What DAW's are ye all working with?

[outbackyak]

I'm using Reason and Record, mainly because I'm a long term Reason user, so when Record came out it it seemed like the obvious choice - the learning curve wasn't as steep as for the other DAWS I tried. Cubase and Reaper did my head in, while so much of the functionality of Record was already familiar to me from Reason.

Nicest thing about the Reason/Record combo is the way the two programs merge seamlessly into one program; you don't have to flip back and forth between them - all the Reason instruments and effects are available within Record (so long as you own Reason).

The mixer is fantastic and a huge improvement over the Reason system. The timestretch is brilliant too. Comping is quick, easy and intuitive. It's also rock-solid stable - I've never had a crash and it's very CPU-friendly.

Downsides:

1. No plugin support, so no VSTs etc. Not really a major issue for me as I'm much happier knowing a few synths and effects really well than having an endless choice. If you really must have VSTs you can always use ReWire to a free or inexpensive DAW like MuLab.

2. If you do use ReWire then you can't actually record audio into Record, because Record only works as a ReWire slave. Previously recorded audio works fine, but once you set up ReWire you can only record into the ReWire master. Kind of annoying but I rarely use ReWire anyway - I'm more likely to use Mulab for VSTs and then import the audio into Record. There are work-arounds if you want to continue recording into Record and use ReWire, but they are a royal PITA.

 

[spigmu]

There are so many levels that DAWs fit into and it's not one size fits all. Some of the inexpensive ones are great for home productions but aren't even in the tiny production rooms at professional studios and it's not purely for compatibility. There are some things like clocking, syncing, dither options, a host of other stuff that is not important to a home studio but isn't worth saving $150 in a bigger environment. Also, DAWs that focus on looping and sequencing and have audio features because they can are a different animal than ones that have an environment dedicated to audio and throw in the other stuff just to have something of it. For some people it's very important to be able to very quickly deal with the files at the sample level and edit the actual file, while others never need to do that, just record and put plugins on the tracks. It's like people who need to use Photoshop and those who can use iPhoto. You get great results with both but only one allows you do pixel based tweaking with 10 people standing behind you screaming what they want.

 

[Hippos Melas]

I use Reaper. It's awesome!

+1

I use Reaper and I dig it. Pretty good plugins for an essentially free program. Still figuring out the proper way to use the compressor though...I'm such a compressor noob. :scowl:

 

[threshar]

I used to use protools but now I'm all about logic.

That being said, I must say my mbox2 mini is the most unstable piece of junk ever. Constantly hangs. after googling a bit I'm not the only one experiencing problems.

The thing that launched me to logic off of PT was when my last machine died and I didn't want to pay $250 to continue using PT on my new machine (newer OS, digi offered no sane upgrade path).

Logic is rock solid for me, works great. and I <heart> the comp system.

I'm actually using my digi002 interface with the digi coreaudio drivers. nice and solid (the same cannot be said about the mbox2 piece of junk)