DAW for beginner guitarist recommendation?

[pekbro]

I like ableton live for it's sampling workflow. For me it suits recording, manipulating and arranging of
different guitar parts pretty well.

[Danilo Villanova]

For low latency recordings through an amp sim, IME nothing beats REAPER. I used to hate on the cult but now I’m like Tom Cruise bringing people into it lol.

In my country pretty much every rock/metal guy uses REAPER.

[Prototype_human]

Reaper

[kvotchin]

I don’t just use, or always recommend, Reaper.

But yeah, it’s great for straight up recording. As others have said, it runs very low to the ground, which is nice too.

[Tonio_]

Cubase is great, but if you're only going to be recording guitars and using a few synth, bass and drums VSTs, there isn't much point in using Cubase instead of Reaper or Ableton for example, plus like you said, it's way too complex for a beginner.
I'd say that if he finds Reason inspiring, then Reason it is!

[Alex Leon]

Studio One is a great, user friendly DAW with plenty of useful tool bundled with it. It can be easy for a beginner, but also efficient for a pro. I personaly prefer a Reaper (albeit own both of them), but I would be careful to recommend a Reaper to someone who only begins an acquaintance with a DAW.

[glokraw]

Those voting Reaper - can you elaborate please?

I've been using multiple DAWs for almost 5 years and I still get easily lost in Reaper whenever I try to do almost anything that's intuitive elsewhere. But my workflow is focused on MIDI, so maybe it's really much easier for pure audio recording, editing & arrangement?

The 'record live output to disk' option is great to capture spontaneous productions.

The right-click 'Insert virtual instrument on new track' is great for adding drums
and fx.

The visual theme collection is important for long-term continuity

The ways to save and re-use the sessions and content make it easy to
keep projects alive and improving.

There are good forums when help is needed.

The price is great...especially when entering the workforce, where respecting one's
paychecks is a great life lesson.

Reaper is fully cross-platform, and adding support for CLAP plugins.

Reaper is extremely efficient, the size of the installers speaks volumes.

'Intuitive' is largely based on the rather large initial learning curve of any powerful daw, so the one we learned first is intuitive, and the others are trainwrecks on first glance.

Your son is blessed to have such a helpful father!

Cheers

[BigSneezy]

I went with Mixcraft as I find it incredibly intuitive and quick to get up to speed and record quickly. It has limitations with how it handles/routes midi that can be a little awkward if you use plugins that generate midi (like Scaler2), but as a guitarist that's probably not going to be much of an issue. It's the kindof daw that mostly gets out of the way when you're recording. It appeals to my preference for simplicity when I'm in a creative mode. Anyhow, that's my $0.02.

edit: I've tried a few others, but Mixcraft suits me pretty well.

[glasspipe]

Reaper is great, but you will have to take time customizing it to the way you like to work. For free options, cakewalk and waveform, haven't tried the latter but it looks interesting. The important thing is to choose one and stick with it..

[Marcodf7]

Logic Pro and Amplitube were missing in the list. In my opinion those two are with no comparison the best options to start but also to use in general while approaching guitar daw production. Not just the interface is very simple to use but also the quality of the guitar amp sound are amazing. Ableton built-in amps are way less realistic and defenetely not even worth using to train. The tone and also the effects are of quality. For example try to compare the logic and ableton guitar reverbs. Logic makes it way more realistic while the ableton one seems like a joke. They also provide you with a variety of options but they are not overwhelming at all. Plus the visual animation of the amps makes them perfect to get started with amp basics not mentioning that you can add also pedals and learn how to set up a pedalboard.

[alderbaran]

Reaper because I end up using 3rd party VSTs anyways

[jtrake]

I would say Band Lab/Cakewalk. Not using it myself but it is free and capable. Perfect for a beginner. As a beginner it is best to not invest if not necessary. Invest time in exploring the instrument instead of money on a daw.

[sonidomolino]

jmho, but reaper has been a disaster based on recent pandemic initiated efforts to help players get started on a digital platform to record riffs/songs or takes for remote sessions, made the mistake of suggesting it as a low cost entry given the decline in paying gigs and got hammered with way too many support questions and frustrations. they just want to play, #@$% this computer $%@# (ouch) (smh)

fwiw, "latency" is a function of the audio interface, not the daw. super complex or poorly designed plugins can certainly affect it, but there are plenty of acceptable options. like don't use them.
...
lesson learned. KISS. cakewalk if on windows. garageband if on apple, and Scuffham S-Gear if they haven't used an amp sim. i'm sure there are other options (why I was checking out this thread) but this is working here...

[The Noodlist]

jmho, but reaper has been a disaster based on recent pandemic initiated efforts to help players get started on a digital platform to record riffs/songs or takes for remote sessions, made the mistake of suggesting it as a low cost entry given the decline in paying gigs and got hammered with way too many support questions and frustrations. they just want to play, #@$% this computer $%@# (ouch) (smh)

I've been tinkering with digital recording for 20+ years, I recall having a digitiser and drum expander, Ensoniq Synth and Cubasis. I was learning Cubase at College in 1996, too early for me, too much focus on midi. I've played in bands and been into music since my late teens, 30+ years.

One thing that I didn't get on with was Reaper, while I admire its flexibility, I prefer no-nonsense 4-track style recording without too many options to get the ideas down quick. I've never had to look at a manual for Studio One, it's just intuitive, depending on your previous knowledge.

I tried to get into Reaper for the sake of using Acustica's platform, Reaper seemed more efficient. I sold it after months of frustration trying to to grips with it.

I'd also check out some of the free offerings mentioned by other posters, Bandlab, Studio One Prime, etc. I'd also try demos of FL Studio, Mixcraft, Tracktion, Bitwig, etc.

One size doesn't fit all. I too just wanna play guitar...

[niterateaudio]

I voted cakewalk just because i don't think you should pay money for a DAW if you are a beginner. the DAW you chose should be the one that fits your musical goals. If anything, just pick up a guitar sim from a reputable software maker and just use that until you decide which direction you want to go into. I am a big Amplitube user and often find myself using the standalone version and the little 8 track within it to get some ideas down and export for later use. its more than enough for that sort of thing.

there used to be a cakewalk guitar tracks software product which was bundled with roland guitar sim products. that thing was more than enough to dig into guitar and DAWs and get a feel for it and it was free.