Which DAW is best for your and why ?

[Tarekith]

I have a few different DAWs here these days, and normally I just pick one based on which one I feel like looking at on any given day. As mentioned, for the most part there's so much overlap with them that I use them the same. Most of the features that are specific to a given DAW tend to be things I never need anyway.

[alchemy]

the never ending thread.
Personally I use ableton as I perform my tracks live in my sets so in combination with a launchpad its a bomb.
In terms of workflow I have been playing with a concept called 128's using abletons sampler that is great for finding sounds in an extremely easy way.
Reason is great also, but I think of it more as an istrument than a DAW, the sequencer part confuses me a little but the internal instruments sound great! if not, ask the prodigy!

[diezdiazgiant]

Reason is great also

man i havent used reason since 2.0 but i will definitely buy it again if the new windows 8 pro tablets works well with music software.
the one thing i felt reason really excelled at was if you wanted to learn the basics of hardware on a budget, its virtual CV really encouraged you to just plug outputs into random inputs and see what happened next. my only complaint was that it was so modular that it made using midi controllers a pain in the ass, preferred to actually just use a mouse.

[PSYGUY]

Will reason be great start for me ?

Reason is a studio rack emulator, which is not the same as many of the other commonly used DAWs and this makes it an extremely valuable learning tool.

In my personal opinion, Reason is the BEST for anyone just "starting out" in production, especially if you have no clue of how music is produced in a studio.

The reason for this is that Reason gives you some experiance to what "In-studio" rack gear looks like, what they do and how to route them with actual wires as you can flip the rack and come up with creative ways to minipulate your sound. It is also the most stable of all the software I've used and the least taxing on your PC, so you can literally start with something as old as a Pentium-4 with ASIO drivers and a midi keyboard and get going. Also, you don't need any VST's in Reason because you can create any sound from scratch with practice but it might be more difficult.

Getting into debates about what software is best is really pointless because if you go on Youtube you'll hear songs created in Reasaon that sound far better in quality than songs created in Logic. It all comes down to experiance and Reason IMO sould be the first step to learning music production as learning the software won't be as steep as learning Logic or Cubase so you'll be more focused on sound design and song structure, rather than how to use the program. Once you feel ready, move to something more complicated. Its just much more fun, which is something people seem to forget. Everyone wants to be the next big hit with the most expensive software and hardware and very few actually still have fun with their music.

Get a Reason demo, go to "Boyinaband.com" and do a 7 day song tutorial....after that week of learning you'll have a good idea if it is for you or not and you'll be creating your own songs.

[ksandvik]

I must confess I have a hate-love relationship with Reason. I love the integrated environment and the totally tested/debugged system and all-in a box. I don't like the synths, weak and one-dimensional and the midi editing environment is primitive. Plus I can't run my favorite mastering tools unless I dump out WAV/24 and finish the job in another DAW.

I was going to finally upgrade my old Reason to 6.5 until I found out the introduced a HW dongle. Sigh.

[PSYGUY]

I must confess I have a hate-love relationship with Reason. I love the integrated environment and the totally tested/debugged system and all-in a box. I don't like the synths, weak and one-dimensional and the midi editing environment is primitive. Plus I can't run my favorite mastering tools unless I dump out WAV/24 and finish the job in another DAW.

I was going to finally upgrade my old Reason to 6.5 until I found out the introduced a HW dongle. Sigh.

I have been learning on Reason-4 for about a year (on and off) and then started with basic stuff on Cubase. I hated and still hate Cubases sequencer and automation but this is personal prefrence. I haven't even touched mastering tracks yet, but I do export all my Reason tracks via rewire in Cubase because they sound cleaner that way. I also had the same feeling about the Reason sythns. They just sounded "thin". But after getting some awsome psychedelic and other refills I saw that it is entirly possible to get BEEEEEG sounds. However this may not be the way to go as sound design is a totally different art than composing a track and its extremely time consuming as you can sit for days just designing sounds and not do any composing at all.

For begginers I would always recomend Reason. If you doing mastering then obviously you're more advanced. But for those starting out I really don't think there is a better learning tool because they can learn Reason, then walk into a real studio and know exaclty what most of the rack equipment does (eg: Compressors, delay and effects units) . When I went into my Dads studio after my first "7-day-trance" tutorial on Reason, the equipment were much less intimidating to me - I knew what they did and in many cases the knobs and layouts were identical to Reason sythns and procesor knobs......

Im not really promoting Reason blindly because I know Logic and Cubase offer MUCH more ways to be creative, but just saying that for begginers Reason is very valuable to use because of the way the equipment looks (almost identical to real life equipment) and the way a rack is setup and wired together.

Best is to get some demo programs of diff DAWs and try them, then decide.

[Headphones Kidd]

The big-time producers compete with Protools, Cubase and Logic, and they are constantly arguing between them.
Overall, FL or Reason might be an easy way in, but you shouldn't get too used to them because one day you'll want to up your game and do something more advanced. Between FL and Reason, I'd say the later too. It lacks VST and recording is about the worst you can get, but it's a very nice piece of software to use.

You shouldn't associate DAW usage with how popular the producer is. Afrojack, and Porter Robinson both use FL Studio and still manage to make unique amazing stuff. The best advice you can give to a beginner producer on DAWs is to have them try out some of them and pick the one they like the best/easy to them.

[liam1895]

What the best DAW for somebody could be something horribly wrong waiting to happen for you.

Look at the top major daw's and try them all out. It's the only way you can develop a preference for yourself, they all pretty much do the same thing. Picking a DAW is like picking a pack of chips. Usually they all taste somewhat similar just everyone has a different preference.

I use Studio One though as its what I feel most comfortable with and happy to use

[Baroncraig]

Which DAW works better for beginners, Ableton Live or FL Studio?

[TCMuc]

Which DAW works better for beginners, Ableton Live or FL Studio?

Depends on your own preferences.

Besides, I wouldn't base my decision which DAW to get on the question which one works better for beginners.

You're going to spend a lot of time learning that stuff, so you probably don't want to switch to another program once you leave the "beginner state". Even though you can get the same results with each and every DAW, the ways to get there may vary significantly. Switching form one DAW to another means you will have to learn a lot of things almost from scratch, if it is only the workflow and shortcuts´(and maybe getting familiar with a whole new set of synth and instruments). You might lose several month in the transition period where you just aren't as productive as you are used to be.

Last but not least, DAWs are not exactly the cheapest softwareproducts out there, so switching is costly as well.



My advice: find out which DAW suits your workflow best by testing the demos. Try to imagine what you will be doing in in 2-3 years and base your decision on that. Don't go for the one that offers the easiest results in the beginning.