Best NON recording DAW?

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Sylenth89

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Hello, I want to hear your thoughts about best DAW there is that isn't or is very little inclined towards recording. So I would not record anything. Not even vocals. What do you recommend? I like to use as much as possible DAW functions, so choosing DAW that is biased towards recording isn't ideal. So, please help. What do you say? Oh yes, to answer you, I'd record only MIDI. There is FL. Is there anything else?
 
Is this supposed to be an innovative question? What does being "the best" mean? The one that is best for you? Or do you think there is one daw out there that can make better music than another?
 
Noooo... Simply one that is best suited for that task. That doesnt rely on recording.
 
Best suited for what? Not recording? So if the "best" daw for your personal preference would have all the functions you want but is very much about recording as well, you wouldn't want it?

I think you're asking the wrong questions.

All daws that I know of record audio, some have better functions for it than others. Most if not all daws are also very capable of producing great music without ever having to record even the most silent of farts.

Just try the ones you're interested in, and buy the one you like the best. The one that you're happy with is the best daw for you.
 
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All DAWs can record and they all do it pretty much the same way.

So what you want is just the best DAW.


Here is my current impression of the unique selling points of each of the major DAWs. Do take what I say with a pinch of salt, because I haven't used all of these and it's just my impression from what other people have said. Do your own research, and listen to what other people on here say.

Pro tools is supposed to be really good but costs more and takes a bit longer to learn.
FL studio probably has really good stock VSTs for sound design.
REAPER is really customizable and very cheap, but is a bit bare-bones.
Ableton live can do live performance and collaboration.
Logic is generally good all-round but not exceptional in any area?

Also check out bitwig and studio one, which are relatively new and I haven't really formed an opinion on yet.
 
The main problem with the original question is trying to choose a DAW based on its weakest or non-existent feature. So far we only really know that the OP wants to record MIDI. What else? What are the features you do need?
 
Well, I would like to compose with samples, loops and midi. I am not a band, nor I have a studio. So investing in some DAW that has dedicated effects and whole sections dedicated to recording is waste of money and time. As I said, I would like to merge with DAW and use all of it's features... Not to buy one, only to use 30-40% of it's functions. I know that you can make music in Audacity without recording too, but I would like to find something that would be more tailored to my needs. So far I know only two DAW that are close to this. FL studio and ableton Live. Yeah, and they are biased towards electronic music, which is good, that's my field too. But Ableton looks like rocket science and just to write a simple melody you have to be audio engineer. And Fl, well, isn't simple either... What are your thoughts?

Do not mock me, I'm just lost and in need of advice.
 
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Even if you don't record external instruments and decide to do everything in the box you will still most likely want to apply audio effects to a software synthesizer or sampler and you might even want to create audio tracks of those virtual instruments because rendering virtual instruments as audio reduces the strain on your computer's CPU and RAM.
 
Yeah, it's easy to make fun of someone, but in fact you are the biggest fool. There is no stupid questions, only stupid answers, and your's are in the league.
 
you are asking for directions to a sequencer - the predecessor of the modern daw; daws like logic and cubase started their lives as sequencers and had audio capabilities added as time went on

to that end get cubase as it is as adaptable as the other two and has both score and piano roll input for entering music, as well as access to great sound libraries and fx devices

if neither of those appeal to you then the only other path is something like musescore, sibelius or finale, which have a higher learning curve if you do not understand notation concepts
 
Yeah, it's easy to make fun of someone, but in fact you are the biggest fool. There is no stupid questions, only stupid answers, and your's are in the league.

Don't take it to heart. As a noob you get a pass to ask all kinds of questions without it actually reflecting negatively upon you at all, like no one is going to think you are stupid for asking a noob question even though we might see some humor in it....by that I mean just because we might see some humor in something you said that doesn't mean we are actually laughing at you. We have all been there, asking them noob questions which get the gas face, don't worry about it, just keep on asking away.

If you had asked the same question a few years back I would have said Propellerhead Reason fit's the bill, but it has since acquired audio recording capabilities....but almost everything has that ability these days, but you don't have to use it, like I can totally fire up Cubase and load up nothing but MIDI tracks if I want too, so if you looked at my project there wouldn't be any audio tracks at all.....but of course all the menu items for the features you don't use will still be there, not such a big problem as they are usually structured as, MIDI, Audio, Score, etc so you just ignore the menus you don't use, in Cubase you can even hide some of the things you don't want to deal with, which just leaves the keyboard shortcuts, which can be customized to streamline MIDI functions.

Reason is still worth considering if you want something reasonably minimal, like you pretty much have to work with what they give you, loading what you want into the rack......all the routing possibilities are still there but the configuration is that of an old school hardware rack, Live and FL Studio are more configurable, FL Studio has cornered the market by streamlining mouse based composition for noobs who start off without a more efficient MIDI controller, and that's something I think you should look into first, because companies often bundle software with MIDI controllers which may well provide a cheaper upgrade path to the full software than buying the full version outright......you need to research it though, because shit changes from time to time.
 
This was kind of the point I was trying to get across. That even if the daw has extensive recording capabilities, the rest of the stuff might just be the exact thing you were looking for.
 
I don't really think most DAWs have "whole sections dedicated to recording" - if you're using samples anyway, importing them to an audio track doesn't really differ from having recorded them in the first place.

Also, Ableton Live isn't rocket science, even if it looks complicated at first. Download the demo & go through the built-in tutorials.
 
Yeah, it's easy to make fun of someone, but in fact you are the biggest fool. There is no stupid questions, only stupid answers, and your's are in the league.

In any way I was making fun of your question. This is just my sense of humor. Lot's of threads here are too heavy in terms of seriousness and I think some jokes help lighten the mood.

Anyways, bandcoach nailed the answer to your question.
 
well there is no best for sure, but protools works really well for recording so maybe you can eliminate it.
 
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