Which DAW should I buy?

Padi

New member
Hi there.

First something about my current situation. I`m making (producing) music since about a year with Ableton Live 9 (the cheapest edition). I´v got an Ableton Push and a Novation Bassstation 2 Synthesizer. All was fine until I bought the Basstation, because you can´t use it with the cheapest Ableton Edition because you dont have the "external instrument".

I want to produce Trance, especially progressive and psytrance. I need a simple DAW which dont have to have the most functions.

I thought about buying the Ableton Suite version, but i´m not sure because i think its not that easy to use and record midi and sound from external instruments and Logic for example looks much easier.

Which DAW would you recommend for my situation and why?

Thanks a lot.

Greets
 
I think for producing, FL Studio is perfect. You can make beat patterns very easily and arrange the song in the playlist easily too. All DAWs have a basic foundation under them, but their user interfaces look different. I've started with FL mnay years ago and still use it to this day ....and I know that many successful artists use it too. Some people will shame it because it doesn't "look" good, but when hit tunes are being produced on it, who cares. ...so I say FL studio, ...but its up to you.
 
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Tried many daws. Dropped everything for Reason and Cubase.
I recommend:
Reason
Reaper
Cubase
Studio One
Ableton
Lmms to try out.

Others will suggest other daws.
 
Any popular modern DAW will do the job. Most of them can be quite easy to use, or very sophisticated if you dig deeper. I guess it comes down to which workflow suits you the best. I personally prefer something like Stuio One or Cubase and hate Ableton and Bitwig. I'd just recommend you to demo different DAWs. At the end of the day each person's preferences differ.
 
Fl studio for sure. Maybe Sonar could be a very good solution (it has a lot of versions. paid per month etc) Also you could find a lot of free virtual instruments to make the job perfectly....
 
There are free programs that are very good too. Tracktion 6, and Podium free come to mind, but include little to no instruments, so you would be providing 3rd party vsti.
 
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^ ya, that sounds like a good way to learn. Just look up how to download and connect the third party VSTs.

That's the cheapest. cant beat free.
 
If you're already familiar with a lesser version of Ableton why not stick with that? Your choice of DAW is less important than your ability to use it. Ableton is the DAW of choice for a lot of big names (not that it matters) and while you want something simple now, what about a year from now? I'd stick with what you have as the learning curve is less/nonexistent. I use FL because it is what I first used and I now can do most anything I want to within it.
 
I agree with Trip above, it doesn't really matter what DAW you use, as long as you find the ones that is most productive and efficient for you. A lot of the film/trailer music composers utilize Cubase, but it has a very very steep learning curve when compared to other DAWs. I also agree with other members who suggested FL Studio as a foundation. To be honest, FL Studio has the BESTTT piano roll imo. The piano roll is so important in getting your ideas down quickly and still sound goood.

Another important factor to check for in the DAW is folder organization, such as how easy is it for you to save new sounds or load those sounds? How easy does your DAW load up the new expensive VSTis or sample libraries that you just purchased? etc etc.

I honestly recommend you download some demo's and try them out! :)
 
I noticed the Developer from MuTools has been posting here. His DAW MuLab is probably the best safe bet under $100.
It's what $80? and has a free version too. It's actively developed, multi-core, and 64 bit.
Ease of use is pretty straight forward also.

Other sub $100 DAW's Podium, and EnergyXT come to mind.
The latter has a top notch workflow, and while it recently supports multicore, it still lacks 64bit. However EnergyXT is less than $30.
If your fine with what you see (slow development, and no 64bit) It's a fantastic app.
The former has both multicore and 64bit, but is probably a steeper learning curve. Probably no worse than Ableton though.
Also Podium has a very full featured free version which only lacks multicore support, and is a few versions behind the paid version which is still just $50.
 
Hey Padi,

A couple of users suggested Cubase. Cubase seems a little daunting to me but I haven't personally had the chance to experiment with it myself. Although they are the guys that have been doing than a lot longer than most. I really like Ableton and the work flow so I think I know how you feel, I got the chance to use it with my cousin for a while but we have different tastes in production.

What I recommend is downloading the FL Studio Demo. The reasons I suggest this is because the demo is fully functional and you can bounce your audio out. Sadly anything you save can't be opened until you purchase a license. $100 if I remember correctly for the basic edition, and you have to by any Image-Line VST that isn't included in the edition you purchase if you use it in your mix which I choose not to because they add white noise or cutoff the audio out from it periodically. A lot of people say FL Studio is childish and it may have seemed so a very long time ago. It used to be a very basic pattern sequencer. I have been using FL studio since Fruityloops 3 and I have learned so much from this program that when I'm ready to move on to something "more" professional, which is subjective as one may determine from all replys on this thread, I feel confident that I will really only need to know how to get to the functions. Plus there is a help HTML that has been super useful for me. Anytime I have accessed it, I did not return empty handed. In the very least it gave me what I needed to dig further down the rabbit hole.

I also strongly agree with Trip and Rexgate about using what you have. A really good friend of mine that is sadly no longer with us gave me a great piece of advice. "It doesn't matter what you have, you just gotta learn to use it like Willy Wonka's Wonkavator." Another thing this does is save you some cash, so you could buy a sample CD to give you some inspiration or build your sonic library. On top of that, anyone who is on board with free is on point. Pretty much everything out there in my opinion will help teach you something. Free education is the best education, and G.I Joe said it the best, "knowing is half the battle!"

Ultimately though you'll find what works best for you by just exploring and trying out demos.

Hope this helps!
:cheers:

*edit*
There is truly a first for everything. I now see i necro'd this thread. My apologies, I confused the join date and post date as the same for some reason. Hopefully this does help others though.
 
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