Your first DAW !

[syntonica]

Atari ST 4-channel tracker -> Dr T's Tiger Cub -> Logic 5 Gold, Logic being a "true" DAW.

[classic]

It was Cubase VST v.5
I produced 4 or 5 CDs with about 10 songs on them each.

[Bombadil]

Roland VS-880.

[mcnelson]

Music and Music 2000 on PS1

[e@rs]

Cubase VST 3.7.

[Funk Dracula]

Pro Tools LE v5.0 circa 1999. I remember teetering between getting a Roland VS digital recorder, or trying out a program for the computer. I choose the DIGI 001 because it came with Pro Tools for free, and if I didn't like Pro Tools, I could just buy/try out another program and still use that interface.

I went to college for Recording Engineering a year later, and I was like "oh I know Pro Tools!" when I saw it in school. I had no idea it was the literal industry standard in studios. Been staring at Pro Tools for 25 years now haha. I've used Logic for composing on my personal home rig since 2002 tho, but recently switched to Bitwig for that.

Cheers

[MrJubbly]

For me, it was the various music trackers, that were available on the Commodore Amiga A500 in the late 1980s. Such as Soundtracker, NoiseTracker, MED, OctaMED, etc. Although, some may not consider such trackers as "DAWs" in the modern sense.

These were not however, my very first experience of using digital music software, as I had previously dabbled with various (very basic) music creation software, on my earlier home computer, the Commodore 64. Which was a couple of years prior, while I was first learning music.

But I didn't really take music more seriously, until I began using the Amiga's trackers during my early teens (I was around 12 or 13 at the time). As such, music tracker user interfaces, such as this, hold a lot of nostalgia for me.

Music Trackers.png

[vurt]

Music on the Playstation 1.

same.
and the follow up music 2000 on the ps2.
actually wrote some decent stuff in them too.

then my missus got a job in some big computer firm, which meant we got top of the range pc, from them, for her to work at home. at the very same time, the magazine "computer music" was released, got a few demos of various hosts, but orion for some reason, was the one that i got hooked in to.
used that up until about 4/5 years ago, when i started doing more with audio, over time, ive got to a point im doing nothing but recording audio from the modular. so orion now sits there, in hope i may want to do some quick samples for my sample modules.

[kylie]

I really wanted to get warm with Cubase ( VST3.7, afair ), but I never managed to, so it took some effortless time until Kristal Audio Engine came out which later would become Presonus Studio One.

[Jafo]

Tracktion. So much better than Audacity with Timidity! (And it's still the only DAW that makes any sense to me.)

[chk071]

I really wanted to get warm with Cubase ( VST3.7, afair ), but I never managed to, so it took some effortless time until Kristal Audio Engine came out which later would become Presonus Studio One.

I remember Kristal. It never had VST support though, so, I simply dismissed it as an option for me.

[jwd606]

Cubase on Atari

[robisme]

Procyon-pro, 1995
Then different versions of Cubase (from 5, sx2, and 9 or 10, don't remember).
Then Reaper on Linux, and now Bitwig on Linux.

[kylie]

I really wanted to get warm with Cubase ( VST3.7, afair ), but I never managed to, so it took some effortless time until Kristal Audio Engine came out which later would become Presonus Studio One.

I remember Kristal. It never had VST support though, so, I simply dismissed it as an option for me.

Well, actually it supported VST FX but apparently no VSTi. Still I liked it a lot, as well as its successor.

[chk071]

I really wanted to get warm with Cubase ( VST3.7, afair ), but I never managed to, so it took some effortless time until Kristal Audio Engine came out which later would become Presonus Studio One.

I remember Kristal. It never had VST support though, so, I simply dismissed it as an option for me.

Well, actually it supported VST FX but apparently no VSTi.

Right. It's been a while.