Which DAW is fastest to load?

[chk071]

It seems like Studio One takes forever to load. Bitwig takes less time, Cakewalk is even faster. Is there another DAW which is faster to load?

Reaper.

Studio One boots up pretty quickly though, when you deactivate the plugin scan, which takes the longest. There's really no need to scan for new plugins everytime the DAW boots, unless you just freshly installed some.

[crashedthecar]

Reaper is the fastest I know
I remember studio one being a lot faster if you disable unneeded services. Everything is on by default.

[chk071]

As I mentioned, the plugin scanning takes the most time. Deactivate that, and the rest is pretty easy peasy really.

[reusenoise]

Reaper
FLstudio
Mutools
In not particular order

[Saffran]

When i saw this topic i got a bit curious, so i timed the start of my main daw pc.
From pressing the on button to login screen - 20 seconds.
From login screen to desktop fully loaded (no more animated circles) - 19 seconds.
From doubleclick on the desktop icon to fully loaded Cakewalk by Bandlab - 9 seconds.
It is with splash screen but no scan. The scan usually takes 3-4 seconds. I know it's fully loaded when the notification "asio driver loaded" comes up.
It's an i5 - 3.1 ghz - 8 gb - win 8.1 - daw on C ssd drive. About 10 years old.

[panspOrmia]

Reaper.. by a mile.

Be warned; it`s a 14mb download.. which will take a few long seconds to download.

Renoise loads quickly as well. Either way, both are amazing DAWS..

[apoclypse]

On my Mac Bitwig is much slower to load than Studio One. Studio One is pretty fast on my machine to load, it barely takes 8s. Meanwhile startup times for Bitwig are in the 10s of seconds, it used to be longer but Bitwig fixed it in version 3.0 I think.

Also if we are talking about loading how about project loading. Ableton has probably the slowest project loading I’ve ever experienced. It takes forever to load a fairly sized project with lots of plugins. A similar project loads pretty quickly in S1 and Logic. Bitwig can be slow sometimes as well but is immediately responsive so it covers it up a bit.

[Michael L]

Every DAW is faster than writing a post about which DAW is faster

[LeVzi]

Cubase ..................

only joking..

FL Studio is almost instant.

[chk071]

Cubase ..................

only joking..

Hehe. Well, to its defense, it has loads of features which have to be loaded, unlike other DAW's.

[Halonmusic]

energyXT and Reaper

[mgw38]

Reaper is fast but FLStudio is practically instant, at least on a Mac.

[codec_spurt]

klj

[BONES]

But is it consistent?

My 9th gen hexa-Corei7 is a very consistent 4-5 seconds without plugin scanning. With plugin scanning switched on, it does seem to skip it after the first time in a session, if you restart S1 without having restarted Windows.

I really wish Presonus added background plugin scanning like Bitwig does, for example (Ableton seems to have added it also, but it still scans something at the start).

I couldn't care less. If it annoys you, turn it off. I've tried it both ways and I always end up turning it back on. It's still faster than Cubase. Honestly, if that's one of your biggest gripes, then Presonus must be getting a shit-tonne of things right.

I usually end up booting Maschine which boots up quickly to jot down the idea.

Really? I just booted Maschine and after two minutes I stopped timing it and went away to make coffee. It was ready when I got back. I thought it might have been because I haven't started it before on my current laptop, or because of an update or something, so I closed it and started it again. It took just as long. Komplete Kontrol is just as bad - plugin scanning takes forever. I reckon, all up, it probably takes around five minutes to start. Every time. I've typed this whole reply while I've been waiting for Komplete Kontrol to start ad it's still not ready.

Thats how I did it circa 2000 and earlier.....or send it to my phone's voicemail..... but that can only allow you melodies. not chord structures or an interesting beat... well I can't do those on that anyway.

You have chord structures just pop into your head? Wow!

And when I compare what I can do in a DAW vs this method it is highly inefficient. Although I still do that if I am stuck in traffic, but surely not when I am home (I also work from home even before Covid)

For me, as soon as the idea gets into my host it is lost because there are too many options. I used to jot that stuff down in my own musical shorthand - horizontal bars of different lengths, higher and lower on the paper - but even that used to change it. I can't think of a single time in 40 years that an idea like that has turned into anything worthwhile so I don't bother with it any more. If it sticks in my head for a day or two, it might eventually come out when I am in front of the machines, which is where all the good ideas come to me.

Every DAW is faster than writing a post about which DAW is faster

Not Maschine or Komplete Kontrol, smartarse (see above).

Just t add to the list, Orion is about the same as Studio One for me, 5 seconds.

[tony10000]

Reaper & FL Studio