DAW: Which is Best for Sample-Based Music Production?

[apoclypse]

I think Logic is just better at sample manipulation than Live. Live doesn't even have a sample editor and pretty much anything Live can do Logic can do and then some. I'm not really seeing how Live is superior to other DAWs (especially Logic) when it comes to sampling. There are so many imo basic sample editing functionality missing from Live (and Bitwig).

That being said one thing I do like about Ableton slicing workflow is the Slicing templates.

[LivingParadox]

Which version of SamplerTrack are we talking about? The newer one is pretty good.



I mean, what more do you need when you have all the MIDI and track utilities of Cubase as well?


Also curious about GA, I've seen mixed reviews - but I have seen quiet a few people say they preferred GA to Maschine.


Liking some of the editing and new editing features of Cubase as well, does this pertain to samples though?

[RikkShow]

Besides what has been discussed, take a look at Reason Studios. It is well established in the hip hop community and I assume you mean that when you say sample based.
It has: Kong an MPC style drum machine with sampling
Mimic, a Serato/Waves CR8 style sampler
NN19 and NN-XT Akai S950 style samplers.
You can also chop and make REX loops yourself in the sequencer part.
You can easily re-record layered tracks for further chopping and saving from the sequencer to disk.
It has an arranger mode called Blocks that is interesting, especially for sample based music.
It does record audio and have a Melodyne style built in vocal pitch correction.
Lots of FX and Synths, Samplers that you can modulate and wire up for sound design.
You can rent on a month to month basis to check it out. Then rent for longer or buy it.
If you later move to another DAW you can bring all your Reason Sampler, FX etc in to the new DAW as a Reason Rack plugin. Unlike many other DAWs, that won't let you use the built in Drum Machines or Synths in the new DAW. With Reason you still get to use your investment, and all the effort that came with it to build up patches and samples, even after you move on.

If you plan on doing EDM, pop, classical music with 150 tracks + live recordings, Reason is not your best tool, it is really designed for fever tracks like what you typically see in beat making and hip hop productions.

[machinesworking]

I think Logic is just better at sample manipulation than Live. Live doesn't even have a sample editor and pretty much anything Live can do Logic can do and then some. I'm not really seeing how Live is superior to other DAWs (especially Logic) when it comes to sampling. There are so many imo basic sample editing functionality missing from Live (and Bitwig).

That being said one thing I do like about Ableton slicing workflow is the Slicing templates.

I have to agree that the redesigned samplers in Logic are great. Last time I messed with stretch in Logic I still thought Live was better at it, not that Logic wasn't good, just all the different types of stretch available in Live etc. To a large degree I find the super immediate aspect of messing with audio in Clips to be just fine for 99% of my needs when it comes to editing audio for sampling or to use as a one shot in a song at least. I have all four Clip style DAWs installed here and Logic is by far the most appealing when it comes to instruments and FX for sure. I would lean towards Live when it comes to Things like automation though, I haven’t found any way to draw heavily quantized automation in Logic like Live does.

Plus again, all the ways to treat clips like one shots in an old sequencer, from assigning them to fire with MIDI notes or computer keys. What I was getting at is that Live itself, is a sampler, the way that you originally would use Clips and how that evolved is geared towards using them not just for loops, but much the same way you will load up an MPC with various one shots as well as drum sounds, at least that's how I've approached it in the song writing phase for most of the time that I've used it. Sampler plug ins mostly get used for sample libraries or the occasional user sampled instrument patch to play.

[macrosound]

I use Cubase and I'd still say Ableton Live

[sQeetz]

Although I agree that Logic's samplers are great, if pure sample mangling and manipulation is the high light, nothing comes close to Renoise. It is designed for sample manipulation.

[cthonophonic]

Trackers are always going to be some of the best sample manipulators because samples are what they've focused on from the earliest days. I really wish that the tracker paradigm of sample management had been more widely adopted into the host/plugin architecture of today. If all DAWs had a bank of samples in memory that any plugin could access, we would probably see a lot more creative cross-platform sample manglers out there.

In Jeskola Buzz, any native Buzz machine (plugin) that has access to the wavetable can play a sample however it likes, so you can loop, stutter, granulate etc. the same sample multiple different ways and switch samples on the fly. With a few tricks, you can even simultaneously record to and read from the same sample slot, effectively giving you a feedback buffer with an arbitrary number of read heads. It's a pretty wild technique that I haven't seen replicated anywhere else (probably because it's horribly unstable, but hey, it's fun to break things).

Whether any of this makes it the "best for sample-based music production" depends on whether you find that sort of thing valuable, I guess.

[Krixu]

I'm a sucker for Ableton!

[sQeetz]

Also worth noting is Reason with Mimic, Kong and the Grain Sample Manipulator.
edit: I see @RikkShow already mentioned it

[apoclypse]

Although I agree that Logic's samplers are great, if pure sample mangling and manipulation is the high light, nothing comes close to Renoise. It is designed for sample manipulation.

Definitely agree. I don't use Renoise but have Redux and as a sampler is pretty great.