Remember if you decide to 'buy' FL Studio, you're stuck with it for life, for better or worse.

 

I'd say for Windows its Cakewalk Sonar or Bandlab. I still like it for straight forward recording but lacks in the effects and audio editing category.. Now its Ableton. Remember the older you get the harder it gets to learn new things. What I'm saying find something and stick with it, I don't think there's a bad choice. I always wanted to try Logic but don't have a Mac.

 

If Windows people want something like Logic, they should try Cubase.

 

Beginner? - Reaper or Ableton Lite

Agreed - both are based on a solid core of development going back 40 years. They both occasionally give you a love-hate relationship but overall, definitely more love because there is very little either cannot do. (I love both with a preference for neither).

 

If you want full control and easy to use, go with Bitwig Studio.

 

Because nothing else has "full control", right?
And obviously we all want full control.
Whatever that is.
After 30+ years of sequencing, I disagree with your daw choice.
But hey, it's just another daw and it does the basics well enough.
It's not hard.
Try other daws and compare your words though.

 

No passports to travel overseas, no driver's license to drive a car, no job but you still get paid a wage, can walk around naked in public.... I can go more ridiculous.... buit the point is nobody has full control.

 

Apart from Bitwig users...

 

My recommendations
1. Best full featured stock plugins: cubase, Ableton, logic pro, and lastly Fl studio
2. If you dont mind buying 3rd party vst plugins: reaper is best (only 60 bugs and free updates for two full versions).
3. If you need to go for more traditional DAWs, only for audio recording and mixing go for Protools. Midi is painful in prools.this daw is the so calld industry standard. Pro mixing and recording tutorials are ample in this Daw. I better say pro tools is the education standard.
4. Interesred in electrinic music? Ableton,Fl,Bitwig. Fl is painful for audio recording.
5. working with Midi and orchestral composition? Cubase and digital peeformer
6. Studio one is the modern version of cubase, bitwig is the modern version of ableton. If you hate traditional DAWs (arr actually much matured), the modern ones have better tweaks.
7.best free full featured Daw? cakewalk by band lab. It was called Sonar. Now completly free.
8. If you hate paying DAW update fees? Fl studio has free life time updates.
9. If need to get the DAW with the best vst instruments, Reason is your choise.
10. If you dont have musical background and need to work with midi, fl studio has the best piano roll for note inserting by mouse.
10. The worest Daws in update fees? Pro tools, cubase and are the oldest and much mature ones.
11. Post production and Mastering Daws, Nuendo and Sequoia. $$$$ bugs
12. Best modular Daws? Bitwig and Reason.

 

Well no, not the daw on its own.
The £50K+ rig with the outboard was industry praised though, yeah...
Of the/an industry standard.
Not the.

It's alright, yeah.
But have you compared it to Logic's or Cubase's piano roll?
I have.

At this point in time, I agree.

 

This is not a dig on Bitwig's performance or features, because they're very very good indeed.

But I have to disagree with the "ease of use"-bit. It to me has one of the most confusing and busy UI ever landed on a DAW. Ok, it was originally created by ex Ableton people (if I understood correctly) and as of such it carries a huge Live influence. But whatever they did with it it's basically like "Ok, Live did it like this, now we do this the same but crank everything up to 11."

Again, I think Bitwig is a great piece of software but I would not recommend it to anybody who's new to sequencing or someone who has never used Ableton Live.

 

I went from FL Studio to Reaper about 7 years ago and have never looked back since.
Reaper is quite versatile and configurable, when I try other DAWs now some things (like creating busses) feel overcomplicated in comparison.

 

I think we would all admit that jumping to any other daw after 7 years of one daw isn't always smoove!
For instance, it really is a piece of piss to create busses in Logic. In fact, probably any daw.
It isn't complicated. But it would seem it if you were new to the daw, coming from another.
Once we know how to do something, it's all good.

Definitely a good choice, regards the circumstances ie. FL! lol

 

There are so many great Ableton videos - makes it a top choice..

 

There are so many videos for every daw.
And some of them purport absolute rubbish too.
Better to work and learn the daw, and then when you get stuck or need to learn a technique (that is often universal anyway!) look it up or find a tute if you need.
Tutes are becoming a bit like pr0n, when you should actually be doing the real thing!

 

The best advice I could offer after years of fooling with DAW's, is to pick one that's going to do what you need it to and stick with it, learn it from head to toe, the tools you use aren't as important as knowing the proper way to use them, If you ever want to work in a commercial studio though your best bet would be Pro Tools, albeit, some smaller studios are leaving it behind, Reaper is gaining ground in studios now as well.

 

Studio One any version.

 

For Windows, FL Studio is a great starting place. From there, there are a lot choices.

For Apple gear, you can’t go wrong starting with GarageBand and then transitioning to Logic Pro X.

Get your basics on those, then explore the rest. Find the one that makes your work easier and efficient, and go from there.

All the best.

 

This. I looked at other popular DAWs like Ableton or Cubase before using FL but FL was the only one that actually made sense to me from the way it's laid out, right off the bat. The pattern based approach feels very intuitive because after all, music is just a series of repeating patterns. Plus it probably has the best piano roll in the entire business. It may not be the most feature complete DAW and there may be better DAWs when it comes to mixing and mastering, but if you want something intuitive to get your ideas out quick and be creative, nothing beats FL, period. It's THE quickest interface between thought and music. It's also way deeper than people may assume.

 

Too many sweeping statements there ^, sorry...