Which DAW draws clips best, i.e. in a most aesthetical & legible way?

[antic604]

A bit of a Sunday afternoon fun

When writing music - or just fooling around - we spend a lot of the time on the timeline, I thought we could vote for which DAW draws the clips best. Surprisingly they all do it slightly different, with varying ways to draw audio waveforms, color saturation, clip framing, MIDI note distribution, style of labeling, etc.

I only had those 4 choices available and I tried to match them the best I could, but I'm adding other DAWs to the poll and you're welcome to put in screenshots - I've attached the samples & MIDI:














Please DON'T vote for 'best DAW' or 'your favourite DAW' - just for the one that you think draws the clips in a way that's most eye-pleasing and legible. For me it's something like this:

#1 Live - the colours are super punchy, the waveforms & MIDI notes are very distinct, smooth and easy to read due to very high contrast, there's no unnecessary framing, the clips feel "light" and easily stand out on otherwise bland GUI

#2 Reason - the colours are great, I think even more saturated than Live's and contrast is also good; however there's no labels by default (can be added manually) and you also can't see through the clips to reference the content easily vs. the timeline

#3 Bitwig - the colours look pretty dull by comparison, even though they're more lively in the colour-picker and track headers; I really dislike the disappearing headers when clips are shorter, the contrast that could've been much better and the framing around clips, that makes them feel "heavy"

#4 Studio One - this one's just sad to look at, with a very murky / dirty colours; the way S1 draws MIDI is especially terrible - I mean the notes are an octave apart and you can't tell it really; the fact that the grid shines through is a plus though and the way they draw labels as "flags" leaving more space for audio/midi is a nice touch

[Reefius]

And you wonder why you never finish any music?

[aMUSEd]

Samplitude

[ReleaseCandidate]

Samplitude is missing. It's ugly, but has the best waveform display. Then Reaper - less ugly, less good (spectral peaks). Then DP - has at least spectral display.

[antic604]

And you wonder why you never finish any music?

I don't. I've accepted and embraced it.

[apoclypse]

I've always liked the way Cubase displays it's wavs even though I don't own or use it. Bitwig comes in second for me in-terms of cleanliness. I can look at the wav and see what's going on easily.

Whoever voted for Live must be blind.

[thecontrolcentre]

Whoever voted for Live must be blind.

53% of voters are blind

[EnGee]

My favourites in order are Cubase, Bitwig, Studio One, then Live.

[v1o]

Are we running out of forum topics to discuss?

All the DAWs you presented look pretty comparable to me if you ask me. They're alot more similar than you'd think.

[ReleaseCandidate]

Are we running out of forum topics to discuss?

All the DAWs you presented look pretty comparable to me if you ask me.

This.

[Reefius]

Indeed, there seem to be some very bored people here on KVR.

[antic604]

All the DAWs you presented look pretty comparable to me if you ask me. They're alot more similar than you'd think.

(assuming you're male & straight) it's like saying all women are the same, so there's no point looking for a perfect match

[jussi_neuraldsp]

I vote for any DAW that has additional ability to display the waveform loudness data in logaritmic/db scale.

[xx JPRacer xx]

Voted for Bitwig. I hate the high contrast and saturation of the other DAWs. Less contrast are better for my eyes. For me the overall contrast and colors of Bitwig are the best.

edit: Voted mainly for the colors and contrast but the info displayed is clearly not the best.

[apoclypse]

Whoever voted for Live must be blind.

53% of voters are blind

No they are probably just fanboys. Just look at the awful aliasing. The kick samples don't even show the wave information near the onset. It looks really bad. Bitwig in comparison is crispy, no aliasing, the onset information on the front to the clip is still there you can tell what's happening. So I stand by what I said.