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

[kinkajou]

If you asked this question 20 years ago i'd said "Steinberg Cubase", without a doubt.
15 years ago it changed to "Ableton Live".

Since i switched to "Bitwig Studio" in December 2021 with VERY less afford in nearly no time i can say "I'm home now"... (at the moment at least)

To me the look, the handling, the overall workflow and - of course - the modulators opened a totally new perspective of producing tracks. (and this after 15 years of using "Ableton Live" only)

[Sascha Franck]

Just 16 votes for Logic Pro. It seems macOS is losing ground each year.

KVR has always been a bit PC centric. Also, as has been mentioned, there's just one vote for Pro Tools - and I guess we can all agree that it's still very widely used in professional audio.

[dellboy]

I explained this few posts back - I often experiment and play stuff on MIDI controller but when I'd try to actually record it I miss notes, press wrong ones, get way out of time. Basically I get very nervous, because I know I can't play. Whereas without the red blinking "Record", I often manage to play something I'd definitely use.

MIDI comping would be more for off-line use, e.g. combining several riffs I either captured or painted in, to piece together something different from them.

I remember when I was learning that I had the same problem that you describe, as soon as I hit record everything went clumsy and wrong. Somehow you have to learn how to play when its yourself watching yourself

[Sascha Franck]

Is stock content important?

I guess it depends on a) how well it sounds, b) how appealing it is to work with and c) how well it is integrated (as in "better integrated than third party stuff").
For me personally, many of the Logic plugins and quite some content (samples and patches) check all these boxes. And it actually saves me quite some money as I really don't need much third party stuff.

[skijumptoes]

So I was wondering which DAW you lot think would be enough to cover most - if not all - of your needs, if you could never touch any other?

I think the choice is so personal, the only way to truly know is to create music specifically in each and judge which creations you prefer.

I wouldn't worry about cross referencing excel sheets of features of the DAW, cross reference the end product's results - that's what key.

[xbitz]

I explained this few posts back - I often experiment and play stuff on MIDI controller but when I'd try to actually record it I miss notes, press wrong ones, get way out of time. Basically I get very nervous, because I know I can't play. Whereas without the red blinking "Record", I often manage to play something I'd definitely use.

MIDI comping would be more for off-line use, e.g. combining several riffs I either captured or painted in, to piece together something different from them.

I remember when I was learning that I had the same problem that you describe, as soon as I hit record everything went clumsy and wrong. Somehow you have to learn how to play when its yourself watching yourself

it's just an extra track in Bitwig which monitors your MIDI keyboard and sends the MIDI notes to some virtual MIDI cable(HW Instrument can do it) and to Cubase(for ex. to a DAW which has retro recording)

latency doesn't count here just to be able to log what was played in the background without any assistence

I miss nongroup bus tracks better (found your solution but meh viewtopic.php?p=7352318#p7352318 )

[jclosed]

It's a bit of a tough question, because I really use two main DAW's for different purposes. These are Cubase and Bitwig. Cubase is my to-go for mixing and the little mastering I am capable of, while Bitwig is my creative playground that inspires me.

As I am now retired I got a lot more free time on my hands, and love to give that time for my creative outings. Besides creating musical stuff, I also do graphical work. I like to play around with Blender and the designs I make are printed out on my 3D printer. The next step is to make holograms from those designs and finally cut several of them up in a collage. The music (or soundscapes) are the final touch to set the atmosphere.

As such if I had to choose what DAW I would use if I only could use one, I think my choice would be Bitwig. This DAW just fits in the total creative process more than a DAW that I mainly use only for the final stage of an already created piece. In the end I can use Bitwig also for the mix/master process (although not as comfortable as Cubase), so the choice is obvious.

Bitwig is the one I will use if I can only use one DAW.

[legendCNCD]

Sometimes I do wonder how a new Cubase would work. I've seen new Logic and I'm really not impressed at all I'm afraid.. but Cubase for me was always the flagship "could do everything" (well Nuendo but.. ).

Then I close the steinberg website tab.

[Smasha]

Reaper,it takes anything I throw at it when other DAWS cough and splutter.

Cubase AI now plays no sound when loading a vsti even when signal is displayed on the mixer.

It used too but now all of a sudden it doesn't.

Load the same instrument in Reaper,works perfect.

Reaper is easily the most reliable and stable DAW of all.

Cubase is rubbish in comparison,it looks cooler and more hipster but it is unstable as egg shells.

Even Groove Agent SE and Halion Sonic SE do not work standalone or in Cubase AI but loading those same instruments into Reaper and they work every time.

Cubase,buggy software.

Cubase is like Adidas,you pay for the name.

Reaper is a fraction of the price but incredibly more stable.

[BONES]

I guess it depends on a) how well it sounds, b) how appealing it is to work with and c) how well it is integrated (as in "better integrated than third party stuff").

The problem is that if you already have a functioning plugin ecosystem, why would you ever bother checking that stuff out? e.g. If you are already using Battery, why would you care what Groove Agent had to offer? A Cubase install is a 21GB download but I'll guarantee that I'll never look at 20GB of that. I've done a full install of Studio One but that's only because when I load a MIDI file it uses Presence, which loads a shit-ton of sample content to do everything. To be fair, some of it sounds really good but that doesn't stop me replacing it with something I know better and am more comfortable with. e.g. It always loads a "Fingered Bass" preset for GM bass parts, which usually does a great job, but I always swap it for VB-Rowdy anyway.

For me personally, many of the Logic plugins and quite some content (samples and patches) check all these boxes. And it actually saves me quite some money as I really don't need much third party stuff.

I'm sure Cubase's content, and Studio One's, are also amazingly good but I just don't care about it even a little bit. I'd be more likely to spend my money on a version that didn't have any of it. I currently have around 300GB of "content" installed on my second drive but I guarantee I use less than 20% of it and I'd be much happier if it wasn't there.

It makes sense to provide all that stuff to people who are just starting out but once you've been doing it for a while, you get over your reliance on that stuff and it starts to become a burden. If I could get my bandmate to move across to Studio One, I'd be able to get rid of Cubase completely and that would make me happy. However, if there was an option to install just the application with minimal or zero content, it wouldn't bother me that I had to have it installed.

[Sascha Franck]

The problem is that if you already have a functioning plugin ecosystem, why would you ever bother checking that stuff out? e.g. If you are already using Battery, why would you care what Groove Agent had to offer?

Well, I can only answer that for what Logic has on offer - and well, as you mention Battery, unfortunately that's indeed something for which there's no proper competition inside Logic (note: I'm saying "unfortunately" because NI royally f***ed Battery up when moving from version 3 to 4).

Anyhow, there's still reasons why I'm using Logic's internal sampling offerings, simply because things are embedded so well (and from all I know it's pretty similar with Groove Agent running inside Cubase). You can just drag things you've cut in your arrange window to the sampler window and the cuts stay intact. No need to open any file pool or Explorer/Finder.
Also, backing up things is a lot easier (or collecting a bunch of samples from various places, as once you're using the internal sample based plugins, everything can be saved neatly inside the song folder. With Battery, I'd have to open each single patch used in a project and save it separately.

but that doesn't stop me replacing it with something I know better and am more comfortable with.

Thing for me is, I started using Logics content quite early. Actually back when there was almost no third party stuff to be had (end of the 90s). So it has grown quite naturally on me (whether that's a good thing could be debated as it has dragged me towards Apple kinda tightly, which isn't something I'm proud of at all).

Apart from that, some of the Logic plugins and content are absolutely great (fwiw, the entire sample library is over 80GB by now - but it's even more about the plugins). Sure, there's some duds, but plenty of it is absolutely on par with quite expensive third party stuff. And as said, I never used third party stuff a lot in the first place (I do own NI Komplete Ultimate, though - but hardly ever use anything but Battery and a handful of Kontakt patches).

Seriously, parts of Logics content are absolutely stunning and you'd basically don't need anything else for professional work (unless it's something rather specific, such as extended sample libraries).

[dlandis]

mispost

[Double Tap]

Lots of good thoughts in this thread. Only things I’ve not seen mentioned are that there’s a real benefit to being in a big ecosystem, which is one of the reasons I use Live. What I mean by that is that any online tutorials, project files etc are likely to be in Live - perfect if you’re a beginner, and handy even if you’re not.

Part of me would want to pick Audacity, because every DAW creates a path of least resistance where you can be seduced into taking a creative route because it’s easy, rather than because it’s in your head. How easy is it to dial up a drum rack and generate a riff using some arpeggios and a randomiser? With something like Audacity you’d have nothing except the basic track view. But it would be a total pain in the arse to use of course.

[dlandis]

Reaper,it takes anything I throw at it when other DAWS cough and splutter.

Reaper is easily the most reliable and stable DAW of all.

Reaper is a fraction of the price but incredibly more stable.

It goes to show how different the same DAW can be on different machines. Reaper crashed more on my computer than anything I've used (except maybe for the old Tracktion, when Mackie owned it; it's far better now.)

FWIW.

[SparkySpark]

What pisses me off is that I know some things are better implemented elsewhere, but I can always hope Bitwig will improve them in time.

If you are into modular hosts, you might like MuLab, as modular as it gets, and with really well implemented features. Still, as there are things missing also here, you have to decide if it offers enough in its current state.