live SysEx dump device, it's all I really wanted, but Bitwig is too "modern" for that I guess. Nevermind there's whole rash of hardware synths with patch dum capabilities in the last ten years.

[sin night]

Hard question! I’d probably choose Logic because of the amount of included tools, or Cubase because it’s my main daw. Ableton Live would be a possible choice, although I don’t know the exact amount of factory content in standard version (by the way I’m trying to learn the fundamentals of this daw).
I wouldn’t choose Reason because I don’t like subscription, so I would be stuck to version 11 with my trusted Codemeter dongle (beside that, sequencing in Reason never really clicked with me), but I could use if I had no other choice.


A strong factor in my choice would be my current knowledge of the daw (those are my first choices, because I can be productive without any learning curve… almost…), but any daw with a decent selection of tools/synths/effects/contents would do the job. I can even work with a lesser amount of tools/content, although it wouldn’t be my choice.
I would still sound like myself (= crap) anyway, because I would bring my programming habits across any daw…

I prefer choosing my third party tools, though!!!

[antic604]

Interesting.

Of the two most discussed above - Live vs. Bitwig - I'd go for Live, but that's because it simply has better, more "out-there" audio effect devices like the recently added spectral, granular & vector stuff. On the other hand I'm surprised to hear you guys find Live's synths better. I don't think I ever found a factory patch that wowed me, with Wavetable probably getting the closest; whereas that's pretty much a given in Bitwig, even with the seemingly simple Polysynth or FM4 - they're mostly immediately usable, often much easier to tweak and lighter on CPU (seriously, Wavetable "rivals" Repro-1 in terms of CPU use...).

[Synthack]

......

[Atlatnesiti]

1. Logic
2. Cubase
3. Reason
4. Live

[machinesworking]

Interesting.

Of the two most discussed above - Live vs. Bitwig - I'd go for Live, but that's because it simply has better, more "out-there" audio effect devices like the recently added spectral, granular & vector stuff. On the other hand I'm surprised to hear you guys find Live's synths better. I don't think I ever found a factory patch that wowed me, with Wavetable probably getting the closest; whereas that's pretty much a given in Bitwig, even with the seemingly simple Polysynth or FM4 - they're mostly immediately usable, often much easier to tweak and lighter on CPU (seriously, Wavetable "rivals" Repro-1 in terms of CPU use...).

Agreed completely. I've used Live since v3 and the included content regarding Ableton's own Operator and Wavetable, has always been more CPU heavy than rival third party equivalents. If there was one thing about Live that I just never got it's this. I don't think there's any third party wavetable synth as CPU hungry as Wavetable, and that's inside Ableton we're talking.

Bitwig consistently chews less CPU than Live, that's one area Live loses to everyone in.

[machinesworking]

Oh, and in no way shape or form should Cubase be beating Reason in this poll, that's just people who love Cubase. Reason is a solid contender for the number one spot really. The included content has always been it's strongest point.

IMO it's just people who love and use Cubase. My main DAW is DP, but in no way are the instruments anything to write home about, the FX are great, but it's nowhere near Logic, Live, Reason and Bitwig.

[EnGee]

Oh, and in no way shape or form should Cubase be beating Reason in this poll, that's just people who love Cubase. Reason is a solid contender for the number one spot really. The included content has always been it's strongest point.

IMO it's just people who love and use Cubase. My main DAW is DP, but in no way are the instruments anything to write home about, the FX are great, but it's nowhere near Logic, Live, Reason and Bitwig.

Are you trying to comfort him for his choices?

Reason has the worst support and protection scheme of all DAWs. The instruments and fx are good though. They however, not better than 3rd party or IMO Live and Logic, otherwise, it would be more popular.

Cubase has very good instruments and effects! Retrologue is 1st class VA synth and Padshop is from the best granular synths out there. Cubase in fact has a simple wavetable and another great simple VA synth in Halion Sonic SE (Flux and Trip). It also has a great drums.

Wavetable in Live just consume about 10% on my PC and It's hardly one I can call it CPU hungry! M4L is a cpu hog though, but I don't use it heavily.

Bitwig is ok, but it's strength lies in the modulation system overall, not specifically its synths and fx. FM4 is in no way better than Operator! What are you smoking?! Anyway, Bitwig has Phase 4 which has no equivalent in Live, but Live has Collision and other physical modeling synths that are absent in Bitwig!

I don't know! If the OP wants to know what people choices in KVR, this is it. Now, to analyze why they chose what they chose, let them speak for themselves instead of being "clever" at guessing why they chose Cubase or Live.

I chose Cubase because this what I would choose mostly in starting new projects. Why? Because I know it better and I trust it more than others (no shit surprises while working because I know it). Now, S1 and Live come next and finally Bitwig.

I have other DAWs not installed: FL Studio Producer, Reason intro and light, Samplitude x3 and Reaper 5 and 6. I don't think I will use them anytime soon.