Which version of your favourite DAW nailed the UI?

[Chris Hawkins]

I am reading an ongoing discussion about the changes to Cubase's UI in version 14 and it got me wondering.... which version of you favourite DAW got the interface right and what do you think of the current version's UI?

Personally I liked the look of Cubase SX (1,2 & 3). Maybe I am aging myself here

[machinesworking]

Have to Be Digital Performer 7 when they introduced custom themes. Looking at other DAWs the best looking competition is Studio One or the latest Cubase. I like darker themes but I'm always hoping for a completely retro looking light DP theme making it look like v2 or so from the 90's. Some of the themes are close, but I want dead on.

Last in line is Reaper, even with themes somethings always off IMO.

[Jac459]

I am sorry but I will need to say the latestest Bitwig. Hardware accelerated UI with clean, modern look. Everything move to give subtle but efficient visual feedbacks...
The only best looking interfaces globally are the new trend of Fabfilter plugins (in particular R2 and Q4).

Serum obviously considering his age was a quantum leap forward.

[musicproducerdee]

I don't know what it is, but Ableton Live makes me want to make more music. They've nailed the GUI and the workflow. Most of the times, I already know what my next step is going to be while writing music, and Ableton helps me do it faster than any other DAW I've used till date (Cubase, Bitwig, Studio One, FL Studio).

[machinesworking]

I am sorry but I will need to say the latestest Bitwig. Hardware accelerated UI with clean, modern look. Everything move to give subtle but efficient visual feedbacks...
The only best looking interfaces globally are the new trend of Fabfilter plugins (in particular R2 and Q4).

Serum obviously considering his age was a quantum leap forward.

Why be sorry? I like the way Bitwig looks for the most part, there are a few UX issues with the GUI that bother me, but IMO by Bitwig 6 or 7 they'll take care of them, things like the grid lines being almost nonexistent etc. Other than that and maybe tweaking a few elements that are oddly sized compared.

[Kypresso]

I hate flashy colours and skeuomorphic design so its Reaper i love. Its quick to launch, nothing to distract me and just about everything i need is just a right click away. I've been a programmer for 37 years now and i'm happiest with a simple empty page of a code editor to work with, Reaper gives me the same vibe.
I keep trying all the other daws but i still prefer Reaper but do use Reason studio plugin with it. And yes i hate the design of Reason but love the sound.

[trancema]

Cubase 5
Logic Pro 7
Both of these looks pleasent on eyes with excellent contrast and enough of skeumorphism with easy to distinguish all elements.
Not too cluttered and perfect choice of colors for a professional working software where it isn't tiring even after hours of use.
It comes from times when the professional designers were taking all apsects in consideration for usage, not just an eye candy, cool trendy UI rush as most software today, unfortunately...

[eLawnMust]

Well if we are talking Cubase then VST24 3.70 from 1999 is the best, all downhill from there-








As far as favorite, Maybe Reason 3.0.4... All downhill from there as well-

[rod_zero]

Ableton Live since version 4 when I started using, and over the years it has remained consistent.

[_leras]

For me, especially with dual monitors, Bitwig is just the best. Things consistently placed, easy to jump between things.

The thought in the layout is excellent and is very very intuitive to use.

I also like the colour scheme. Although perhaps they can slightly tweak it, the overall colour palette is easy on the eye and I can work with it for many hours, especially in a room with dimmed lights.

It also works really well with a single monitor with just a few shortcut keys to jump between different views.

[aMUSEd]

Waveform has the perfect GUI for me, and I can strip it down to something really minimalistic. I love the ability to tag everything including plugins so have the search bar setup just how I need it to find plugins quickly

Just wish it was more stable

After that Bitwig is good except for the popup browser

[_leras]

Well if we are talking Cubase then VST24 3.70 from 1999 is the best, all downhill from there-

Hmmm... Maybe it was the best at the time, and some improvements over earlier DAW UI. But cmon.

Just looking at that and you can see how much wasted space there is and how the floating windows don't actually help that much with the low screen resolution from back then.

For sure, docked and windows, that were easier to switch between would have been much better use of space. The mixer channels are clearly much wider than the needed to be.

And the vst instruments and FX windows are clearly clunky AF.

May I suggest you have a serious look at how you let nostalgia run your world view. There's so much improvement since then in so many areas. Live in the present. It's much more real.

[twal]

Waveform has the perfect GUI for me... Just wish it was more stable

My idea was to have a setup using Waveform and only native plugins without third party to curb/mitigate/eliminate stability issues.

Heard there was some semblance to that; anything true for you about that?

[_leras]

Not technically a DAW but I think Steinberg Wavelab deserves mention.

If you're mastering an album or even individual tracks the UI is really compact and functional. Small learning curve, but super slick to work with, great tools for scoping and analysis, really good audio editing, simple to A/B multiple versions. Great file and project organisation.

All round a really great tool.

[aMUSEd]

Waveform has the perfect GUI for me... Just wish it was more stable

My idea was to have a setup using Waveform and only native plugins without third party to curb/mitigate/eliminate stability issues.

Heard there was some semblance to that; anything true for you about that?

I don't know, I don't use the native plugins in Waveform