Which DAW is best for your and why ?

[RavioliFaceMan]

Usually when someone starts off staying their opinion trumpeting that they've "worked with the best" usually that means they're full of shit and trying to sound important.

I don't mean to sound arrogant, I'm the first to admit that I'm not an amazing producer. I really admire some of the guys I've worked with over the years. This guy needed help and I'm just saying, I've spoken with and worked with people that have been on the scene since acid, and this is what I've learned from them.

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.

I'm not talking about popularity, I'm talking about respect. Afrojack may be in the charts a lot but that doesn't mean he's particularly well respected as a strong producer.

I find that the very new people I know that make cheesy dubstep type stuff use FL, and end up with no originality in their music.
The underground jungle/techno/bassline guys I know all use Reason because they get high and need a quick way to release their creativity and not get bogged down with mixing and mastering.
The older, more seasoned producers I know use Logic or Cubase. That may also mean that it's out of date, and that new producers are simply moving on to new kinds of DAW. At the same time, I hear music in frequencies and waveforms now and when I hear something I think is really intelligently or well-produced, it's usually made in the traditional-style DAWs like Cubase.

Of course, it's absolutely about taste and what works for you. I'm very lazy and very rarely get round to finishing a track in Cubase, so maybe something with a quicker production process like Reason would suit me better, but I'm too much of a perfectionist and need to be able to geek out with VSTs (let's face it, Rack Extensions are not VSTs), precise analysis and mixing and the amazing sequencing and groove/quantising Cubase has to offer that I just couldn't get out of Reason or FL.

[grazz16]

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

Christ almighty NOT Ableton lol

Ableton has a gigantic learning curve for beginners. You are likely to spend a good deal of time just trying to figure out how to get a sound out of Ableton when you first open it, let alone doing something useful with it. That was my experience using it for the first time, that being said tho, now that i've spent the time doing the required reading/youtube-ing i love it. Never used FL studio but it seems more in line with Logic than Ableton, which probably means its more intuitive.

Why is Ableton best for me? Simply because i chose the DAW and stuck with it. Thats the best advice imo, try them out, pick one and just focus on learning it. You can find examples of top producers who use each of the most popular DAWs, there is no one right answer here.

[alchemy]

there is no one right answer here.

+1

[Produc3rboy]

I started out using FL Studio & Acid. Then I learned reason. To mix, I would have to bounce out the wavs from fl/reason to acid. Now, I use logic. In logic, I would rewire reason and use it as a plugin. I would use the piano roll from logic to play reason sounds. No more reason piano roll for me. Since I also Dj, I am now learning Ableton and the bridge. But all of that previous knowledge enables me to learn Ableton better

[epikeddie]

Went from FL Studio to Ableton Live to Logic Pro.

Once you learn one, I think it's not that hard to jump from one DAW to another. Like some have said....just keep arranging and composing and find a "work groove."

I think I also spent days watching tutorials online trying to get a certain sound or effect. Once you hear that final mix.....it all becomes worth it

[diezdiazgiant]

I don't mean to sound arrogant,

I find that the very new people I know that make cheesy dubstep type stuff use FL, and end up with no originality in their music.

not trying to start a pissing contest just calling out that these sort of anecdotes really dont mean much. been writing for ten years now, and just when i thought i could pidgeon hole a piece of software to a sound, someone i know comes along and shits on that. one of my boys makes some really strange left of center shit, i was completely taken back that he swears by fruityloops. heard plenty of generic beats made with logic and live, but then i meet someone who just trumps that.

its all the same shit man. the only way you can find your comfort zone is by living it, doing it. youre not going to know whats important to you until youve run into what you feel is a wall. hell there are plenty of people who would call the whole point moot as the "only real pro solution" to them is hardware.

its all fun with sound bro.

[mostapha]

I'm going to go ahead and post this one more time.

IMHO, the best thing you can do isn't to ask for advice or to get demos………people have their own hang-ups and preferences, and you won't know what you're doing with any of the demos.

The best thing you can do to choose a first DAW is to watch as many tutorial videos as you can find. Then when things start making sense, start over and watch them all again. At some point, you'll get sick of it……but by then, one of them should stand out as "this one seems to make sense" and/or "the people who make tutorials for this one make sense to me."

Any other advice I read now seems like it would have just confused me when I started.

If I hadn't watched so many videos, I probably never would have realized how much I like Pro Tools……and it really does just make sense to me to a great degree.

Explaining my preference a bit, since you'll ignore my advice anyway……

Mostly, I just like & get Pro Tools's signal routing and the way it does midi & audio editing, despite the fact that it's MIDI authoring is a bit rudimentary compared to something like Live. I like it's mixer just fine. I like it's Meter Bridge plugin. I love PT10's delay plugins. I love it's Channel Strip plugin……great controls, great visualization, and great, transparent sound. Having used real ones before, I like it's Urei 1176 compressor emulation just fine for a free plugin. I like the Saturator effect that came with it okay. I don't like Avid's BS, and I don't like that I would have to pay so much more to be able to use VCA Master Faders and HEAT (console-based nonlinear distortion effects tied into the mixer), but there are other ways to do it and/or competing products that cost less……though I really like VCA Master Faders when I'm on someone else's PT HD system. I don't like how expensive controllers for it are, but I really like working with them when I get the chance (especially the Artist series stuff and the D-Control, though I'd never shell out for one of them myself).

Someone ITT mentioned that Reason was a good experience for learning studio gear. I kind of disagree. I see it's signal routing as pretty cool, and I kind of like the way it works from an ideological standpoint………but if you don't have a widescreen monitor that you can turn 90degrees to be a "tall screen", then the rack won't really look right……and if you don't have a huge screen, it's awesome sounding and functioning mixer is kind of a nightmare to use………too much scrolling. Overall, the experience shoves the fact that you're using a computer in your face way more than using something designed for a computer screen.

If you want that experience, there are consoles out there (the Focusrite StudioLive series seem pretty okay) that allow you to start building a hardware/software studio that would give a more realistic experience……the only thing they don't do well is volume automation with flying faders, but really………it's not that big of a loss. And the things that do it well are all expensive controllers (the Artist Series from Avid, formerly Euphonix, are what I consider entry level for this kind of thing………which is why I just don't own one) or really expensive consoles.

Really, though, they all do the same thing, and they all do it really well. Obsessing over the differences between your tools at this stage will just keep you from learning what you need to learn about rhythms, melody, music theory, and how to actually write songs and channel your creativity. Focus on that, and find the tools that fit what you want to do. Otherwise, you'll wind up like me……somebody who can work the tools to create a grand total of a bunch of mediocre songs that I don't even bother publishing because they're barely good enough for me to spin as filler material in my own sets.

Tools are just tools, and until you get into it, the things that are actually important don't stand out. I think the best thing I've done was recording a friend playing Blackbird on his acoustic. And I think we spent more time on mic placement than any other handful of steps in the process. And I still wish I'd had the patience to try something a bit different.

In EDM, it's a bit different. But I wish I'd taken the first couple years learning to play piano and compose as opposed to learning how mixers work and what different compressors sound like. I can't get what's in my head into my sequencer as well as I like, and there are definitely times that it seems the thing I'm best at is polishing turds.

[karma]

Ableton because I've only ever used that Maschine and Garageband and It is clearly better than them lol.