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

[Jac459]

I think reaper's fan is not only because of the product but also the philosophy of the brand and the way they manage customers that seems to be nice... It is a bit the Patagonia of the DAW haha...

[sin night]

In my case, it would be Cubase. I tried other daws, I used Logic Express 9 for a few years, I used Reason with rewire a few times, I have Ableton Live because I want to learn it… but I started with Cubasis VST 3.7 (so the first version, which was bundled with my SoundBlaster Live Platinum) more than 20 years ago and a certain mindset / workflow is really consolidated on me… I’m not an expert user by any means (I don’t spend enough hours working on music), but I get the job done with the minimum effort because I know the daw well enough.

As long as the daw has the features you need, I think it doesn’t matter which daw you use if you know it well and it doesn’t distract you from what you’re doing.

[EnGee]

I thought to stick to Ableton Live (mainly) and Cubase, but the poor performance in Windows (which I use about 60% vs 40% for my mac) made me choose Bitwig (main) and S1 instead.

Bitwig would be my choice for now, but not sure for the future as living cost is increasing and I'm getting older and poorer! This might lead me to sacrifice the future paid updates and stay with Bitwig as it is without updating (I still fine by that). Anyway, if Bitwig becomes an essential part of my hobby, I might sell everything else (other DAWs) and keep updating it for 3 or 4 years.

The samples (especially drums) are very weak compared to XO or Addictive Drums. The drums synths however are great .
The synths engines (including the Grid) are very good to excellent. I might get deeper in the Grid, and that would make Bitwig not only a DAW but a sound design environment (which it is of course). I just hope it keeps running well with the 3 systems it supports

[jmichaelkober]

FL Studio lifetime license is such a strong selling point... buy once, cry once

[Jac459]

I thought to stick to Ableton Live (mainly) and Cubase, but the poor performance in Windows (which I use about 60% vs 40% for my mac) made me choose Bitwig (main) and S1 instead.

Bitwig would be my choice for now, but not sure for the future as living cost is increasing and I'm getting older and poorer! This might lead me to sacrifice the future paid updates and stay with Bitwig as it is without updating (I still fine by that). Anyway, if Bitwig becomes an essential part of my hobby, I might sell everything else (other DAWs) and keep updating it for 3 or 4 years.

The samples (especially drums) are very weak compared to XO or Addictive Drums. The drums synths however are great .
The synths engines (including the Grid) are very good to excellent. I might get deeper in the Grid, and that would make Bitwig not only a DAW but a sound design environment (which it is of course). I just hope it keeps running well with the 3 systems it supports

I agree, bitwig is definitely not the cheapest DAW...
But it can replace a ton of other plugins...

[soulata]

S1 but just because I know it best.

I use Ableton Live as well but always get a feeling it"s only for the cool kids or cool, very successful people which I am not.

[Jac459]

S1 but just because I know it best.

I use Ableton Live as well but always get a feeling it"s only for the cool kids or cool, very successful people which I am not.

Is it cool because of this "excel-like" look ? :-p

[soulata]

S1 but just because I know it best.

I use Ableton Live as well but always get a feeling it"s only for the cool kids or cool, very successful people which I am not.

Is it cool because of this "excel-like" look ? :-p

Most probably!

[sQeetz]

I use Ableton Live as well but always get a feeling it"s only for the cool kids or cool, very successful people which I am not.

I'm neither cool nor successful and still like Live best... It's the one DAW simple enough to not get in the way.

[dellboy]

Is it cool because of this "excel-like" look ? :-p

Maybe that's a good thing because it makes it easy and simple to use. In contrast I downloaded the Bitwig demo yesterday and spent a good half hour trying to figure out the browser and how to load stuff. Ableton's browser is simplicity itself.

[soulata]

I use Ableton Live as well but always get a feeling it"s only for the cool kids or cool, very successful people which I am not.

I'm neither cool nor successful and still like Live best... It's the one DAW simple enough to not get in the way.

To each their own. I can't really use clip view for my stuff, I'm slower in arrange view than in S1. I can't mix in it. But I do use it for some things.

[soulata]

Coolnes factor, you always see really cool indie people using Live in commercials.

S1 on the other hand - Joe Gilder, Gregor Beyerle...people that drive cheaper VW and Škoda cars...

[machinesworking]

I'm definitely without being forced, incapable of sticking to one DAW. I love Live and Bitwigs simplicity in some ways, but there are times when in the middle of a song I'll just give up and import the thing over to Digital Performer. I might love the immediacy of Live/Bitwig and vastley superior control surface mapping, but at times I just hate wading through the workarounds for things like quantization, mixing in general etc. etc.

So I'm currently stuck using Live for a collaboration, but I in the end like the swiss army knife approach of DAWs like DP, Logic, Cubase and Reaper. Someone years ago pre Apple buy out of Logic described it as a tool that allows you to do complex things, and because of that it takes time to learn, but when you do, it will be at a different level. I admit that Logic years ago had the fastest workflow for me, after spending over a year learning the interface and key commands.

Essentially the trade offs are obvious once you become an expert at navigation in Live, it's not that fast, you're doing a lot of mousing and your speed didn't improve drastically from a year ago, same with Bitwig. The area that they ask more out of the user is in the Grid and Max/MSP, but the UX is dead simple. I wish there was some middle ground, but I get how there can't be. A DAW either implements everything with some learning curve issues, or limits it's workflow to a few areas that are intuitive and well thought out. Neither paradigm says that it will be a "complete solution" compared to some other DAWs method.

[sQeetz]

Coolnes factor, you always see really cool indie people using Live in commercials..

I believe the cool kids today use FL
edit: or Logic since MacBooks are so approachable these days

[EnGee]

The only things that I don't like in Bitwig (and Live) are:
1. No mapping for 3rd part drums. So, if I want to use Addictive Drums and do my beats with it, I choose either S1 or Cubase.
2. Can't play midi patterns for drums. There are tons of midi patterns for advanced drumming and again only with S1 or Cubase I can play those midi and make Addictive Drums playing them, for example.

For years I complained about these two points to Ableton and Bitwig, but nothing! So, I gave up.
Now, I must choose the DAW depending on what kind of drumming plugin I have in mind. I already have a mapping for AD in both S1 and Cubase. Anyway, sometimes I just use drums machine or XO in Bitwig, in that case Bitwig is enough.

So, what DAWs I'm sticking with is Bitwig and either S1 or Cubase (haven't decide yet!).

However, I prefer Bitwig because I'm faster now to concentrate on my ideas because of the clip launcher. It's the most crucial stage in my work flow and I like to do it in the clip launcher. Then lay off all on the arrangement and complete everything there. This is my ideal workflow.