Desktop DAWs - any advice?
For the last 4+ years all my music making has been done on iOS. I started with Nanostudio, then moved to Gadget, then Cubasis, and most recently BM3.
In other words, I haven't used a desktop DAW in almost 5 years.
Over the last few weeks, I have been tempted to upgrade my old Reason 5 license to the latest version 10 for about £90. This seems great value, esp. considering the VST support and 2 new synths, but the tiny UI bothers me slightly, as it doesn't scale AT ALL on hi-res monitors.
However, since there are currently numerous other Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions going on with Ableton and Bitwig, I wondered if you guys might give me some guidance and opinions on your favourite desktop DAWs.
Thanks in advance.
tk32
In other words, I haven't used a desktop DAW in almost 5 years.
Over the last few weeks, I have been tempted to upgrade my old Reason 5 license to the latest version 10 for about £90. This seems great value, esp. considering the VST support and 2 new synths, but the tiny UI bothers me slightly, as it doesn't scale AT ALL on hi-res monitors.
However, since there are currently numerous other Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions going on with Ableton and Bitwig, I wondered if you guys might give me some guidance and opinions on your favourite desktop DAWs.
Thanks in advance.
tk32
Comments
Reaper, it is not on any special deal, because it doesn't need to be, you can buy a personal licence for less than all the others costs anyway, personal licence just means you cant earn more than 20k without feeling guilty, even the demo version never times out, the pro version is $225 last time i bought it i think, there is zero feature difference in any of the versions except the demo version makes you want for 5 seconds when you boot it before it starts working (Seriously)
It has more features than all the others combined and gets near daily updates if you don't mind Betas (I have never run a full release of Reaper since day 1, yep i have been using it since it was just an audio mixer for RMEs hahaha)
If you wait a while i will be making a Beatmaker 3 theme for it
It is the most resource friendly of any of the hosts (Google it)
It is the most reliable of any of the hosts (Google it)
I love a bunch of DAWs on the desktop and own a bunch, there is only one i recommend not getting (Studio One) and only one i recommend getting (Reaper) both for the same reason, reliability and performance.
All the others are amazing no doubt, but cost vs performance vs reliability are key to me personally.
This is exactly the kind of insider knowledge I was hoping to tap into.
Really appreciate you taking the time to give a helpful and detailed response.
Is there any love for Reason out there still? It was amazing in the early years, but feels like a weird hybrid tool now. Although there's a hell of a lot of value and content out of the box.
I have invested tons of time in Samplitude over the years so I have momentum with that but if I were starting on a PC Daw now it would certainly be with Reaper.
People on the Audiobus forum have been speaking very highly of the latest Reason. Sounds like a resurgence of interest.
The interest in Reason is just because it is a new release, month from now, forgotten because of all the missing features hahaha.
I'm kidding, to be fair, if i had an old Reason to update i would rip their hands off, for composing its a bit of kit for $99 for sure, missing features or outdated would not come in to it, it is worth the $99 easily.
The cost of decent VST synths and MPC style plugins are all pretty high on desktop.
Can anyone (I'm thinking of @5pinlink here, primarily) help advise on an essential plugins shopping list for a DAW like reaper. I assume the Toneboosters/TDM mastering tools are high on the list, but what about essential percussion and synth stuff?
The effects plugins in Reaper are second to non in anything but UI, and some of them are beyond anything else on the market, add to this the JS plugins that also come with Reaper, and on the effects side you wouldn't have to buy anything if you didn't want to (It comes with like 300 effects plugins or something)
Toneboosters i recommend to everybody, amazing stuff.
Klanghelm same goes.
If you want a sampler you have two ridiculously powerful freebies
TX16W This also comes in pro.
Grace This is Delphi so Windows only. (Poise is his MPC style sampler but payware)
Decent VST synths is hard to go in to quickly, there are just way too many, but right now you can get
Air Xpand2 for free for 5 more days.
Air Hybrid3 for $1
My own choice was Serum, i settled for that and don't use much else for synths on the desktop, i'm not linking to it because in the context of this post it cost way to much.
So you always have options, personally i would hold out for deals on plugins or buy from the indies, there is a thread at KVR check it regular for some ridiculous deals on plugins.
I have Komplete Ultimate that i am trying to move away from because i am convinced that NI will either be owned by financiers or be subscription in the next few years.
Hehe, of course, 'the new shiny'. Yah when I played with Reason many years ago it was always as quick inspired bits to feed into Samplitude. Now, given where I am at, it would probably be more than enough just by itself to satisfy my current little sketch fetish. Anyway, BM3 gets me in that sweet spot of creative (+mobile) sketcher with enough juice to polish just a tiny bit for my own reveries of what could have been had Napster not burned and salted the earth of my dreams/delusions.
Seems a bit suspicious that to register on the 'Don't Crack' site they insist on having your DoB, Home address and phone number
EDIT: Just picked up Air Hyrbrid 3 for £1 from Plugin Boutique (NICE!)
Ahhh not sure, hang on, it may well be somewhere else, but for the record, Don't Crack is pretty reputable, personally i would just lie on the register haha.
Oh right, yeah just checked, it is just the payment gateway, the address and date of birth is for payment, has to match the card you use and all that jazz, just lie and use the code, should work fine.
This might be a waste of time... but the Waves VU meter plugin is completely free* for a very limited time:
https://www.waves.com/lpn/black-friday-2017/free-plugin
*free as in... in exchange for your email address.
Its not very good, the gold standard in VUs is Klanghelm £12 standard or £22 for deluxe, trust me, he spent 18 months making it, it is out of this world
Great thread.
@5pinlink do you know the Krakli synths? Arminator sounds really good to me. Free as well.
And of course VCVRack is our new desktop wonder.
Thanks so much for the Arminator tip off.
I hadn't heard of this one before today... but obviously do know a lot about the legendary Yamaha CS-80. I know there are other VST emulations available (Arturia, Memorymoon) but this sounds great for a freebie, and if the original was good enough for Vangelis, this one is more than good enough for me
Note for Mac users.. it's Windows only
Its also 32 bit only as its made in Synthedit, if you want a modular environment, it isnt Vst but saves as Vst, synthedit is out of this world.
Don't sleep on D16
http://d16.pl/decimort2
And VCVrack is pure no brainer. People sharing ton of patches on patchstorage.com.
Agree with recommends for Klanghelm for reasonably priced killer plugs. MJUC and SDRR get a lot of use.
Also check Sly-Fi while 40% off.. Their Kaya plugin is next level for legit mojo/grit.
Besides those everything I use is probably kinda in the pricier area (if paid for....) so probably not worth mentioning in this thread.
Looks nice... I've just never been that big on bitcrushing. It all feels a bit too 'Skrillex', if you know what I mean.
Interesting to hear you use it so frequently.. perhaps I'm in the minority here?
Edit - decimort2 also often sounds great on digital synths to give them some extra 'hardware' vibe. And also use it often on external synths too... A lot of params to play with and they all interact nice. Tbh I've never heard a skillrex track! Not really my thing
Beware thinking of bitcrushing as bitcrushing, often used too heavily and not for D/A modelling, when used extremely subtly it can give effects further down the chain a bit more body that they don't normally have.
Here's a simple example that you can try in Beatmaker, set up a send using MVerb as your reverb, but before MVerb in the chain add a bit crusher 16/32 or even 12/32 try 16/22 and 12/22 as well, after the crusher put an EQ with a 0 res lp and hp, roll them off to taste, you basically have instant 80s Lexicon
D16 have some great modelling in their crushers, I just prefer the simpler A/D modelling and such of the Toneboosters plugin for this.
Used to use a great trick live on the D16 reverb, I forget which one, was ion the old silver series, you could adjust the delays buffer with a CC (Not designed to do this) and it would reorder the vocals going in to it, could get really cool stuff hahaha.