DAW COMPATIBILITY

[FerK]

As EVERYONE before me has said, DAW project files are completely incompatible. If you're happy sharing WAV stems, you'll be fine, although it's a bit inconvenient. If you plan to colab on a project file, try to make sure you discuss DAWs before you start buying licenses. Some are pretty cheap (Audacity is free, Reaper is pretty affordable, Ableton is a bit salty, ProTools and Cubase are quite expensive).

 

[BAG]

OK, thanks, starting to make sense. I don't own a real DAW program yet, still learning basics, but maybe it's time.

While some of the free versions of DAW's are decent enough to get started you may quickly grow out of them. I'd highly recommend Reaper. Dirt cheap, fully featured and regular free updates. You can render your tracks to wav files to be uploaded to Dropbox and your friends can use them in virtually any other DAW

 

[bholder]

While some of the free versions of DAW's are decent enough to get started you may quickly grow out of them. I'd highly recommend Reaper. Dirt cheap, fully featured and regular free updates. You can render your tracks to wav files to be uploaded to Dropbox and your friends can use them in virtually any other DAW

I have Reaper installed, but it's different enough from Audacity that I haven't really explored or conquered it yet, will have to keep at it. I understand it handles time and beats better than audacity.

 

[brianrost]

Since Audacity knows squat about tempos, any DAW "handles time and beats better". It also lacks any sophisticated mixing. It's a great all purpose recorder/player and audio editor but hardly a substitute for a real DAW like Reaper.

Although I use Ableton Live, it's a bad choice if electronic music is not your main thing. If you are just getting started, Reaper is free...you should pay the license fee (about $70) but the demo will in fact operate forever just with a nag screen. You can use it for as lomng as you like while you decide whether you like it enough to buy.

I'd like to comment on Badwater's post about modular digital recording. Yes, people use it all the time but it's a major contributor to the "sterile" feeling people complain about in modern recordings. Click tracks came into use when tape was still around because it simplifies massive overdubbing, like every player tracking their part alone rather than playing live as a band. If you want a live band feel skip the click track (unless your drummer loves them) and have the DAW display linear time in min/sec rather than bars/beats. If you like that "perfect" recorded sound, by all means lock the tempo and use a click.

 

[AngelCrusher]

which DAWs are compatible and which are not?
for example, for recording in 1 DAW and sending the mix to another engineer with another DAW to master it

For this specific functionality you are exporting stems as WAV Files. The main thing is to not change anything in terms of quality. For example, I track in 48k, 24 bit. So I export my stems the exact same.

If this is just for mixing, you will want to send the WAVs without plugins - just the raw tracks and let the mix engineer work his magic. Make sure you give him the BPM of the track.

Other people are talking about collaborating. I have used Studio One Pro for all my sessions. I do not do a lot of collaboration, and I think some people are overthinking this as it's not that common and should not determine the DAW you buy (buy your DAW based on the workflow that you prefer, it is your creative hub).

In order to collaborate and have everything the exact same, then you not only need the same DAW, but you need to each have the exact same plugins and virtual instruments. That's a very low probability. The only time it is not is if the producers are essentially a team that works together constantly, and those teams are usually formed by experienced guys who know their stuff and are well versed in DAWS. If all that is the case then you can send the session files and audio files and the DAW will take it from there.

So how do you collab with someone else in a more casual setting using different DAWs (most common)? Stem export and Print effects that matter for the tone of the instrument and not the song mix. Additionally send any MIDI files so those can be edited as well. Make sure you share the BPMs.

Any DAW that can do a stem export is compatible with anything else. I have worked on tunes made in MPC1000 drum machines a million times in my DAW. It's not that tricky once you do it a few times.

 

[AdamR]

You can send raw track as wav files from one daw to another. If you are trying to open a whole project file that you have plug ins on or have already started mixing to another daw it wont work. You have to export each track separately as a WAV.

 

[hopwheels]

Here's my experience with a couple off different DAWS. I use Logic Pro in my home studio and am pretty comfortable recording ideas, tracking, etc in it. Our band uses Ableton Live at our rehearsal studio. We record almost everything we do, and I'll have our band leader send the Ableton ALS (native file format for Ableton). I have a copy of Ableton which I use to open the song file, then bounce it out to individual tracks as WAV files and can work with it just fine in Logic. I can go the other way with songs or parts I've recorded in Logic, bounced to WAVs and open in Ableton. Just have to make sure you you're using the same BPM and when bringing WAVs into Ableton, uncheck the Auto-Warp long samples feature. That's my experience anyway, definitely no expert.

 

[whatizitman]

Hmmm, are you saying that each individual track inside each of the DAW's work files is in WAV format already? Or are you saying to output each track into its own .WAV file individually, send them all, and import them on the other side into the other DAWs format? Hmmm.... have to go try some things. Sorry, thinking out loud, long stressful day.

You can share individual tracks as WAV files, which are easily imported to any DAW. Can get tedious if you have to share lots of tracks. But it can be done, and is very straight forward.

But each DAW also has a "project" file format that can share the entire project. You just need to have the same (or compatible) software with same or similar plugins and at the other end to open it and work on it.

EDIT: ok so this has been said several times already. Well, broken record, and all.

 

[bfields]

WAV is the standard. Every track you record is compressed in WAV, and every bounce you do should be set to output WAV as well. It should never be changed until you've finalized the song, and then you can make it into FLAC, MP3, OGG, whatever

Surely FLAC should work too? It's lossless, unlike MP3 and OGG. Or are there DAWs that can't import/export tracks in FLAC?

 

[superheavyfunk]

Surely FLAC should work too? It's lossless, unlike MP3 and OGG. Or are there DAWs that can't import/export tracks in FLAC?

I've never tried but that's an experiment worth doing. I'll give it a go tonight using reaper, audacity, and Ableton lite

 

[DigitalMan]

Surely FLAC should work too? It's lossless, unlike MP3 and OGG. Or are there DAWs that can't import/export tracks in FLAC?

WAV and FLAC are both lossless, and in my limited attempts dealing with FLAC in a DAW as a track (via import) was a little cumbersome/convoluted. I'm not sure what the advantage would be over WAV.

 

[bfields]

WAV and FLAC are both lossless, and in my limited attempts dealing with FLAC in a DAW as a track (via import) was a little cumbersome/convoluted. I'm not sure what the advantage would be over WAV.

The typical FLAC should be about half the size. Not as dramatic a difference as lossy compression (I think you still get good quality at about a tenth of the size with formats like mp3 or ogg), but still might be enough to make a difference if you're collaborating and have low upload bandwidth or limited quota on your shared storage.

 

[DigitalMan]

The typical FLAC should be about half the size. Not as dramatic a difference as lossy compression (I think you still get good quality at about a tenth of the size with formats like mp3 or ogg), but still might be enough to make a difference if you're collaborating and have low upload bandwidth or limited quota on your shared storage.

I suppose the trade off then is how much compute it takes to process the lossless compression of FLAC on every track in realtime which WAV doesn't require. Wondering out loud if that would drive up the specs required to run a DAW and still have a good experience.

 

[bfields]

Wondering out loud if that would drive up the specs required to run a DAW and still have a good experience.

I dunno, it probably depends on a lot on the particular situation. You (or the DAW, under the covers) could uncompress beforehand and maybe get better performance if you don't mind waiting for initial decode. I think FLAC decoding should be a relatively minor load on the CPU, and in theory could even be a minor boost (due to requiring less IO), but, who knows, not something I've ever experimented with!

 

[DigitalMan]

I dunno, it probably depends on a lot on the particular situation. You (or the DAW, under the covers) could uncompress beforehand and maybe get better performance if you don't mind waiting for initial decode. I think FLAC decoding should be a relatively minor load on the CPU, and in theory could even be a minor boost (due to requiring less IO), but, who knows, not something I've ever experimented with!

I'm guessing that a DAW as a more-or-less realtime application would either have to decompress up-front to volatile memory and then keep all the tracks in memory, or would have to store them back to persistent storage.

Since persistent storage is so cheap anyway I'm not sure if it makes sense to do the above to try and squeeze the storage.

 

[Frenchy-Lefty]

Protools is a sure bet if you want to record at home and send your material to be mixed by a professional later on. It is the industry standard.
I personally use Cubase and when people ask me to mix something I have them send me the wav. files.

 

[Tin Cadillac]

which DAWs are compatible and which are not?
for example, for recording in 1 DAW and sending the mix to another engineer with another DAW to master it

I guess the question to ask is "Which do you have now, the DAW or the Audio Interface/Computer?" Do you have a MAC or PC?

 

[Geri O]

The more times you export to a new WAV, the more quality will be lost (it won't be noticeable at first, but will build up).

I mean no disrespect, but I have to question this assertion and ask some others to corroborate this statement. When importing and exporting tracks in and out of various DAWs, I thought the process was simply transferring bits and bytes from one location to the other. To lose quality this way, various bits and bytes would have to be lost as the transfers are happening. Is this the case?

I've been amateur recording since the early 80s and I certainly understand the loss of analog audio quality as tracks are bounced or transferred from tape to tape. I thought that one of the benefits of digital recording was lossless transfers between mediums.

 

[JACink]

I mean no disrespect, but I have to question this assertion and ask some others to corroborate this statement. When importing and exporting tracks in and out of various DAWs, I thought the process was simply transferring bits and bytes from one location to the other. To lose quality this way, various bits and bytes would have to be lost as the transfers are happening. Is this the case?

I've been amateur recording since the early 80s and I certainly understand the loss of analog audio quality as tracks are bounced or transferred from tape to tape. I thought that one of the benefits of digital recording was lossless transfers between mediums.

I can not tell you why this happens, or even if it is just my personal experience, but to test, import a WAV file into a DAW session, export as a new WAV file and repeat with the new WAV. Once you have done the process 20 or 30 times, compare the WAV file you have to the original.

It is very very minimal, and even after 30 repeats, it is still difficult to tell the difference, but comparing the WAV files, the difference does exist (at least in my experience).

 

[David Vector]

I mean no disrespect, but I have to question this assertion and ask some others to corroborate this statement. When importing and exporting tracks in and out of various DAWs, I thought the process was simply transferring bits and bytes from one location to the other. To lose quality this way, various bits and bytes would have to be lost as the transfers are happening. Is this the case?

I've been amateur recording since the early 80s and I certainly understand the loss of analog audio quality as tracks are bounced or transferred from tape to tape. I thought that one of the benefits of digital recording was lossless transfers between mediums.

In the really early days when the first DAW software was operating at 16-bit and not doing double/triple precision DSP computations, it was a concern. Everything you did to the audio in such a setup could produce rounding errors and gradually degrade audio. Those were the days when Bob Katz was warning home recordists to just use their DAW software like a tape deck and not use the DSP functions if they wanted the best sound quality (basically he was saying leave that to the pros who, at that time, had better quality digital gear than what most indie recordists could afford). But that was over two decades ago, before we had DAW software that can store files at 24 to 64 bits with 64-bit mix buses, as well as plugins doing their computations at high internal precision. Don't waste any worry on whether it's bad to run a track through two plugins, render the result to a high-bit-depth file and then run it through two more plugins (vs. running the track through all 4 plugins in one pass). It's not going to make any real difference.