Which DAW should you use?

[[F_or_DEAF]]

Studio One has been gaining ground in the DAW wars.

yeah...

the speed and how it handles files is perfect for me...

[ObiK]

Awesome. Whats the workflow like for making beats? Where do you start?

[[F_or_DEAF]]

IMPORTING.

it's all about importing stems and launching virtual instruments...

THAT'S IT

[Nicro]

I use FL and its great. It really does depend on the individual though. For example, F said he likes Studio one, when I tried it....lets just say I'm not a fan.

[ObiK]

Yup different workflows for different people. All that matters is the end result.

[rayzer]

@theOP, FL and Cubase are probably the main DAWS hardstyle producers tend to go for if theyre using windows otherwise logic is the mac alternative. like Obi id also suggest giving reaper a shot though since the demo is pretty much the full version apart from the licence, and i use it along with FL and love it as well. recording chopping and stretching vocals on it is so easy compared to FL.

[FritoMonkey]

Try the demos! I love FL studio, but i REALLY LOVE Sonar x1, I hate Ableton, and Acid, but I'm sure it's just your preferences and what you like when you decide

[JGuccI]

ill go with reason. its just like a rack on instruments

[L. A. Stone]

I think people still think of only Reason as a rack of instruments. There was a time when that was more or less true. But these days, every DAW is a rack of instruments even if they aren't laid out like a virtual rack in a studio. Logic was a rack of instruments before Reason if I remember correctly. But these days we have Cubase, Live and even Pro Tools which come complete with enough stuff included to make music right out of the box.

As to which DAW to choose, it's an impossible question. I'm seriously a Steinberg fan, but I can't possibly advise anyone to buy something without first trying it out, or buy a freakin dongle just to try it out. The policy is ridiculous, but that's how Steinberg gets down. But since I was down with Steiney from before 2000, I already know that I like how they do things. It's weird. The kind of stuff that I openly complain about is exactly what they do. I love to complain how soft samplers aren't able to expand and resize their windows to whatever size I want even thought they are software. There's no reason for the limitation but most samplers are limited in that way. Along comes Halion 4 which makes a big deal of announcing that it does exactly that! Windows can be undocked from the "rack" and resized to any size. Why scroll and mouse all around Kontakt-style when you can have a large window to work in. That's why I like Steinberg. This logical way of thinking is all through their offerings, including Cubase...but the dongled demo mess is unforgivable.

[astroidmist]

I constantly see tons of thread about errors with Pro Tools and I hear the MIDI is weaker on that DAW compared to others. I wouldn't use PT unless I needed to synchronize to SMPTE time code.

I used to use Cubase and it was pretty good. I had troubles with Reaper crashing. That's my two cents of advice. I use Energy XT and MultitrackStudio Pro Plus. MultitrackStudio is really good except for one tragic flaw: No plugin delay compensation. Other than that, it's pretty great. Energy XT is good but it doesn't have multicore support so you run out of CPU power very quickly on it.