Each of these DAWs has more positive aspects than I care to list, so I'm just going to hit some key points.
In spite of any flaws I might point out, they're all good or they wouldn't be in this list.
#1 - REAPER (10/10) - "Use it for everything"
+ Best performance
(check DAWBench for verification)
+ Highest level of customization and flexibility
(hundreds and hundreds of actions are available to bind to keystrokes and/or MIDI commands)
+ High level of plugin compatibility
(many developers use REAPER as their test platform)
+ Very stable
(Cubase and FL Studio crash a LOT more)
+ Packed with features
(Check out the drop downs!)
+ Frequent updates
(As a matter of fact, I'm off to download the new 4.5 update today! Looks like it has a bunch of new stuff and bugfixes!)
+ Inexpensive
(A full-featured semi-pro license is available for only $60 for producers making less than $20,000/year. If you're making more than that, you can afford the $225 "pro studio" license. Both have identical features.)
+ Non-crippled demo
(The demo is full-featured and will not expire. Try it out until you're comfortable with it. No pressure.)
+ Great X64/X86 compatibility
(Comes with an excellent wrapper for 32-bit plugins)
+/- Ugly UI for DAW and bundled plugins (However, the DAW UI can be drastically re-skinned to one of the best-looking UIs out there. Check out White Tie's "Imperial" theme!)
#2 - Cubase (9/10) - "The MIDI king"
+ Great MIDI processing
(It has been a MIDI sequencer for about as long as Pro Tools has been an audio tracker!)
+ Good compatibility with control hardware
(PreSonus Faderport, Mackie MCU Pro, etc.)
+ VST3 support
(As expected - VST is Steinberg's standard)
- Tied with FL Studio for "Most Crash-Prone DAW in this List".(Tested on several different systems)
- You lose 1 USB Port. (Dongles suck)
#3 - FL Studio (9/10) - "Click-and-Create"
+ Amazing pattern-based workflow
(One of the best for making beats, ESPECIALLY if you're using only a keyboard and mouse)
+ Flexible mixer routing
(In spite of the fact that everything tends to go to the first mixer channel by default)
+ Plugin picker does a great job of organizing long lists of plugins
(Plus you get to see the UI as you pick!)
- 64-bit version is still in Beta 
- Tied with Cubase for "Most Crash-Prone DAW in this List". (Tested on several different systems)
#4 - Reason (8/10) - "The OTHER Click-and-Create"
+ Extremely flexible and powerful device routing
(Hook up almost anything to almost anything else, as long as it makes sense!)
+ Effective and simple sequencer
(Note and automation lanes are very intuitive)
+ Very responsive
(Its self-contained nature makes great use of CPU)
+/- Tiny interface (The interface was designed when 640x480 and 800x600 were common monitor resolutions. On a modern 1920x1080 HD display, the font is much smaller than intended. On the plus side, if you can read the text, or have memorized what each control does, you end up with quite a bit of meaningful data packed into one screen)
+/- You can finally use third-party instruments and effects!(But by the nature of the system, quite a few popular ones are not available at the moment, and some may never be)
- Missing quite a few built-in-tools like multiband compressors and de-essers (Sometimes, this can be remedied by routing complicated chains of existing processors that "get the job done", but these aren't very intuitive and still often lack several features)
- Features and workflow for audio processing are still lackluster. (The biggest issue is actually a problem with the sequencer -- not enough zoom!)
#5 - ???
+/- Although I've tried almost all of the commercially-available DAWs, I haven't spent enough time using each of them to offer a rating. There may be core features in each of these DAWs that I'm unaware of, and workflow methods I haven't tried. Therefore, there is no #5.
These are the contenders for the last spot:
Pro Tools (Most mixing lessons are done in Pro Tools, which has given me a fairly good sense of its workflow. I watch hours of lessons daily, and have been doing so for quite some time. I've also worked directly with local musicians who use it as their DAW. The whole "M-Box Dongle" situation put me off, so I never used it on my own system. Although Avid doesn't require the dongle anymore, I'm too comfortable with what I've got to consider switching. With all of this said, I like its workflow, and it's highly likely that this would've been my #5 pick.)
Logic (Same situation as Pro Tools -- Most of my sense of how it works comes from watching people use it. I don't use a Mac, and therefore I am not likely to try this DAW.)
Live (When I tried it, the "clips"-based workflow didn't feel very intuitive, and I couldn't find anything special about its sequencer mode to justify making a switch. I really WANT to like this one though. Maybe I'll be forced to buy and use it in the future for some reason...)
SONAR (I tried version 8, before the "X" series came out, and the interface didn't make much sense to me right off the bat. I was only curious and didn't have a good reason to switch, so this was enough for me to stop trying. Reportedly, this DAW has one of the highest levels of performance on Windows, so maybe it'll be nice to try again sometime later. Fun fact: My dad used this tool back when Cakewalk was the name of the sequencer itself rather than the name of the company.)
Sampltude (The new "spectral editing from the project timeline" feature is pretty cool! I only tried a much older version of this for a couple of hours. It's pretty hyped-up by people who strongly believe that the audio path of each DAW heavily "colors" the sound. I tried this out to test it, but found this effect seemed to be placebo. With no other reason to continue using it, I stopped there.)
Audition (I tried it out when it was an audio editor called "Cool Edit Pro". Never considered it as a DAW because it really wasn't one. I think I tried it out for about half an hour after Adobe bought it, thought "eh, ho hum", and quickly uninstalled it)
See you next time, it was fun!
-Ki
Salem Beats
---------- Post added at 09:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:21 AM ----------
Reaper for customization, fast growth, small footprint, and choices in options. It gets bonus points for matching my forum username.
Fixed that for you!
