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

[syntonica]

............

I took a quick peek at Ardour today. I'm impressed that it looks like an actual application now and not the usual Linux too-many-cooks Frankenstein's monster thing that most Linux apps usually resemble. It's come a long way as a basic, bare-ish bones DAW.

Oh, and I use MuLab. These days, everything else only gets used for plug-in testing.

Never tried it but I don't see myself using something else than bitwig... After changing regularly I finally found the perfect fit for me... it is all about the modulations.

I hear mulab is good for electronic, what is good with it?

You could call it Bitwig Lite, although it was modular before BW, but not as modulate-y. It's just one dev, so he focuses on the important stuff and MuLab isn't full of frippery. It's rather minimalist on the surface, but there's a ton of power lurking under the hood for the intrepid. There's plenty of presets to tweak for the not-so-intrepid.

The killer feature for me is automation clips. I can't tell how much I've always hated automation lanes that couldn't be divided out. It was a long-standing battle between me and Logic, having to copy over and align chunks of automation. Lanes are added as any other sub-track and then you create clips to automate the target track.

Jo just added a clip-matrix with v9 with launching. He also added an incredible stretch algorithm to stretch out audio clips. Basically, stuff I care nothing for.

However, also for v9, he's just added Mac ARM support. Currently, it supports only VST2, but he's in the middle of adding CLAP support. These things I do care very much about.

(Re: CLAP, since u-he, TAL, and FullBucket support it, there's no reason to use anybody else anymore! )

[EnochLight]

Okay guys, I already have a DAW related thread that I created a few days ago, which was quite successful as it helped me re-pick a DAW and work on it. I do have another topic though, and did not want to create yet another thread, so I thought I'll just ask here. So here goes.

Has anyone compared the CPU/resource usage between Bitwig Studio /Ableton Live/Cubase/Studio One/Reaper?
Has anyone ever performed such a test, or is aware of a straightforward way of doing so?

Based on experience, I'm guessing the list would go as follows (low to high):

Reaper

Studio One

Bitwig Studio

Cubase

Ableton Live

Any other DAW you are aware of that uses even less CPU?

Reason for this is, I have an old laptop, AMD APU A6-6310 (quad core) with 8GB of ram, 500GB HDD (5600 rpm) which I'd like to utilize for something, rather selling it for scrap value. The only thing that's upgradeable any further is the hard drive, which I could possibly swap for a solid-state drive. Although, I'm not sure if it's worth it, as I'll barely be using it, if ever.

Also, I'm thinking of pairing the DAW with Sylenth1 (which I already have), as it is very generous on the CPU. I would use sample libraries, but the good ones are rather large, and the ram is maxed out at 8GB, I can't expand it any further (it's a very old budget Dell Inspiron laptop), and we already know about the SSD situation, above.

Lastly, I can dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 10, if that matters at all.

PS: Synth recommendations also welcomed (that use less CPU than Sylenth1 or similar).

Reaper has traditionally been the lightest on CPU, many times over. Don’t think that’s changed lately.

[machinesworking]

Then the question is "can Apple continue to win market share ?", I am not very sure. The "you are in my ecosystem or f**k you" pattern is a bit hard to swallow if you are not a die hard fan.
But from the 2 years I am using it, I must admit that I haven't been limited as I was afraid in my use cases (I am also doing development). On the contrary, macOS, being an Unix-like (POSIX) is in fact a joy for developers.

Now I think it depends if they chose to keep their "big bully" attitude or try to be the "good guys" like Microsoft and their move to open source.
It is not very known to general public but the image of Microsoft in the development circle has totally changed these last 10 years with free awesome open products like VS.Code or .NET Core.

To ask this question you have to ignore one blaring massive fact.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/03/investin ... index.html

I’m no apologist, I think they do a lot of stupid things, but the market proves me wrong. At some point they will fail, I don’t think there’s any mega company over 500 years old, but I don’t see them collapsing anytime soon.

[FapFilter]

I don’t think there’s any mega company over 500 years old

the church?

[? ? ?]

I don’t think there’s any mega company over 500 years old

the church?

That's not a company, it's organized crime.

[Jac459]

............

I took a quick peek at Ardour today. I'm impressed that it looks like an actual application now and not the usual Linux too-many-cooks Frankenstein's monster thing that most Linux apps usually resemble. It's come a long way as a basic, bare-ish bones DAW.

Oh, and I use MuLab. These days, everything else only gets used for plug-in testing.

Never tried it but I don't see myself using something else than bitwig... After changing regularly I finally found the perfect fit for me... it is all about the modulations.

I hear mulab is good for electronic, what is good with it?

You could call it Bitwig Lite, although it was modular before BW, but not as modulate-y. It's just one dev, so he focuses on the important stuff and MuLab isn't full of frippery. It's rather minimalist on the surface, but there's a ton of power lurking under the hood for the intrepid. There's plenty of presets to tweak for the not-so-intrepid.

The killer feature for me is automation clips. I can't tell how much I've always hated automation lanes that couldn't be divided out. It was a long-standing battle between me and Logic, having to copy over and align chunks of automation. Lanes are added as any other sub-track and then you create clips to automate the target track.

Jo just added a clip-matrix with v9 with launching. He also added an incredible stretch algorithm to stretch out audio clips. Basically, stuff I care nothing for.

However, also for v9, he's just added Mac ARM support. Currently, it supports only VST2, but he's in the middle of adding CLAP support. These things I do care very much about.

(Re: CLAP, since u-he, TAL, and FullBucket support it, there's no reason to use anybody else anymore! )

Thanks for the info! Interesting indeed.

And fully agreed on CLAP....

[Jac459]

Then the question is "can Apple continue to win market share ?", I am not very sure. The "you are in my ecosystem or f**k you" pattern is a bit hard to swallow if you are not a die hard fan.
But from the 2 years I am using it, I must admit that I haven't been limited as I was afraid in my use cases (I am also doing development). On the contrary, macOS, being an Unix-like (POSIX) is in fact a joy for developers.

Now I think it depends if they chose to keep their "big bully" attitude or try to be the "good guys" like Microsoft and their move to open source.
It is not very known to general public but the image of Microsoft in the development circle has totally changed these last 10 years with free awesome open products like VS.Code or .NET Core.

To ask this question you have to ignore one blaring massive fact.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/03/investin ... index.html

I’m no apologist, I think they do a lot of stupid things, but the market proves me wrong. At some point they will fail, I don’t think there’s any mega company over 500 years old, but I don’t see them collapsing anytime soon.

I dont think this news is a good news for the consumer.

But actually I was not meaning in general, I was meaning just for the computer segment. They can't be first everywhere .

In the long run, I am pretty sure Chinese companies will be the one gaining market share... on the mobile phone segments, Huawei was so much in advance it is ridiculous, US had to kill them artificially.... even now, if you look at their new folding phone, it seems 5 years in advance compare to Samsung Fold offer....

Anyway, future will tell.

[BONES]

Yet, for the specific case of the "Apple Silicon", I still think it is a superbly smart move from Apple on the M1 and overall this move helped them to gain market share.

But is it getting them more customers or just encouraging the Apple faithful to buy a new computer? The massive slump this year would suggest to me it is more likely the latter. Because the thing is, Apple's bullshit only works on a certain kind of person, to everyone else it's just garbage noise.

The thing that gets me, though, is that people like you feel the need to defend a greedy corporate entity that shows over and over again that they don't give a flying f**k about you or your needs. That you seem to take it so personally tells me that, deep down, you know you're being screwed over and you're a bit ashamed of your gullibility, yet you obviously can't help yourselves. I mean, you don't see anyone defending Dell or HP, do you? They are all greedy corporate arseholes and you'll do much better for yourself by remembering that. The idea is to do your best to screw them over, not to drop your trousers, bend over and let them do it to you.

I also beleive that Mac OS performs better than Windows when running on basic hardware.

20+ years on Mac at work tells me otherwise. Again, it might be OK for less demanding users but the lack of customisation/optimisation makes it harder to get PC like performance. e.g. The nVidia drivers for my Quadro card at work have presets to optimise performance for individual applications. So (if I remember to) switch from the After Effects preset to the Cinema 4D preset when I am working in C4D, the performance difference is noticeable. OTOH, Apple has decided on my behalf that dual monitor performance is far more important to me than flat-out performance, so we all have to live with that, and the generally inferior performance of AMD's graphics, on macOS.

considering I can run Logic on an iPad now with the new M serious processors. That's pretty neat.

You might change your mind when you see how much a well spec'd iPad Pro is. I priced one out to match the spec of my RoG Flow Z13 (it's a fancier Surface Pro) and it would have cost literally twice what I paid for my Z13. It's also not the full version of Logic, it is called "Logic for iPad" for a reason. But at least it has file compatibility with the macOS version, which makes it a much better bet than Cubase if you're a Mac person. (Cubase requires a conversion between Cubase and Cubasis [or whatever they call the iPad version].)

[sQeetz]

Yet, for the specific case of the "Apple Silicon", I still think it is a superbly smart move from Apple on the M1 and overall this move helped them to gain market share.

But is it getting them more customers or just encouraging the Apple faithful to buy a new computer? The massive slump this year would suggest to me it is more likely the latter.

I was a Windows/PC apologist up until the introduction of the first M1 Macbook.
Buildt my own PCs since my old Amiga times. So in my case you're wrong.

Generalization and the blinders you put yourself on regarding this specific topic is actually quite amusing.

[EnGee]

Okay guys, I already have a DAW related thread that I created a few days ago, which was quite successful as it helped me re-pick a DAW and work on it. I do have another topic though, and did not want to create yet another thread, so I thought I'll just ask here. So here goes.

Has anyone compared the CPU/resource usage between Bitwig Studio /Ableton Live/Cubase/Studio One/Reaper?
Has anyone ever performed such a test, or is aware of a straightforward way of doing so?

Based on experience, I'm guessing the list would go as follows (low to high):

Reaper

Studio One

Bitwig Studio

Cubase

Ableton Live

Any other DAW you are aware of that uses even less CPU?

Reason for this is, I have an old laptop, AMD APU A6-6310 (quad core) with 8GB of ram, 500GB HDD (5600 rpm) which I'd like to utilize for something, rather selling it for scrap value. The only thing that's upgradeable any further is the hard drive, which I could possibly swap for a solid-state drive. Although, I'm not sure if it's worth it, as I'll barely be using it, if ever.

Also, I'm thinking of pairing the DAW with Sylenth1 (which I already have), as it is very generous on the CPU. I would use sample libraries, but the good ones are rather large, and the ram is maxed out at 8GB, I can't expand it any further (it's a very old budget Dell Inspiron laptop), and we already know about the SSD situation, above.

Lastly, I can dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 10, if that matters at all.

PS: Synth recommendations also welcomed (that use less CPU than Sylenth1 or similar).

Reaper has traditionally been the lightest on CPU, many times over. Don’t think that’s changed lately.

Yes I agree. I think it is the lightest DAW on CPU and GPU.

As for synths, I would keep Sylenth and couple it with NI FM8 (might be also NI Massive). Tone 2 synths have also low CPU usage. Synapse Audio as well. Those come to mind now

[syntonica]

It's also not the full version of Logic, it is called "Logic for iPad" for a reason.

No, it's not the full version of Logic. It's Logic Pro with a new touchscreen GUI design and extra features.

[pdxindy]

I was a Windows/PC apologist up until the introduction of the first M1 Macbook.
Buildt my own PCs since my old Amiga times. So in my case you're wrong.

Generalization and the blinders you put yourself on regarding this specific topic is actually quite amusing.

Apple makes the best laptops today. The Apple Silicon CPU's are a big deal. Laptops with plenty of power that are quiet, cool and have good battery life.

I'm confident they are selling plenty of them. I see them all the time these days.

[Jac459]

Yet, for the specific case of the "Apple Silicon", I still think it is a superbly smart move from Apple on the M1 and overall this move helped them to gain market share.

But is it getting them more customers or just encouraging the Apple faithful to buy a new computer? The massive slump this year would suggest to me it is more likely the latter. Because the thing is, Apple's bullshit only works on a certain kind of person, to everyone else it's just garbage noise.

The thing that gets me, though, is that people like you feel the need to defend a greedy corporate entity that shows over and over again that they don't give a flying f**k about you or your needs. That you seem to take it so personally tells me that, deep down, you know you're being screwed over and you're a bit ashamed of your gullibility, yet you obviously can't help yourselves. I mean, you don't see anyone defending Dell or HP, do you?
.........

Well, if we are talking about being neutral, I think you can read my comments more carefully and admit the fact that I don't defend Apple at all. I may defend some of their moves, but overall I am more often criticising them.

The reason why you have this false perception is your own bias. You hate Apple to the core and you are in a kind of Crusade against them. Like you are a basic apple haters. And then you try to mold all realities inside this prism. And sometimes it makes you being wrong.

What I recommend you is to have the only right attitude in my view which is "not giving a shit about the brand". Just focus about the product. Not the brand.

In the case of apple the down part of it is that it means that you shouldn't use their ecosystem. Because if you do, you will be stuck with the brand.
In my case I don't use their ecosystem in general meaning that the day I find a PC laptop that I like, I will move back to pc in a snap of a finger.

Anyway tbh, I have never seen a feature of the apple ecosystem that I like. What I know is I can charge my android phone with the same charger than my mac book Pro when my girl friend who has an iPhone can't... That's sorry ecosystem integration.


Going back to your Crusade against Apple, I don't judge you. They do a lot of despictable stuffs. But I do believe that nany if not all big corporates make similar stuffs so it is more or less even. That's why I don't give a s....

[dellboy]

In my case I don't use their ecosystem in general meaning that the day I find a PC laptop that I like, I will move back to pc in a snap of a finger.

If the rumours about intel's new "Arrow Lake" chip is true, it could be sooner than you think. It appears they are going with TSMC 3nm, which will make it as good as Apple's M1 at least. Apple will still be a march ahead, but will it really matter? It should mean that PC laptop makers will be able to offer quiet laptops with decent battery life.

[Jac459]

In my case I don't use their ecosystem in general meaning that the day I find a PC laptop that I like, I will move back to pc in a snap of a finger.

If the rumours about intel's new "Arrow Lake" chip is true, it could be sooner than you think. It appears they are going with TSMC 3nm, which will make it as good as Apple's M1 at least. Apple will still be a march ahead, but will it really matter? It should mean that PC laptop makers will be able to offer quiet laptops with decent battery life.

Well, I have an Engineering and IT degree. Since 25 years we know that we need to move to ARM architecture (ie: RISC vs CISC) architecture. I am going to the companies who are going to ARM... This is the way to go... Specialists know that since decades... It is just not so public because of marketing...

It is exactly like a cook for whom you would try to convince that Nutella is a good chocolate... Sure it is tasty and immensely successful... Yet it is made of palm oil, you'll never convince a cook that it can be as good as a chocolate made with noble ingredients...

For RISC vs CISC, it is the same. CISC is a less elegant architecture, they keep adding specific instruction sets in order to stay in the race... It started (to my knowledge) in 97 with the pentium "MMX" instruction set, now I understand it is the AVX-512 in the latest Intel... From an engineering stand point it is just shitty... Why do you think Apple could manage to make such a powerful CPU that overshadowed for the while great specialists like AMD and Intel ??
The ARM way is the way to go. Apple understood it and scored a massive win. I just hope Windows will finally dump the "CISC" first and move to RISC. That would be a gain for the whole industry. But unfortunately, that means a transition period with compatibility issue like for MacOs these recent years. But the sooner we do it, the sooner we can have performant and less consuming CPUs....