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

[Papuzzo]

TBH, I am in a state of flux at the moment. Long time Reaper user (after Sonar demise) but only ever scratched the surface with basic audio recording and editing. At times I get overwhelmed by all the control parameters that need to be/should be setup by the end user. With SWS, scripting, Extensions - all way above my "pay grade" hahaha! Even getting the Keylab setup is a chore! To the point where I simply do not bother.

I am at the point now where I just want something that works out of the box with my new Arturia Keylab, is easy to use and does most things automatically.

I have had a brief look at Ableton Live, FL Studio, Bitwig and Logic Pro (Im on a MAC) and they all seem to promise to be easy to use for someone who does not want to do a lot of system/app tweaking but I am undecided as to which would be best to replace Reaper. In Reaper I am constantly find ways to block any sort of creativity as I keep coming across roadblocks in it to productivity and in the end I juts give up and go and do something else.

This thread is timely for me because of these reasons, however I am in flux due to being indecisive about which one!

Try Garageband. It is the ultimate no nonsense DAW. You can always start out a project in Garageband and flesh out the song, then open it directly in Logic, or export it to any other DAW. One way to avoid using DAWs during the creative phase is to use an arranger keyboard.

[machinesworking]

Every DAW is hard and every DAW is easy. What makes it hard is lack of passion. What makes it easy is passion. Those wasting time complaining about a DAW haven't found passion in their music.

I think people don't like being brought back into left brain tasks when in the flow. To some that means not having to do workarounds when a feature doesn't exist, for others it means learning the keyboard shortcut so that it's second nature.

I run onto the same thing every time with Live for instance, it gets out of the way during the initial writing process, then if anything sticky comes up later, it's insistence on simplicity can sometimes drive you nuts. Just last night somehow the song arrangement quantization got toggled off, so parts of the song were out of alignment, and happened to not start at the beginning as well. In DP11 I would simply move to the Sequence Editor and see where the actual notes were out of alignment side by side, but in Live you can only look at notes in a clip one at a time, which means constant switching to align etc. I find the Arranger in Live 100% the worst part about it, but others love the grid based logic of it.

In some ways I think Live is much more a DAW for people who don't want to use the keyboard, mousing can get you everywhere in Live without learning a single key shortcut, and the shortcuts have serious limitations and flaws, so for some people this is a major plus, but for some they get super annoyed every time they have to open a plugin window with the tiny icon on the subwindow because the command doesn't work until you "prime" it.

[BONES]

I'm not a fan of hotkeys. I see it as a failure of UI design if it's easier to use a shortcut than the mouse. Photoshop is the poster child for this - if you don't know dozens of shortcuts, you'll never get anything done. The user experience still feels like something straight out of 1996, when I first started using it.

That said, there are some hotkeys that make life so much easier, like "D" to duplicate something in Studio Pro or "1", "2", "3", "4" for changing the cursor between different tools. Then there are "accelerator" keys like holding down ALT while dragging to time-stretch a clip (audio or MIDI) that are invaluable.

What I am a big fan of is right-click menus, which put dozens of functions right where your cursor, is. Studio Pro excels here.

[Rivanni]

but in Live you can only look at notes in a clip one at a time

Not true. Live supports multi-clip editing.

for some they get super annoyed every time they have to open a plugin window with the tiny icon

True, although you can key/MIDI map that icon so you no longer have to click.

[jens]

Reason 14 has just been released.

[machinesworking]

but in Live you can only look at notes in a clip one at a time

Not true. Live supports multi-clip editing.

I think for people who don't use other DAWs it's hard to imagine this, but superimposed notes all in the same MIDI piano roll are not useful when trying to align clips in the arrangement page. I use Digital Performer which has the Sequence Editor allowing you to view MIDI data on multiple tracks side by side, much more useful when something is off as opposed to overlapped notes etc. Logic Pro at least allows multiple MIID piano rolls to be open at once, again easier to see where data is etc.

for some they get super annoyed every time they have to open a plugin window with the tiny icon

True, although you can key/MIDI map that icon so you no longer have to click.

Sure, you can go through a song and MIDI map the 20 instruments and FX in it to open, and do that for every project, fun. Bitwig assigns a single key command to opening a VST on any track, hit v and you're set.

Regardless, the open instrument key command remains an absolutely useless breaking of Lives decent to exceptional UX.

[machinesworking]

I'm not a fan of hotkeys. I see it as a failure of UI design if it's easier to use a shortcut than the mouse. Photoshop is the poster child for this - if you don't know dozens of shortcuts, you'll never get anything done. The user experience still feels like something straight out of 1996, when I first started using it.

There are two reasons to use a keyboard shortcut, the main one is for a function you don't use that often that's more universal than a contextual menu, or so common that the mouse is more of a hassle.

That said, there are some hotkeys that make life so much easier, like "D" to duplicate something in Studio Pro or "1", "2", "3", "4" for changing the cursor between different tools. Then there are "accelerator" keys like holding down ALT while dragging to time-stretch a clip (audio or MIDI) that are invaluable.

DP has the most useful hotkeys for tools p for pencil, a for the arrow pointer, v for velocity, m for mute etc. Literally one of the things preventing me from jumping back to Logic was the absolute mess they made of both the right click and key commands for the tools, multiple key commands to get to the pencil tool, or a right click and a submenu dive..

What I am a big fan of is right-click menus, which put dozens of functions right where your cursor, is. Studio Pro excels here.

I haven't seen a DAW without contextual menus, but yeah always helpful, except for maybe in Reaper where it always takes up the full screen.

What's super helpful is a shortcut or function search feature that fires them off. DP and Bitwig excel there. Much better than searching through menu bar items,

[audiojunkie]

I'm not a fan of hotkeys. I see it as a failure of UI design if it's easier to use a shortcut than the mouse. Photoshop is the poster child for this - if you don't know dozens of shortcuts, you'll never get anything done. The user experience still feels like something straight out of 1996, when I first started using it.

That said, there are some hotkeys that make life so much easier, like "D" to duplicate something in Studio Pro or "1", "2", "3", "4" for changing the cursor between different tools. Then there are "accelerator" keys like holding down ALT while dragging to time-stretch a clip (audio or MIDI) that are invaluable.

What I am a big fan of is right-click menus, which put dozens of functions right where your cursor, is. Studio Pro excels here.

I agree with this completely! I'm a visual learner, and hotkeys may be faster for some, but I always end up having to look the hot keys up. I know that not everyone is the same as me, and there are different learning styles. But for me, having the available buttons or the options on a right-click, it is better for my style.

[aMUSEd]

I'm not a fan of hotkeys. I see it as a failure of UI design if it's easier to use a shortcut than the mouse. Photoshop is the poster child for this - if you don't know dozens of shortcuts, you'll never get anything done. The user experience still feels like something straight out of 1996, when I first started using it.

That said, there are some hotkeys that make life so much easier, like "D" to duplicate something in Studio Pro or "1", "2", "3", "4" for changing the cursor between different tools. Then there are "accelerator" keys like holding down ALT while dragging to time-stretch a clip (audio or MIDI) that are invaluable.

What I am a big fan of is right-click menus, which put dozens of functions right where your cursor, is. Studio Pro excels here.

I agree with this completely! I'm a visual learner, and hotkeys may be faster for some, but I always end up having to look the hot keys up. I know that not everyone is the same as me, and there are different learning styles. But for me, having the available buttons or the options on a right-click, it is better for my style.

Same here

[Monsieur_FyP]

You'd better not use Renoise

[VOODOO U]

You'd better not use Renoise

It's what I love about Renoise. I can ditch the mouse and just use hotkeys for practically everything.

Anyhow, in general -and it's been said a million times - when getting familiar with a DAW, avoid going into the creative zone. Just write a throw-away tune/piece to get comfortable with the ins and outs of the DAW. Spend a few days learning it so you can get a flow that doesn't interfere with the creative zone.
If you're writing music that invokes passion then you won't have time to complain about DAWs. You'll make one work because the music getting done is what's important. You'll make it work regardless of any shortcomings.
So many come in here complaining about this and that and they don't know what to do or what to use and the usual shit. Yet there are those who made it work with tape and a razor blade. Why? Because the music was that damn good. It was worth the effort.

[jens]

I agree with this completely! I'm a visual learner, and hotkeys may be faster for some, but I always end up having to look the hot keys up. I know that not everyone is the same as me, and there are different learning styles. But for me, having the available buttons or the options on a right-click, it is better for my style.

But hotkeys allow you to have physical buttons per function - e.g. if you'd use a mouse with additional programmable buttons then you can use these to execute often used features without any cursor movement - and you could also e.g. paint these buttons if that makes it easier for you (and there's also keyboard-overlays and -stickers and what not) - or you could of course instead use something like a Stream Deck or the Logitech Console.

[audiojunkie]

I agree with this completely! I'm a visual learner, and hotkeys may be faster for some, but I always end up having to look the hot keys up. I know that not everyone is the same as me, and there are different learning styles. But for me, having the available buttons or the options on a right-click, it is better for my style.

But hotkeys allow you to have physical buttons per function - e.g. if you'd use a mouse with additional programmable buttons then you can use these to execute often used features without any cursor movement - and you could also e.g. paint these buttons if that makes it easier for you (and there's also keyboard-overlays and -stickers and what not) - or you could of course instead use something like a Stream Deck or the Logitech Console.

It's true. But what good are physical buttons per function if you can't remember what they each do?

Painting the buttons (or using stickers to put on the keys) is something that I have seriously considered. That would certainly help. And that honestly wouldn't be too bad.

As it stands now, I use Reaper, and I am able to set up custom options on the screen that I can use for each function. It only has to be done once, and then I can save and restore it forever. It's not everyone's cup o' tea, but it works well for me on Linux.

[BONES]

There are two reasons to use a keyboard shortcut, the main one is for a function you don't use that often that's more universal than a contextual menu, or so common that the mouse is more of a hassle.

But the mouse is never a hassle, it is always right there in your hand, where your other hand might be near your keyboard or might as easily be playing something on a controller. I don't recall if you are a PC or Mac user but if it's the latter, I can understand your attitude - Mac mice are the spawn of Satan. I've always invested heavily in a good gaming mouse for maximum productivity. I recently unboxed a Mad Catz R.A.T. 6+ that I bought a while ago, it's an absolute cracker.

DP has the most useful hotkeys for tools p for pencil, a for the arrow pointer, v for velocity, m for mute etc. Literally one of the things preventing me from jumping back to Logic was the absolute mess they made of both the right click and key commands for the tools, multiple key commands to get to the pencil tool, or a right click and a submenu dive.

The problem is that you quickly run out of letters. e.g. Should "M" be mute or should it turn the metronome on? Fortunately it is all completely customisable in Studio Pro, although I have found that, generally, changing things from the default ends up being confusing, so I tend to leave them as they are.

What's super helpful is a shortcut or function search feature that fires them off. DP and Bitwig excel there. Much better than searching through menu bar items,

Generally speaking, I don't like using a search function within an application, I prefer to learn how to find things myself. The kids at work, who grew up with search inside After Effects, have no f**king idea where anything is without it and because they always use it, they don't learn about handy things, like the fact that After Effects, like Photoshop, always puts the last used effect at the top of the menu so it's right there next time. At least I've taught them that they don't need a Wacom tablet to do their work, that it gets in the way more than it helps anything.

[BONES]

It's what I love about Renoise. I can ditch the mouse and just use hotkeys for practically everything.

Whereas I am much more inclined the ditch the keyboard. I certainly don't have a computer keyboard on stage (mostly because I only need to switch songs).

Anyhow, in general -and it's been said a million times - when getting familiar with a DAW, avoid going into the creative zone. Just write a throw-away tune/piece to get comfortable with the ins and outs of the DAW. Spend a few days learning it so you can get a flow that doesn't interfere with the creative zone.

I think the best way to get familiar with new software is to take an project you made in your old software and rebuild it from scratch in the new application. Even if you are using the same plugins, you'll learn the host more quickly if you have a goal that requires you to use all the parts of the application you need to finish something.

So many come in here complaining about this and that and they don't know what to do or what to use and the usual shit. Yet there are those who made it work with tape and a razor blade. Why? Because the music was that damn good. It was worth the effort.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment, the reason people used to make it work with tape and a razor blade was that they didn't have a DAW to work in. If they had, they'd have done an even better job, which is why I don't understand why people are content to make something sound like it was done in the 70s or 80s when it could sound so much better.

But hotkeys allow you to have physical buttons per function

No they don't. "M", "CTRL-M", "SHIFT-M", "ALT-M", "CTRL-SHIFT-M", "CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-M" are six different functions for the "M" key and sometimes you need both hands to execute it, which is highly inefficient.

3DS Max has the perfect right-click menus. Quad Menus pop up in four directions from the cursor position, so that they are never too long. They are fully customisable and context sensitive so everything can be in easy reach, no matter how you work.

Screenshot 2026-05-12 101931.png

But what good are physical buttons per function if you can't remember what they each do?

Any decent application will show you the hotkey in a tool tip, which makes it easy enough to learn the ones you use all the time.

Painting the buttons (or using stickers to put on the keys) is something that I have seriously considered. That would certainly help. And that honestly wouldn't be too bad.

You can actually buy keyboards for video editing that come pre-labelled. Avid started it a long time ago but other NLE's have picked up on it. You can do it pretty neatly on your own these days, too. On Amazon or Alibaba or Temu you can buy mechanical keyboards that come with multiple sets of keys in different colours, so you can easily colour-code your keyboard.