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

[BBFG#]

Aren't DAWs now becoming their own workstation instrument though?
I've been trying to see them more in this light in the last year or two. Dedicate a computer to one and eventually tie/sync our multiple computers as one. ? (I think most of us have more than one computer.)
And the DAW is less of the problem than the computer/OS demanding change is. And yes, I do realize that between software and hardware, one drives the other to new extremes. Hard to tell what is pushing and what is pulling.

[dune_rave]

I would resurrect Absynth. Because in its current version its dead to me.
Ahhh, realized its a daw topic.
Then synapse orion or arturia Storm.

[machinesworking]

Aren't DAWs now becoming their own workstation instrument though?
I've been trying to see them more in this light in the last year or two. Dedicate a computer to one and eventually tie/sync our multiple computers as one. ? (I think most of us have more than one computer.)
And the DAW is less of the problem than the computer/OS demanding change is. And yes, I do realize that between software and hardware, one drives the other to new extremes. Hard to tell what is pushing and what is pulling.

It was definitely an argument you could make about Live previous to 7 or so, it acted more like a phrase sequencer and sample mangler than a traditional DAW. Over the years Live has moved more towards being a bedroom producers DAW though, and you can clearly see it in the way it's marketed. Right now Abletons web page has 6 photos of a single user in his bedroom, kitchen or home studio with maybe one image of a lady playing in what looks like an art gallery, and it's been like that for years. The image of Push 3 standalone is not of someone on stage, but in their kitchen.

Even the venerable MPC is moving towards this world, with an arranger page, less performance oriented and more focused on creating simple songs, (so far only one time signature per song/project)...

[VitaminD]

^ turns out there is a lot of money to be made by novice musicians and musicially-interested folks. IKM, Waves, UA for example all have pivoted to bargain basement prices for the masses versus expensive products to fewer commercial studios.

I think Pro Tools still is largely used in large studios, so there is no competing there. The money for Ableton's type of products is with the novices and hobbyists by marketing to them commercial electronic artists using the software.

[Michael L]

The image of Push 3 standalone is not of someone on stage, but in their kitchen.

Not even performing in the kitchen?
How depressing.
Ableton Lone.

[Seafire Mk2]

For the last 25 years, Orion.

[machinesworking]

^ turns out there is a lot of money to be made by novice musicians and musicially-interested folks. IKM, Waves, UA for example all have pivoted to bargain basement prices for the masses versus expensive products to fewer commercial studios.

I think Pro Tools still is largely used in large studios, so there is no competing there. The money for Ableton's type of products is with the novices and hobbyists by marketing to them commercial electronic artists using the software.

That sums it up. Ableton marketing is towards the hip yuppie tech bro who wants to chill out and make a track here or there, the fact it's expensive is mainly due to the audience in general having disposable income.

Some of this is great, we are seeing super cheap excellent plugins since the market is huge, some of it sucks, as you see MPCs lose real time signature support, it taking almost two years for Push 3 standalone to get time signature support, or people arguing that they don't need hardware to replace the computer, they would rather mouse. NI Kontrol mk3 lost the ability to select tracks with the controller in any meaningful way, and it's surprising how many people don't even notice or care.

It's a mixed bag, things are cheaper, but dumber.

[syntonica]

I would resurrect Absynth. Because in its current version its dead to me.
Ahhh, realized its a daw topic.
Then synapse orion or arturia Storm.

Er, Absynth has been resurrected. No comment as to its quality, though. I think it still sounds bad due to the ancient filters, although I believe they've added some updated ones.

[BONES]

If I could, I would stick with the DAW with the least annoying userbase, which is Bitwig.

That's a big call. In my experience, Bitwig users are only slightly less annoying than Reaper users, in the same sort of way. Both lots are far too evangelical, it reeks of insecurity. I am very comfortable working in Studio One but I'd never suggest that it's better than any other DAW, just that it suits me better for the way I work. If I am evangelical about anything, it's my workflow, which is a different thing.

I think you overlooked the base of what I was saying, for instance in Live, the show/hide plugin keyboard shortcut is simple, but really dumb, it only works if you've already hit the little icon on the plugin subwindow. In other DAWS you have show/hide instrument even, so if a VI is on a track it will open or close that instrument. There's also in the DAW I use DP the ability to select another plugin right from the open plugins DAW container GUI. DP is obviously more complex that Live here, but you spend much more time opening and closing plugins by hand in Live, so in the end more carpel tunnel.

I'm not sure I understand anything you've said here. Is "VI" just a lazy way to type VSTi or is it something else? The rest of it, "plugins DAW container GUI" and stuff, means nothing to me. But it does sound complicated. I just press a button on the mixer channel (or track in the min window) to show/hide an instrument.

Basically the interface of the computer does not lend itself to changing music fundamentally like the introduction of amplifiers, electric guitars, affordable synths, tubes, microchips, and FX boxes did.

I get what you're saying but that's only true in a narrow sense. In a broader sense, there is no way I could not be putting out music of the style (not genre) or quality I can achieve today with computers. Computers may not have given birth to new genres but they sure as hell have raised the bar for production values across the board.

You do not consider EDM (deadmau5), ambient (Eno), techno (Belleville Three), trance, sampling (DJ Shadow), DJing (Bomb Squad), installations (Max/MSP), livecoding (algoraves), sound design (Kyma), everything that came out of Kraftwerk, IRCAM and GRM, and all computer- and loop-based music as genres?

Not really. EDM is a genre, Techno and Trance are sub-genres of that. I sure as hell can't listen to a dance track and know what sub-genre it is. Seriously, what makes a Tarnce track a Tarnce track? How is it different from a Techno track? It is all just EDM to me. It is easy to make Rock or Pop, Orchestral, even Country music on a computer. It's not just electronic genres. And I'm not talking about recording real instruments, I'm talking about using sample libraries and such to create music wholly within the computer. You don't even need to record vocals any more, you can do entire vocal tracks from sample libraries these days.

... how many people compose in Ableton in similar ways.

But they are still pumping out the same kind of music others are doing with an MPC or a full DAWless set-up. I mean, I've been making electronic music since the early 1980s. I started with two TB303s as sequencers, then moved to a series of digital sequencers (QX-7, SQD-1) and then onto Korg workstations (M1, O1R/W, Trinity), before moving to a PC-based set-up. The computer opened up a lot of possibilities but it didn't fundamentally affect what kind of music I make or even how I go about it, really. It mostly just gave me more of everything to play with. It took away limitations that may have been barriers to me doing things the way I had envisaged.

Why not, "Electronic Music" ?

That would be like saying "guitar music", not very helpful.

Then, is "sticking to one DAW" or another a trivial or even irrelevant decision?

I see it as a practical matter, not a philosophical one. That said, back in the day, I don't think you'd have seen too many people using a Korg M1 and an Ensoniq workstation side-by-side. Plenty of people would have had both but they'd have picked one to be the DAW and the other would have been used as a multi-timbral synth, being controlled from the sequencer in the other. I don't see how that makes any less sense today.

I do enjoy the process of learning music software, the shock of the new.

I got over that a long time ago. When I was like that, we put out an album every 3-5 years. Now that I am far more focused, we're putting 'em out annually.

Sometimes people write more music when things are fresh, why some musicians especially keyboard/computer plugin user types love buying plugins.

I definitely fall into that category. For me it is mostly because I no longer have the desire to spend ages learning a new synth, so I'll use it for what I can get out of it easily, then grow bored of it and need something new.

I mean most of the greats had very limited access to equipment, it's not like you need variety, but every rich synthesist has a ridiculous cache of equipment.

I think that's because most musicians are hoarders. Like OCD and left-handedness among my work colleagues, it seems to come with the territory.

[BONES]

Aren't DAWs now becoming their own workstation instrument though?
I've been trying to see them more in this light in the last year or two. Dedicate a computer to one and eventually tie/sync our multiple computers as one. ? (I think most of us have more than one computer.)

Do we? OK, I do but only because I haven't got around to selling my old one yet. I haven't switched it on in more than a year. I went down that route for a while - one for the studio and one for the stage, and it just made so much extra work. If I'm honest, I just wanted a particular machine and having a separate gig computer was an excuse to buy it.

And the DAW is less of the problem than the computer/OS demanding change is.

Wha? I don't have that problem at all. My PC updates all the time but it never gets in the way and it never causes any problems. And I'm a Windows Insider, so I'm working on beta builds of Windows. Studio One has also been updating itself very regularly of late. It feels like there's a new release every month.

[jojoB3]

It's a big fat duh that WORKING PROFESSIONALS use the tools they've chosen.
What they usually don't do is sit 6000 pages deep in a forum ramming their opinion down everyone's throat incessantly.

No no, this is a case of childish, forum addiction (others might label it 'bullying') rather than getting to work on their daw/music.
About the only thing I agree with him on here is how he views Apple products.

This is perhaps your millionth post in this thread.

I don't know you're age. It's possible you're a child which might explain things (to degree that is) but YOU...are CLEARLY NOT fluent in ANY of these DAWs.

You've already shown your hand, 'Bones'. I'm embarrassed for you at this point. I can say without a doubt when it comes to information in regard to DAWs today YOU are the LAST person I would take seriously.

I can't tell you how much better KVR became for me after blocking BONES, give it a go! Not sure whether it's an AI hatebot or a miserable human.

Bones is the least of the trolls IMO, it's just overtly judgmental opinions, that's not the end of the world. There's a big difference between "you're being stupid doing this thing", and "you're stupid". I wish more people could tell the difference.

What I find amusing with the quoted text he replied to, is I don't think he's really that wrong, it's just a harsher version of the Zimmer quote, "the best DAW is the one you know well" or some such thing. Not everyone is Autechre using 6 DAWs and still producing music, some people likely need to think if gear and DAW hoarding is getting in the way of writing with all the extra learning etc.

In other words this is actually decent advice, I think KVR in general is a place where GAS gets in the way of producing, maybe that's what people want, but we are trying to write music aren't we?

[machinesworking]

I'm not sure I understand anything you've said here. Is "VI" just a lazy way to type VSTi or is it something else? The rest of it, "plugins DAW container GUI" and stuff, means nothing to me. But it does sound complicated. I just press a button on the mixer channel (or track in the min window) to show/hide an instrument.

VI= virtual instrument, it's the more appropriate way of saying it. VST is like saying Cola for any sugary soft drink.

My point was if there's a keyboard shortcut for opening and closing a VI, it should make sense, love Live, but that part drives me nuts, and the little eyeglass on the subwindow to open and close the VI is f**king tiny!

Basically the interface of the computer does not lend itself to changing music fundamentally like the introduction of amplifiers, electric guitars, affordable synths, tubes, microchips, and FX boxes did.

I get what you're saying but that's only true in a narrow sense. In a broader sense, there is no way I could not be putting out music of the style (not genre) or quality I can achieve today with computers. Computers may not have given birth to new genres but they sure as hell have raised the bar for production values across the board.

Absofuckinglutely! I'm not knocking them as tools, just saying the ease of use hasn't spawned a whole new category of music, like cheap hardware synths did.

I do enjoy the process of learning music software, the shock of the new.

I got over that a long time ago. When I was like that, we put out an album every 3-5 years. Now that I am far more focused, we're putting 'em out annually.

Yeah I've stopped looking around, I'm ticked that DP12 is still not here, but looking at Logic 12 being a subscription bundle now and going full AI I'm good.

Sometimes people write more music when things are fresh, why some musicians especially keyboard/computer plugin user types love buying plugins.

I definitely fall into that category. For me it is mostly because I no longer have the desire to spend ages learning a new synth, so I'll use it for what I can get out of it easily, then grow bored of it and need something new.

I mean most of the greats had very limited access to equipment, it's not like you need variety, but every rich synthesist has a ridiculous cache of equipment.

I think that's because most musicians are hoarders. Like OCD and left-handedness among my work colleagues, it seems to come with the territory.

IMO I'm going the opposite way, I have around 15 instruments I love, and I do not think I've used them to their fullest, so I'm regulating everything else to ROMpler status in Komplete Kontrol as a patch library, and concentrating on those 15. I mean it's compromise on the idea that I still have way more than we did as kids, just think I can get a lot out of the ones I use the most anyway if I stop trying to learn the basics of the 150 VI's in my VSTi/AUi folders.

[machinesworking]

It's a big fat duh that WORKING PROFESSIONALS use the tools they've chosen.
What they usually don't do is sit 6000 pages deep in a forum ramming their opinion down everyone's throat incessantly.

No no, this is a case of childish, forum addiction (others might label it 'bullying') rather than getting to work on their daw/music.
About the only thing I agree with him on here is how he views Apple products.

Lol, so you like to trash people for their taste in computers, but you hate everything else he posts. Personally I never really mention what I think of Microsoft, because I don't see the point of getting into arguments with people about which greedy corporate giant they use.

For real, I get why you wouldn't like him, I just worked construction for 20 odd years, so I've been around far more aggressive people with their opinions than Bones, he's mild compared.

[BBFG#]

Computers may not have given birth to new genres but they sure as hell have lowered the bar for production values across the board.

ft^
And it equally can be said it expanded or narrowed it. It's a matter of perception really. And a trade off in the balance.

[heliacal]

It's a big fat duh that WORKING PROFESSIONALS use the tools they've chosen.
What they usually don't do is sit 6000 pages deep in a forum ramming their opinion down everyone's throat incessantly.

No no, this is a case of childish, forum addiction (others might label it 'bullying') rather than getting to work on their daw/music.

If this isn't the most TRUTHful post ever on KVR. Summed it up perfect...