IMHO, musician is a person who can play with Pitches and engineer is a person who can play with Sounds.

Both of them are important. Just a small part of Sounds is Pitches and Pitches can not constitute the whole Sounds. They need to be in balance.

Before the advent of the new technologies, music was all about the Pitches but after that, Sounds played major roles. Now humans can identify the Sounds too like they do the Pitches. We should respect that and try to reconcile them more like this:

 

'....................















https://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/the-20-best-daw-software-apps-in-the-world-today-238905

 

imho,

Best customizable DAW: Reaper
Best DAW with intelligence features: Cubase
Best DAW in green color: FL Studio

voted Reaper btw. i love it.

 

I was talking about the PC era. Not the Atari nor Commodor nor Tandy...

In the PC era, when DOS was a revolution, I was using Voyetra Gold.

 

Fasttracker 2, anyone??

 

Yay! Looks like Cubase is winning this vote!!!

 

Just realized Reason isn't in the list. Anybody using it anymore ?
Tried it once (version 6 I guess) and I didn't like it at all

 

Hello,
SAWStudio...by RML Studios. Yes I know it looks somewhat "archaic" - but, you can upgrade the look. SAWStudio also has some truly great features that are simply not available anywhere else. It is presently being updated to 64 bit. Check out what Elton John is using for his "monitor rig?

 

From my experience (I started in 1998 with ModPlug Tracker/FastTracker II windows 98... then Cubase SX v3 when it came out cracked):

If you don't have the money to buy a powerful interface (UAD Apollo/PreSonus Studio/etc...) to keep the latency low as possible and you can only work on Windows with ASIO driver and you have 1 monitor (laptop/PC) only then:

1. Ableton 9.7.5 (v10 sucks big time I don't like it)
2. Cockos Reaper v5.70 (the best CPU usage...lowest)
3. Presonus Studio One v3.5.6
4. FL Studio v11.1 x64 (FL 12 is nice and looks more beautiful but using the same project the CPU load is insane v11.1 uses like 30% less CPU)

If you have a powerful interface and dual monitor setup (main screen for editing + Timeline/MultiTrack Session view + VST Instruments
second monitor for the Mixer and FX plugins)

1. Presonus Studio One v3.5.6
2. Steinberg Cubase 9.5 PRO
3. Bitwig v2.2.2
4. FL v12.5

The reason I put Studio One at first place because it's super cheap it offers 2 separate "drivers" with LOW LATENCY MONITORING
There's no other DAW on the market which can do this you can separate the latency for playing VSTinstruments/Recording and another latency setting for FX processing and in my opinion the UI is beautiful and light if you are working with vocals Melodyne comes built-in and free.
I love its transport bar as well everything is there: DSP usage CPU usage, you can tap the tempo in it's so cool and so many things available without going through menus and clickng, etc.

The problems with Cubase PRO is it's expensive like hell and the UI is ugly and heavy Cubase 5 in my opinion had the best UI but it is x86 only so it's useless these days.
CPU usage is heavy I don' understand why with Stuio One I can easily use for example Arturia's B-3 and having heavy FX plugins on my Master Channel without any cracks/pops/dropouts and with Cubase the same thing overloads the CPU/DSP like hell.

If you have iMac or any OSX device then:

1. Logic Pro X
2. Cubase 9.5 PRO
3. Presonus Studio One v3.5.6

ProTools is done it sucks huge time now every DAW beats it in every aspect workflow/editing/CPU usage etc it's useless it's only "ok" for editing multitrack wave files or maybe video/movie sound editing but not for music production.

 

Last edited: Apr 8, 2018

Hmm, Logic has that option almost for 10 years, I believe it was introduced in version 7 or 8 - hybrid engine, also Cubase has this since version 8 (that's actually Asio Guard)

 

Digital Performer.

 

why do we always have to do this???
all DAWs are amazing!!!

 

Exactly my counterpoint to what you said about Cubase. Voyetra Plus also was one of the first with their Sequencer Plus back in 1985 or 1986. I still have a copy of it!

 

Ableton Live is the best DAW

 

100 of 1000s of Artist use Logic for decades for music production. And yet, you don't even consider it in your list but put a niche Daw like Mixbus in it instead?

 

I don't think I will ever need something other than FL Studio. It gives me all the freedom I need to express myself creatively and I can sketch ideas very quickly.

 

The list is missing some major software like Logic, Digital Performer, Reason and some not so major but still many years around like Acid Pro and Mixcraft. The "others" tag should be left for various softies like discontinued ones or abandon-ware or specific role soft like Mixbuss for instance, which should never be on that list to begin with. I also don't see how a very new player like Bitwig (currently on v.2) has made your list and the ones i mention didn't.
Cheers

 

Buying and/or choosing a DAW is to me is like buying a car.
You are going to have to sit behind the wheel and drive it, look after it and love it. Nobody else gives a damn about your car except you.
So you get the car that suits you, the way you do things that will get you where you want to go.
A DAW is the same thing to me because you are the driver. If you bought a car or a DAW because everyone else loves it and you don't, you really have to ask yourself why and if you got it for the right reasons.

 

I added Logic, Digital Performer, Reason, Acid Pro and Mixcraft since some people are getting angry at this post just cause I didn't include it.

 

I love Ableton Live for it‘s session view and Push integration...it is super immediate and I think of it more as a creative environment for sound exploration and playing rather than recording.

For a more linear workflow, I really love Logic and find it very powerful. Studio One could also be great but unfortunately it crashes a little too much on my system (Mac).

As curveball, I really like Harrison MixBus 32c also, the Mixer mentality workflow is awesome and the Channel strips just sound really great. Plus, when it is on sale it goes for like $60, which is a nobrainer.