DAW Selection! HELP!

If you can afford it, and you feel that the expense is worth it, my opinion is that you should just go for the big boys.

I would always go straight for the fully-fledged DAW – you are just going to end up buying it in the first place when you end up needing a function that doesn’t exist in the scaled-down version. Having said that though, some fully fledged versions of DAWs are much more expensive than others and yet offer the same functionality…

The main DAWs at the minute are Avid’s Pro Tools 11, Apple’s Logic Pro X, Reaper, Reason, Ableton and Cubase.

I have used Pro Tools (V6 though so I will leave it out), Logic Pro (8 and 10), Reaper and Ableton so I will go through my opinion on those – I won’t give an opinion when I don’t have one!! 🙂

Personally I use Logic 80% of the time though (I only use Reaper + Ableton when I’m not at home as I have a windows laptop)

Apple Logic
-Pros-
– Intuitive Interface
– Sounds good easily
– Synth plugins are good
– Lots of flexibility
– Ability to playback video in the main DAW window (useful if composing for a video etc.)
-Cons-
– Very specific way of doing things – you have to learn how to use the software before you can use it properly
– Not really suitable for live work (other than for playback of synths you have set already)

Reaper
-Pros-
– Easy to just jump in and sort of know how to do things
– Excellent audio manipulation
– MUCH cheaper than pretty much any other DAW out there
– Very flexible audio routing
– Mass of plugins available
-Cons-
– Synths are pretty much non-existent and really hard to use
– Not really suitable for live work at all

Ableton Live
-Pros-
– Easy(ish) to manipulate sounds
– Used live by many big-name artists (So it must be possible to use it live… I don’t see how though)
– Logically set out
– Reasonably easy to just pick up and use
– Lots of plugins built in
-Cons-
– Synth patches leave a lot to be desired (None of them sound great + It is really hard to make your own)
– General lack of decent sounding Drum patches..
– Can be fussy to get the audio set-up right.

This is just my opinion though… Feel free to completely ignore me.. 🙂

As I said earlier, pick your DAW and get the full version. A particular issue with the cheaper version of Ableton (the “Lite” version) is that it limits you to 8 tracks.. This is not many – many of my Logic projects hit 50 tracks whether I am mixing audio or composing 😉

Hi

You don’t mention what level are you at…have you wrote a few tunes or just went throu a course? Big money mean jack shit if you don’t know what your doing… Logic Pro tools and cubase are steep learning curves… Specialty cubase. These programs in my opinion you need to do a course on how to use… They have so much depth. I would recommend if you starting out with a program thats easy and fun to use like reason fruit loops… Reason for me you can get ideas out easily and it’s fun so you keep messing around. If you get a program like cubase…. Without guidance your in a world of hurt…. Yes it’s an amazing program but you need to know exactly what you want before you fire it up.

My personal journey was reason cubase… Which I did a 8month course on… Then I moved to ableton cau it’s alittle like reason… fun to use but a good few steps up in power from reason. The thing you will find is every program you write in your sound is slightly different as the process is different and the audio driver and converts etc have a certain sound. I haven’t used logic or pro tools but cubase has such a clean sound.

In summary get reason and get some tunes going and see if you like making music first then move up when you have a feel for putting tunes together. Everyone is different and you may just be a natural…. Some people are gifted in that way… I’m just giving advice from my experience

Good luck

No one is a natural straight away.. You have to first learn the software inside out. Then (and only then) can the natural inside you come out – you will know what you want to do and when you actually know instinctively how to do that you know you have got it 🙂

So there will be a steep learning curve. Stick with it (I am now a good 7 years into learning Logic and I still don’t understand all of what it does and how to do it all. I am getting better though) and you will eventually get there 🙂

All I will say further on DAW selection is that I had, up to this point, only heard mention of fruity loops a few times before. I certainly wouldn’t consider it in the same league as Pro Tools, Logic or Ableton..

Just my opinion though 🙂

bob6397

The son of one of my close friends is 18 and a ghost producer, he uses … tatatataaaa … FL Studio. And he makes some off the wall stuff that is being picked up by some pretty decent names.

Like almost anything, it’s not the tools that make the success. It’s what you do with it. A great producer can make a hit record with two garbage cans and tea rag. Some people couldn’t make something a 2-year old would appreciate in a 100.000 dollar studio with all the latest and greatest gear.

And if, at any point, you really feel there are features missing in the (simpler) software you started with, you can move on to the better/more expensive software. By then you will know exactly what it is you need and picking right will be a lot easier.