I'd recommend try before buy if ur switching. A lot of (core) Cubase MIDI features haven't changed much since 5, so maybe give that a go to see if you can stand the piano roll / drum editor etcs. I think there's a free trial, too, to see if the new bits work for you?

Anyway, I'm a fan of Cubendo, but it's what you can live with / use that's important. I can tell you that for MIDI manglement, it's prolly Cubase that works best. Just so flexible, usually ten ways of doing the same thing. It's kinda like: if a plugin doesn't "do (MIDI) things" like I want, I can use the (exhaustive & exhausting =) myriad ways of controlling things - to do it the way I want. It can be complimacated tho, be warned.

New versions of Cubase come out every few months. Usually pretty quick to squash (M$) bugs! Studio One still won't scan plugins cos of gfx card issues or smthn!

 

Think Cubase 10 is out in December, if you do buy 9.5, wait until end of month to activate it and enjoy free grace period upgrade to 10.

 

100 tracks!?!
i hardly get into double figures...

 

Cubase is (iMHO) problaby the most deep going DAW regarding arsenal of MIDI functionality:
Chord Track, Chord Pads, Logical Window with all kinds of MIDI edting presets, Key Editor with an insane arsenal of powerful MIDI functionality.
Let alone MIDI related Macro's you can build yourself, for blazing fast MIDI related workflows.

In Reaper there is almost the vast same amount of MIDI functionality, only deeper buried under the hood (but no Chord Track and no Chord Pads and no Articulation editing).

 

Well, I also have modified Reapers pianoroll to fit my needs and speed up my workflow. That's the beauty of Reaper. Customization. Scripting. The possibilities are nearly endless. Nearly. And I suppose that's a good thing, I just wish it felt better.

 

That's exactly how I feel about Reaper. You can customize it to do almost anything but something feels off, inelegant about using it...

 

What do people do for articulations in studio one? I mean fl studio has brso articulate, cubase has expression maps.

 

Oh really?! I think they have made it free recently. I just copy pasted my same answer for the other thread here.

 

Fl Studio 20 IS the best Daw for midi composition. Period. Yeah there are a number of issues I wish they would add like select by velocity and random things like that. But if you are just talking midi composition alone it IS the best. Export it to whatever crap daw you want but if you're gonna change daw for midi composition you're just gonna end up going back to FL Studio after realizing 99% of other daws don't give a crap about a real midi composition environment.

 

Also learn short cut keys. That's the bread and butter of FL Studio. It has everything but you have to know how to get to it or use short cut keys. As for ableton, unless you're using a pads and doing an EDM track or show is pointless unless your whole music is based around other people's samples...

If you think FL Studio sucks at midi I wish you luck cuz you're only gonna lose faith in ALL daws. Even Master Tracks Pro from 1983 is better midi editing than 99% of the daws out CURRENTLY.

 

I always assumed FruityLoops was more of a hobbyist DAW and not really a professional product so I never really followed them over the years. I looks like some marketing company told them to get "FruityLoops" out of their name so I guess that is a step in the right direction. At least "FL Studio" sounds somewhat professional, and screenshots of the DAW look more professional than what I remember from their earlier versions. Making the claim that they are "the best Daw for midi composition" is a very presumptuous statement though.

 

Too late! Although to be fair, I have lost faith in MIDI also. I can't wait for an OSC-native DAW.

I don't doubt it. Since I sold off most of my outboard gear out of necessity, I am not usually in "MIDI powerhouse" mode. But sometimes I run Opcode's Studio Vision Pro on my old mac, and it's not much like anything out now. It's like 20 years old now and was turning into something really brilliant when Gibson killed it. Dr. T's KCS/Omega for the Atari ST is still ahead of its time from 25 years ago. IMO about 1993-2003 was the golden age of MIDI, nowadays it is in legacy/maintenance mode.

 

How is fl studio good at midi? I really don't see it, I have to right click on the channel I want to do modulation just so I can have modulation underneath the piano roll. Am I missing something?

 

Most people are just going to recommend the DAW that they have the most experience with, so what has "great midi functionality" to them might seem horrible to another user who is used to a different workflow.

Very few people truly try out more than a few DAWs enough to make a fair judgment also as it takes quite a substantial investment of time to really get to know then inner workings and understand the pros and cons of a DAW. Most people (myself included) merely download a demo or pirate a DAW, test it for a hour or so then decide the GUI is ugly or the workflow is too confusing and prematurely give up on the product.

That is why threads like this don't really help that much for making decisions as you seldom get a clear consensus as to which is the best. They also tend to devolve into arguments as people try to defend their DAWs from criticism.

 

Well I have been on FL studio for maybe 3 years and before that I was on FL studio on and off. So I feel that I know why I want to switch. I still think FL is great for composing stuff that don't need that much midi cc but orchestral and cinematic tracks needs a lot of midi cc.

 

OP the question is what do u actually want to do with midi that means switching DAW? maybe someone here can help you find a solution rather than an endless DAW debate?
is it timing or quantization related? using hardware? vst?
surely a lot of it can be done with automation of vst/sample parameters rather than midi cc?
unless i'm missing something about the type of compositions you make?

 

I want easy access to midi beneath the piano roll basically. Can I do ghost notes in cubase?

 

One hundred tracks of MIDI?



Sometimes the problem ain't the DAW.

 

Sometimes the problem is the workflow, I'm demoing cubase and studio one and so far cubase is treating me well.