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

[VOODOO U]

Well, its a fool's errand to guess the certain implementations of features that anyone needs. Everyone is so very different!

Who said a developer has to "guess" anyone's needs? I sure didn't.
As i mentioned, I demo'd Mulab and it doesn't suit my needs; that's what feature requests are for should one be bothered with them.

You can use the low-level modules to build what you need, while becoming even more focused on your idea.

Let's say you have a sound you really like, but you want to quickly play it on your keyboard with variations, e.g. every note has a different effect and layering; or you want to quickly slice the sound, and then sequence the slices but with many harmonic layers, stretches and pitches that are all visible in one track. Or you want to take cycles from that sample and build an instrument that has the specific sound you want, while not losing track of your musical idea. MuLab lets you do that very quickly and visually.

That all sounds "geeky". Why hasn't Mulab surpassed "geeky" Reaper and Bitwig in votes?

A strength of the "one-man-army" is in the details, e.g. session and arranger views interact side by side, that helps some professionals stay focused on their musical ideas.

Bitwig does this just fine.
I can come up with only *one* DAW developer who started out as a one-man army and stood the test of time and that's Justin at Cockos. But even he now has assistamce.

the choice of DAW is very individual, and is often based on a 'feeling' or preference

There now, doesn't that make more sense then saying a DAW being not "geeky" enough is the reason it gets less votes?
For the record M4L is pretty damn geeky. I like the Grid better; it's more user-friendly hence why i think most users prefer it over Live in regards to modular geekness.

And another geek infested DAW that's not even on the list is Brain Modular's Usine Hollyhock (even the name is full of geek).
That DAW is the geekiest of geeks in all of Geekdom Come and I don't think anyone outside of Brain Modular's crew uses it.
Itt really is all about workflow differences.

[BONES]

I have used Bitwig for years on Windows too and i still like it and it is also a native Linux Daw now so the Linux part is just a Bonus for me

That's not what you said, not what I responded to. The quote I put in my reply was the entirety of your post, not something taken out of context.

[Michael L]

For the record

Yes, Kvrists like posting about geeky stuff so DAWs that have more geeky stuff to post about get more votes.
ipso facto!

[D-Fusion]

I have used Bitwig for years on Windows too and i still like it and it is also a native Linux Daw now so the Linux part is just a Bonus for me

That's not what you said, not what I responded to. The quote I put in my reply was the entirety of your post, not something taken out of context.

I didn't write that Bitwig was my choice just because it works on Linux either.
I only wrote "Bitwig because it works great on Linux" and nothing else so please show me where i wrote more since i would love to see that since that was my whole post and nothing else.

Your reply is only your idea of what i said and not the reality of the meaning behind what i wrote which i clearly explained further in my reply to you and still you want to argue because you want to be right

Take a closer look at my whole post here and your response further down that page: viewtopic.php?t=577030&start=1110

[BONES]

No, that is EXACTLY what you said. Read your post.

Let's say you have a very clear musical idea. You do not want to go shopping at the M4L Mall or browse readymade stock plugins to find one close enough-- but which may send your idea off in a different direction. That's the strength of MuLab's modular + minimal approach. You can use the low-level modules to build what you need, while becoming even more focused on your idea.

That doesn't sound like any kind of "professional" approach to me. If the focus is the idea, the music you want to make, then a real professional won't care about the process, he or she will use whatever tools will get the job done. If anything, using "low level modules to build what you need" sounds like a very good way to lose focus on your idea.

Let's say you have a sound you really like, but you want to quickly play it on your keyboard with variations, e.g. every note has a different effect and layering; or you want to quickly slice the sound, and then sequence the slices but with many harmonic layers, stretches and pitches that are all visible in one track. Or you want to take cycles from that sample and build an instrument that has the specific sound you want, while not losing track of your musical idea. MuLab lets you do that very quickly and visually.

And by the time you have built all that, you will have completely forgotten what the idea you wanted to work on was. If you use a pre-existing template for it, then all your ideas will end up going down the same path. This is definitely not a professional approach, it lies firmly within the realms of geekdom.

[Michael L]

No, that is EXACTLY what you said. Read your post.

Maybe you had a Senior Moment and confused me for D-Fusion, or you’re on a boat and it’s been raining like crazy so the humidity is shorting your circuits.

[BONES]

No, I responded to the comment directly above mine, before quoting you.

[Michael L]

No, I responded to the comment directly above mine, before quoting you.

I see now.

[EnGee]

I still find S1 (v6) the most comfortable one to use in laying my ideas and edit them. Ableton Live is great but I still prefer arranging and editing (Midi especially) in S1. Cubase is so messy and became unnecessary complex (both setup and usage, compared to S1).

I don't find myself using modulators (Live and Cubase) because if the plugin doesn't have the modulation I want, I can do it with automation. Anyway, I can tweak some presets in some VA synths while composing but for complex sound design (or using a complex synth to make my own sounds), this must be another process not going together with the composing process which I use mostly already made presets (by others or by me).

[jojoB3]

Reaper because best dev team in the game and that's ultimately what matters most in a DAW application.
There's a bit of learning curve for nearly every daw and this one's pretty simple.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Ableton has become super powerful and even more creative since the addition of piano roll generators and transformers. There are a ton of 3rd party options to add or create your own. Thats the reason I recently chose to upgrade over Bitwig even though I prefer it plus the trillions of max4live devices including graphics generators

[BONES]

Reaper because best dev team in the game and that's ultimately what matters most in a DAW application.

So you're saying that it doesn't matter if the application itself doesn't meet your needs, as long as the devs are a good bunch of people? My problem with Reaper is that it has been basically crowd-sourced, with every stupid feature request from every clueless idiot being implemented. Of course, over time they have all gone down that path, trying to be all things to all people at the expense of actually being good at any one thing. That's why I was using Studio One Artist for several years - it had everything I needed with minimal bloat to make things more awkward than they needed to be.

When they discontinued it, I went back to my full license, only because I was hopeful some of the bugs I encounter daily might be fixed, which has mostly worked out. I still think I'd be much happier with something a lot more basic but I am yet to find anything that offers what I need without all the bloat. At least it's easy enough to ignore the bloat and keep things simple. There are big parts of Studio One that I simply haven't installed, like Melodyne, Stem Separation and the sample content it comes with.

[VOODOO U]

My problem with Reaper is that it has been basically crowd-sourced, with every stupid feature request from every clueless idiot being implemented.

Do you actually believe Justin would implement features into Reaper that served no purpose? What seems like stupid features to you only seems that way because it doesn't serve your basic type of work.
I personally don't use comping, i just duplicate tracks when necessary then combine the waves/items. That doesnt make comping a "stupid" feature made by "clueless idiots". For some, comping is a preferred way to work.
You're lazy if you can't get Reaper to work in a non-bloated basic fashion.

[twal]

Reaper because best dev team in the game and that's ultimately what matters most in a DAW application.

So you're saying that it doesn't matter if the application itself doesn't meet your needs, as long as the devs are a good bunch of people? My problem with Reaper is that it has been basically crowd-sourced, with every stupid feature request from every clueless idiot being implemented. Of course, over time they have all gone down that path, trying to be all things to all people at the expense of actually being good at any one thing. That's why I was using Studio One Artist for several years - it had everything I needed with minimal bloat to make things more awkward than they needed to be.

When they discontinued it, I went back to my full license, only because I was hopeful some of the bugs I encounter daily might be fixed, which has mostly worked out. I still think I'd be much happier with something a lot more basic but I am yet to find anything that offers what I need without all the bloat. At least it's easy enough to ignore the bloat and keep things simple. There are big parts of Studio One that I simply haven't installed, like Melodyne, Stem Separation and the sample content it comes with.

Bloat seems to address features that create problems for simpler features to continue to function simply as so. After using Reaper for 9 years, no newly added features have ever got in the way or modified anything that was already prior to the daw's feature list (in fact I'm getting faster and faster at using Reaper). I believe the only thing that ever really changed was comping -- something Voodoo just mentioned -- and I think they just added a separate method- it'a something I rarely use as well..

Reaper functions in a modular fashion and uses the action list to perform actions you setup to your personal liking. If anything, Reaper is like the most slimmed down daw there is even if you don't customize it. You can use it straight out the box and modify as you go and in time it will be 10× faster than anything else on the market hands down.

[Chicken Drummy]

While I want to say Bitwig, at the end of the day I think I'd be lost without FL Studio. I love having both and I'm lucky to have access to the two, but if I was forced to choose only one, it would have to be FL Studio.