Samplitude. The analogue modeling suite (and vandal and variverb) was indeed coded by Sascha. The same guy who did Satin for U-He. But the stock eqs, compressors, the true peak limiter and the cleaning and restoration suite are also all top notch.

 

That's awesome. I never used Vandal but the analog modeling suite is really nice and I particularly liked variverb. I picked up Satin not long ago, partially due to some things you said. It's kind of like magic in how it can make things subtly better (also seemingly louder with less volume) with little or no effort. Just got done reading the manual so I can know wtf I'm doing. Fun stuff.

 

They are really nice, great emulation recreation but with so many possibilities added to the original unit they were inspired by.
It's cool you got Satin - I didn't think you would ! - it is a killer plug, and same here it both recreates what it aims to recreate extremely well, old tape unit with every details available, but it also give you so much more. It has a dense manual, but it's also one I really enjoyed because I didn't know much about tape machines before I read and it covers the topic very well while explaining how to use it. I still go back to it very often.
It's so much fun to just change the different repro head and rec/repro eq, push the signal more or less in the unit, play with the speed and just hear what it does to the signal, the slight and not so slight changes. You get amazingly different results. But indeed even just by putting it on every track insert and on the buses, you get this amazing glue effect by doing absolutely nothing. It's lovely.
The modeling suite and satin also have in common, and in common with the analogue worl which is something Sascha does very well, they change drasticely in their behavior depending on your gain staging. They are unpredictable in a nice way, you get very different results by messing wth how much you push them.

 

Studio One V3 i Love it:::::::

 

Studio One v.3 !
You can start and finish a track with only internal effects.
Then master it in the mastering section.
Never leave the software for anything else.

 

Logic for me. Been using it since Express 7 when I switch up from FL Studio 5. Even though I got the lifetime updates with FL & it's coming to Mac, I can't break myself away from Logic.

 

Good question (kind of)...but I don't know how anyone could really answer this without spending some EXTENSIVE time working with each of the different options that are out there, and that seems highly improbable.

I personally use Sonar b/c I'm familiar with it. I think it gets very overlooked mainly due to it not being cross-platform (which they FINALLY changed this year & recently started the Alpha phase for Mac) and I think they've also suffered from being tossed around...being bought out by Roland and now Gibson. They also need to focus on more innovative features for producers and producer workflow ala Ableton, FL, Logic, etc. For one, they are desperately lacking in the sampler department. They've come with some half-baked concepts that had potential (DropZone, Beatscape) that they just end up leaving for dead for some reason. It seems their target audience is more live instrumentalists and mixers. Which is why I think other programs (Ableton, FL, Studio One, etc) have come out of the blue and leap frogged them, despite the fact that they've been around longer than almost all of them with the exception of maybe two or three (Cubase, and ProTools I think).

However, one strong area they have is the included FX/Synths. One reason is that they do a lot of 3rd party partnerships rather than trying to do all the heavy lifting in-house. Although, they do some great in-house work as well (Cakewalk La-2a comp for one is very nice).

• Sonar comes with a full version of Addictive Drums 2 included for drums (3 AdPaks if you have the platinum version). Their own Session Drummer also has some nice sounds.
• Melodyne Essentials and ARA integration for pitch correction. (doesn't really get any better than that)
• Nomad Factory Blue Tubes bundle
• Tone2 BiFilter (great filter plug)
• The first DAW to include the Softube Saturation knob that a lot of the other DAWs (including PT) have now adopted.
• Overloud (Breverb 2, Rematrix Solo, and TH3 guitar amp sim) These are slightly stripped down "Sonar" versions of these particular plugs but are still very good and serviceable.
  
• Console emulation (also coded by Overloud...I don't really use this but you can get some nice sounds out of it if it's your thing)
• Dimension Pro, Rapture, Z3ta
• AAS (Strum 2 Session, Lounge Lizard Session, & Ultra Analog Session) these are also "Sonar" versions but still very good and they're always offering sales and upgrades to the full versions for pretty cheap. I think I got Ultra Analog 2 for like $49.
• Cakewalks own offerings are pretty good as well (Pro Channel FX, the percussion strip, the vocal strip, the transient designer is nice and offers some unique functionality that I use on kicks pretty often. It can be a cpu hog though.)
• Built in Drum Replacer that uses the ARA technology is really good. I don't think any other DAW offers this. And this is something I NEVER thought I would use, but it can come in handy, especially when working with loops for more creative uses.
• Vocal Sync for syncing vocals takes ala Vocalign. I don't think any other DAW offers this either. I will be honest though. This one is hit and miss for me. They still have some kinks to work out with this one. But it does work well at times.

They also have a pretty nice step sequencer, which from what I've seen is the closest any other DAW has to FL's step sequencer although not quite as good honestly. Audio Snap and the time stretching functionality is also pretty good. It's the closest I've seen to Ableton's warping capability, but not quite as intuitive and easy to use. I actually overlooked it for quite some time. But after talking to a friend and checking out Ableton's warping I got curious to see if Sonar was capable and after really taking some time to learn it and watch some tutorials I realized it was capable of some things I completely missed. It's not quite Ableton good, but it's not that far off.

 

Last edited: Sep 16, 2016

Samplitude Pro X3
Best Mixer EQ (Eq116) best transparent EQ best sonic HQ EQ
Best Limiter (EFX Limiter (best transparent limiter )
Best Vu meter (Peak meter works with 4x times to oversampling (samplitude/sequoia)
Best Region unique Editor (Object Editor)
Best The analogue modeling suite.

 

Reaper

 

Logic pro... Period

 

Oh, hey... a free update, no less.

 

If we looking at overall plugins suite (instruments, fx, midi fx) => Logic

 

Ive used Fl 11/12 Cubase/ more recently Abl9 live suite..
FL,s native fx plugs are awfull in inmho and rarely would i use them..
However the synthesizer plugs like harmour and sytrus are worlds ahead compared to abl n cubase..
But my personal preference is now ableton "with ease"
"And believe me id always fight Fl,s corner"
But for me now i feel that this latest version of Abl 9
"in terms of native fx plugins"
Is the strongest..

 

I literally have no idea about stock plug-ins outside of FL Studio as it is the only DAW I could ever get a handle on. With that in mind, since I mostly record one track at a time, at times with two mics for mid/side capture, Edison is freaking awesome as anything I record goes to buffer and doesn't write to drive. If it is a keeper I can edit the end points and send or drop it wherever in perfect time as I can use markers as a guide. The channel eq is clean and super fast and simple to high or low pass without burning cpu. Maximus is all around a killer tool. The transient tool works well and any and all of the other stock plugs don't suck at all. I have my compression preferences covered outside of the built ins, but the Convolution Reverb works as well to my ear as any other I have used. True, the gui situation is fairly bland, but put a bag over their cumulative head and outside of certain types of saturation you would certainly enjoy the yumminess of their skill set.

 

auDAWioz

 

Last edited: Jan 13, 2017

cakewalk sonar - you can easily live with the stock plugins of platinum. About 70 effects in stunning quality...

 

FL & Ableton imo.

There are tons of wonderful synths and some FX in the vanilla plugin pack for FL that are just way too hot. Harmor, Sytrus, Patcher, Sakura... So good there is even people that want them in their own DAW. Ableton internal plug pack is maybe even better. Always hated most of AiR plugs (Pro Tools intern. plugs), even if there is some jewels. I dont know new outsiders that much, especially talking internal plugins!

 

I agree with Live, but you know they will be perfect when they change representation of plugins. For example, when they make bigger (expanded) view for each plugin (like you have on EQ plugin). I'm getting old and I'm really tired of looking at the bottom of screen After one Live session I have to do this:

 

Hahaha, my father who is a 50 y.o musician/producer/sound engineer is saying the exact same thing about Live
Some vectorial GUI updates like Image-Line did with FLS would be awesome on Live 10!

 

SONAR Platinum ..... i own many DAW's ....... Sonar, Cubase, Protools,Reaper, Harrison Mixbus and ive used every DAW out there... Boxed up in one DAW package >>>Sonar take's the WIN on OP's question... not only does it come with a ridiculous amount of Plugins and options from other Dev >>> Cakewalk's stock plugins alone are top notch

 

Last edited: Jan 13, 2017