Picking a DAW is hard…

[crimsonwarlock]

As pointed out several times already, the modern DAW has many faces nowadays.
The majority serve very well as all-rounder tools. Pick one of them and you are good for most of what is likely to come up.

Agreed.

And on the other side of the extreme are only Reason, LMMS and maybe Ableton, Bitwig or FL Studio not providing full-fledged comfortable audio recording and mixing console features?

You are wrong about Reason here. Reason was one of the first DAWs to incorporate the emulation of a full mixing console, it had very good comping facilities way before many of the others mentioned, and has native pitch correction, which even something like Reaper (everything but the kitchensink) still doesn't have. Most people that don't use Reason still think it is the rack and a sequencer, but that hasn't been true for quite some time now.

Of course, you have to actually use Reason for this kind of recording to know this

stronger focus on EDM style creation:

...
Reason

Dissagree. Reason is (still) commercially used in Hiphop and R&B. I myself am doing mainly progressive rock (and variants) in Reason, mainly because what Reason emulates is basically a virtual version of an eighties/nineties studio environment that was mostly popular for rock productions. It even has a tuner integrated directly into the audio channels, showing it has a strong focus on recording external instruments.

[Michael L]

Steve Reich uses Reason & NN-XT for his orchestral mockups

[talby]

That's why I didn't say "limited to" but preferred to say "stronger focus on".
Maybe I should better say "Best known for its strong ...EDM | Recording ... capabilities:"
I am sure such list will evolve and we will soon see more versions of it...

I quickly removed the all-rounder Qtractor and the EDM specialist LMMS from the list again, because I do not know about their capabilities for latency corrections, a feature which beginners are unaware of but in fact separates the wheat from the chaff. From the information I here and there picked up over time - I did not by myself test all those DAW - , I assume that the other mentions do have reasonable latency correction mechanisms built in. Correct me where I am wrong!
If there are proper latency compensations mechanisms built into n-Track Studio, then this DAW should be added as an all-rounder. Does anybody know about this?

[stoopicus]

...and this is what I meant by "even these groupings are problematic"

Broadly agree with what you guys are saying and talby's grouping is as applicable as mine was.

[talby]

Your idea to summarize on this thread options for the beginners in such list is great!

[crimsonwarlock]

That's why I didn't say "limited to" but preferred to say "stronger focus on".
Maybe I should better say "Best known for its strong ...EDM | Recording ... capabilities:"
I am sure such list will evolve and we will soon see more versions of it...

[Papuzzo]

cakewalk sonar is free now, you can try it. and I suggest you stick to proficiently using a DAW recommended by most people, regardless of its advantages or disadvantages. After you truly master it, consider other DAWs

That would be my advice too. I think all the DAWs are pretty much the same when we consider that most people never use most of the capabilities and just need typical audio and MIDI editing capabilities. After many years with a certain DAW one might find they need the differences that distinguish the DAWs. Might as well start out with a free DAW and spend a few years concentrating on making music.

Not sure I completely agree with this. Sure many people may not use all features, but there is a real difference in work flows between DAWs.

i.e. Cubase can do almost everything, it's a superb DAW feature wise, but compared to Bitwig it feels very clunky.

Bitwig, for me has superb workflow for creating music from scratch and mixing, but isn't the best for e.g. recording a band or many multiple inputs.

There are of course advantages to having good tutorials and resources around, which would be a plus for Ableton, but this is also pretty clunky compared to Bitwig.

I think the hard part of choosing a DAW is that you need to know the basics fairly well before you can assess any differences. And once you've learnt the basics you've also learned that DAWs processes - which makes moving DAW quite a pain.

However once you do know the difference you can make assessments fairly quickly. For me I would want to set up some drum parts, some synths parts with groupings and FX sends, import some loops or audio to edit, setup a midi link to a synth and record some audio.

I'd like think I'd know pretty quickly which processes I prefer, but I'm not sure that's completely true as first time doing a new process isn't necessarily the same as repeatedly doing it when more familiar.

Anyway, Id say just start with Bitwig for it's work flow. And if someone really thought that was too niche, take Ableton which is less smooth in workflow but has more resources.

Bitwig is cool and has it's niche, but I usually recommend Garageband to a beginner if they have a Mac and usually Reaper if they use Windows. Now if that beginner was really into electronic music and will almost never record audio I would say just get Ableton Live and go through the learning curve. Then after a few years if there are things that just don't click, then get Bitwig. Or Logic/S1/Cubase.

[jamcat]

The correct answer is always Studio One.

It has a super low learning curve to get started. No menu-diving or complex setup processes. Everything is intuitive and drag&drop. If you think something should work a certain way, chances are that's exactly how it works.

It it cross-cross-platform. It's on Mac, Windows, and even Linux, so you can collaborate with anyone. It supports VST3 extremely well, unlike many other DAWs (the PreSonus dev team developed VST3 at Steinberg before founding PreSonus Software.) It supports VST2. It supports AU (Mac only). And it even supports CLAP. And it doesn't just support ARA and DAWproject—just like with VST3—PreSonus developed ARA and DAWproject.

Change samplerates on the fly. Maybe this doesn't seem like such a big deal, but it is. Supposed you've been recording at 96kHz, but you're starting to run out of CPU during mixing. Simply switch the song's samplerate to 48 or 44.1kHz, and playback will instantly switch to the lower samplerate without destructively converting your 96kHz source audio, and your real-time CPU usage will be cut in half. Then just switch back to 96kHz to record additional tracks or to mixdown. What other DAW can do that?

It is the total music creation package from start to finish. It has everything you need to turn an idea into a final master. Drag and drop a synth or an ampsim to the arranger and start recording in about 10 seconds from launch. It has scoring, tablature, and even lyrics sheets that follow the song position. It has automatic tempo-mapping, stem separation, and a chord track and even the Nashville numbers system that follows your progression. Export your tracks directly into a mastering project right inside of Studio One. You literally never have to leave the Studio One environment for any aspect of your music creation, right up to exporting your masters tailored for each streaming platform. It even has a Show page for live performance built-in to sequence everything in your setlist from the backing tracks and plugins for each song to the lightshow.

[talby]

Yes, they are a trend setter. Would be nice if DAWproject and CLAP become ubiquitous! Scoring, tablature, and lyrics sheets that follow the song, these are for sure worth to mention when pointing out its unique selling point.

But the other things you praise, well, most DAW have all those features nowadays, nothing outstanding about this. STEM separation, tempo mapping, a chord track, templates, lowering CPU load by the usage of proxy files in the editor and then applying the real files in the final print only, everything intuitive and drag&drop, flipping between various GUI pages optimized for different tasks, cross-platform (Linux, Mac, Windows), you also get these in Reaper, Ardour and Waveform.

[jamcat]

Do they also have a full mastering application built-in? Studio One's "Project" page sequences your entire album for cohesiveness, with per-song mastering plugin chains and settings.



The thing with Studio One is it's not any particular feature, but the culmination of all of them together. Some DAWs might have some of those features, and other DAWs might others, but only Studio One has them all. And as you said, Studio One is the trend setter. Whether it's drag&drop or the chord track, Studio One was the original innovator, and will likely continue to be.

[stoopicus]

Do they also have a full mastering application built-in? Studio One's "Project" page sequences your entire album for cohesiveness, with per-song mastering plugin chains and settings.

Logic Pro does, sort of a lighter weight (but equally useful) version of iZotope Ozone.

[jamcat]

Do they also have a full mastering application built-in? Studio One's "Project" page sequences your entire album for cohesiveness, with per-song mastering plugin chains and settings.

Logic Pro does, sort of a lighter weight (but equally useful) version of iZotope Ozone.

You're talking about Logic's Mastering Assistant, which does some kind of automatic AI mastering, right?

But isn't this just a plugin you put on a single track, not a true mastering application where you would master an entire album horizontally?

When it comes to mastering, it is all about putting an entire album together as a consistent and cohesive package for pressing records or CDs. If you're just "mastering" to make your song louder and more compressed, you're just playing dress-up.

[stoopicus]

Yes. I think it is a mastering tool that reflects how people actually produce music today (i.e. trackwise) and you're right that it does not address loudness, saturation and transitional balance for an album-oriented format.

It's also the approach iZotope uses with Ozone.

[enroe]

The correct answer is always Studio One.

It has a super low learning curve to get started. ...

It it cross-cross-platform. ...

Change samplerates on the fly. ...

It is the total music creation package from start to finish. ...

Mmmm... so, to suggest a single DAW that is supposed to have
everything and be superior to all others - I consider that rather naive,
incredibly unsound, and even completely wrong.

Each of the major DAWs is highly complex and has a wide variety
of functions. And every user and musician has a very different focus
in the course of their work.

==================================================

User Talby's approach is one possible method for classification.
He divides the DAWs into "linear DAWs" and "pattern-based DAWs",
which is a possible approximation. The best overview I've found online is
Admiral Bumblebee's, and it's here (click right here). The final
result from evaluating many individual points is this:

total valuation - admiral bumblebee 01.gif

[jamcat]

Cubase does a destructive downsample conversion to all of your audio files if you change the samplerate of your song. This will permanently ruin your audio recordings if you didn't back them up.

That alone makes it score lower than Studio One in the Grand Moff Jamcat scoring system. And Grand Moffs outrank Admirals.