Picking a DAW is hard…

[DaveClark]

Picking a DAW isn't hard at all.

I agree that just picking one is not hard at all. Picking the most suitable one is a different matter.

[chk071]

Ok, surely you need to try out a couple, but, they all have demos.

[DaveClark]

Ok, surely you need to try out a couple, but, they all have demos.

Yes, that's right. It's what you do with the demos that can make a big difference in your decision.

[Michael L]

It's what you do with the demos that can make a big difference in your decision.

AND, how you feel while you are doing productively!

We are all wired differently.
Some need a visually exciting GUI.
Some need lots of features
Others need a visually calm front end with only necessary features.

[mixyguy2]

You are all over the place. Try to reduce the options.
Renoise is a tracker
FL Studio is pattern based
Ableton and Bitwig are for electronic music
Logic, Studio One, Cubase - "standard" general purpose daws.
Reaper - for mixing / mastering

Just based on the properties above you can already take few of them out.
You have already said no to pattern based, and Reaper is not for you,
trackers are probably not as well.
You are left with Ableton, Bitwig, Logic, Studio One, Cubase.

I would choose Logic, the reason is the price.
You pay once and have all the updates for free, at least for the last 10 years this was the case.
Other daws are expensive because they need an upgrade every two years or so.

I'm sorry but this is a terrible post and should be ignored. Yes, some DAWs are strong in some areas than others, but all of those DAWs, and really any DAW, can be used for general purposes. It's very subjective and it makes total sense to try as many as one can because otherwise they might not find the "right" one.

OP I strongly suggest you try Mixcraft. I tried just about everything under the sun some years back and it was the only one that felt intuitive, logical, and easy to learn, which in fact it's known for, along with GarageBand. And again, yes, that's only my opinion, but you've nothing to lose by checking it out.

PS: Pro Tools, sadly, is still the "industry standard" but that's changing because people are finally starting to realize it's a POS and hilariously overpriced. That should be the very last option.

[mixyguy2]

If you can't find a DAW out of the ones you've tried then you are the problem.

Another boneheaded post.

[Robmobius]

If you can't find a DAW out of the ones you've tried then you are the problem.

Another boneheaded post.

Thanks, I try.

[uOpt]

I suggest that among your specific dislikes the one with Reaper is likely the least evil. You do the customization once and then that problem is fixed. You can't make your other DAWs' dislikes disappear.

Reaper is also very customizable and scriptable. With others' scripts and the potential to write your own scripts you can bend the thing to your will, which seems important to you.

[Michael L]

You do the customization once and then that problem is fixed

But customizing takes many many hours over months and months. Even guru Kenny Gioia says he does not fully understand the software.

[uOpt]

You do the customization once and then that problem is fixed

But customizing takes many many hours over months and months. Even guru Kenny Gioia says he does not fully understand the software.

Well, given that Reaper is very scriptable the customization options are limitless. Do you really think you need months worth of option tweaking to make it workable for you in the first place?

[elassi]

Well, there's no obligation to customise Reaper. It works right out of the box.

[Michael L]

It works right out of the box.

But apparently not very efficiently. Kenny Gioia has to customise it differently (portable installs) for each of his eight different uses.

[DaveL60]

I've played with a bunch over the years. For context, I'm doing the one-man home recordist thing, so not putting a huge load on any DAW I've played with. For my new system I'm trying to keep things leaner and cleaner, so I've settled on having Tracktion Waveform 12 Free and Samplitude X6 as my DAW options. They've got rather different workflows and so far I've spent more time with Waveform, but since I'd already spent the $s on Samplitude I've installed both. Samp is more "traditional" in terms of what I'd call a mixer channel-oriented interface approach, whereas Waveform is more visually-oriented and left-to-right linear in terms of signal flow. Both have an object-oriented model where you can assign effects to individual clips, which is really handy.

From past experience I also like the suggestion of MuLab's DAW, which is pretty easy to use, very attractive visually, and extremely deep under-the-hood in terms of capabilities.

[chk071]

If you can't find a DAW out of the ones you've tried then you are the problem.

Another boneheaded post.

Another boneheaded post.

[stoopicus]

It works right out of the box.

But apparently not very efficiently. Kenny Gioia has to customise it differently (portable installs) for each of his eight different uses.

Have you ever used it? It's fine for me out of the box. Literally all I did was choose a different skin from the themes menu.