# Found This Nice DAW Feature Comparison Chart



## robgb (Dec 1, 2017)

Kudos to AdmiralBumbleBee.com

http://admiralbumblebee.com/DAW-Chart.html


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## stonzthro (Dec 1, 2017)

Interesting but very subjective; for example, Logic beats Pro Tools and ties with Studio One in the Recording category...


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## James Marshall (Dec 1, 2017)

I wish more of the numbers were clickable to information about how he came to that conclusion. E.g. Logic installation was a 1. I'm not a Logic user but I'm curious as installing things on my MacBook seems very simple, what could the issue have been? I suppose the notes section must be incomplete.

I do like how he looks favourably on Reaper (winner) though  ... OMGIMUSTBEAREAPERFANBOY *pitchforks at the ready*.

Still interesting though, almost as interesting as the name Admiral Bumble Bee.


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## robgb (Dec 1, 2017)

James Marshall said:


> OMGIMUSTBEAREAPERFANBOY *pitchforks at the ready*.


ROTFL! Yeah, I've noticed that since switching to Reaper and singing its praises I have been frequently accused of fanboyism. I've used every DAW you can think of except Digital Performer. Reaper just works best for me.


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## chillbot (Dec 1, 2017)

RIP Sonar.


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## KV626 (Dec 1, 2017)

"Pro Tools exists. It has that going for it, I guess."

And I am supposed to take this _study_ seriously after that?


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## Robert Randolph (Dec 1, 2017)

Hey guys! Thank you for your interest in the DAW chart. I'd like to clarify a few things.



This is a DAW _feature_ chart. I'm only considering the capability and presences of various features. I only very lightly consider workflow and ease of use. This means that very feature-laden products like Reaper will end up with a higher rating than Ableton Live, even though I think most folks could agree that Live is much easier to use for a majority of workflows. *This is very important!*
I try to be receptive to feedback and accessible. If you have any questions regarding the ratings, suggestions or you just want to berate me because I seem to hate your favorite DAW, then I encourage you to contact me.
I make mistakes sometimes! See #2. I've had fantastic users of every product, and often even the developers themselves contact me about corrections. I love when this happens. I'm human and I appreciate the community's passion about this topic.




stonzthro said:


> Interesting but very subjective; for example, Logic beats Pro Tools and ties with Studio One in the Recording category...



I agree with you. This is a bit misleading, because there's only 3 considerations in the Recording category. If you have any suggestions, then I will consider them.

As complete review of the products, I would agree that for 'general recording', Pro Tools offers probably the nicest experience. Especially with HDx (which I used for years).

As far as actual features go though, I don't think PT has an edge.



James Marshall said:


> I wish more of the numbers were clickable to information about how he came to that conclusion. E.g. Logic installation was a 1. I'm not a Logic user but I'm curious as installing things on my MacBook seems very simple, what could the issue have been? I suppose the notes section must be incomplete.
> 
> I do like how he looks favourably on Reaper (winner) though  ... OMGIMUSTBEAREAPERFANBOY *pitchforks at the ready*.
> 
> Still interesting though, almost as interesting as the name Admiral Bumble Bee.



The notes for the ratings come in response to questions. I have _a lot_ of notes that I would need to transcribe.

If something in particular seems unclear, let me know and I can add a note regarding why the rating is how it is.



KV626 said:


> "Pro Tools exists. It has that going for it, I guess."
> 
> And I am supposed to take this _study_ seriously after that?



Well, it was a joke. I do try and insert some humour now and then. There's a few jokes in the FAQs, mostly based on silly forum memes and audio myths.

I was a PT HD/x user for years, and I greatly respect (and love) Pro Tools. I left the platform shortly before Avid begun the subscription largely because of my dissatisfaction with the development pace and business decisions being made.

I strongly believe that for the majority of professional workflows (outside composition), PT is still king.


If anyone has any questions or criticisms though, feel free to let me know! You can email me directly audiolabs, gmail. I'll watch this thread as well. Thank you!


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## TintoL (Dec 1, 2017)

Soo subjective this comparison.

And no comment about the most awesome feature in midi. "Expression maps" . This is supper important in midi. And i think only cubase has it.

That alone to me, kills every other option.


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 1, 2017)

@august80 I understand your point, yet Robert does get pretty in depth with each DAW from HIS perspective and I personally have founf his information valuable and interesting when making my assessments. There's a lot of good info on Roberts site for sure though biased in certain directions but let's not through out the baby with the bathwater...


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## Robert Randolph (Dec 1, 2017)

august80 said:


> No, this is an irrelevant chart based on your most likely limited understanding of many of these DAWs. You gave Reaper a higher score in the macro department, over Cubase. This tells me your aren't very familiar with one of these programs.



I am familiar with Cubase's macro system, and the PLE.

Reaper allows combination of any actions, creation of custom actions programmatically, cyclical actions (a single key sequentially executes actions from a list) and allows the user to use actions that accept metadata that affect how the action or successive actions in the macro work. Reaper even has an integrated IDE for the lua and jsfx scripting interface for creating custom actions/macros. There is also a C API for this purpose as well.

Cubase does not have these features. It's not even remotely close to as powerful or capable.



august80 said:


> Also - the idea that "folks could agree that Live is much easier to use for a majority of workflows". What workflows? For a recording engineer? No. For a film composer? No. Comparing Ableton to Pro Tools is like comparing a piano to an organ. Sure they both make notes, but they do so in very different ways, and for good reason.



The *vast *majority of DAW users right now are hobbyists, and based on the sales data that has been shared with me, Live is currently the best selling DAW by a fairly significant margin. It also dominates _nearly _all of the online usage polls.

So yes, for the majority of DAW users, it would appear that its workflow is more than sufficient if not outright superior.

I clearly don't agree with that, but going upon the available data it seems that a good case is made for that.



august80 said:


> "Feature sets" is also an entirely useless metric. Feature sets for whom? Not everyone uses a DAW for music. Not everyone requires elaborate video, surround and metering features. Not everyone needs notation feature, or extensive midi features. There is no objective weight here - some DAWs are heavily geared to one area of audio / music - this doesn't make them less "feature" rich. It just makes them extremely efficient in certain areas. The notation features in Cubase may completely obliterate any advantage Pro Tools may have in mixing for many users. And vice versa.



You are absolutely correct, and if you would have spent some time with the chart you would see that you can weigh which featuresets are most important to you to help make the rating more meaningful for your workflow and requirements.

If you feel like the categories could be further broken down, I'm open to that idea. Just communicate to me what you think could be improved.



august80 said:


> Anyway - these comparison are always kind of silly to me. I could go through every measurement you make and easily make an argument how your conclusion is entirely subjective. And easily argue how some of them are completely out to lunch.



100's, sometimes 1000's of people see this chart daily. If you want to give some constructive criticism, I'd be more than happy to consider it.

Otherwise, thank you for your input. I'll consider making the reasoning behind the stability rating more clear.


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## Robert Randolph (Dec 1, 2017)

TintoL said:


> Soo subjective this comparison.
> 
> And no comment about the most awesome feature in midi. "Expression maps" . This is supper important in midi. And i think only cubase has it.
> 
> That alone to me, kills every other option.



I should add that to the chart. Thank you for the suggestion.

I would consider this as 'articulation management', so that the comparison could be made with other products that don't use similar terminology. Do you think that's reasonable?


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 1, 2017)

@Robert Randolph said: The *vast *majority of DAW users right now are hobbyists, and based on the sales data that has been shared with me, Live is currently the best selling DAW by a fairly significant margin. It also dominates _nearly _all of the online usage polls.

Yes Live may be the best selling DAW to "hobbyists", but among professionals, those that make a living bringing in money from composing music, you would rarely see someone using Live except the EDM crowd. Reaper, uh, no way.

Reaper is super powerful in some respects, yet so is Linux, and BOTH can be a total chaotic mess to work with. Why wouldn't Zimmer, Gregson-Williams etc., who can afford anything they want use Reaper, Live or other DAWS? Because when it comes down to usability, all the powerful features in the world don't matter. Prolific output does, not setting up endless scripts and endlessly tweaking the UI.

Don't get me wrong, if I have to stare at something the majority of my day, I want it to look good and be clear, but Reaper looks like a mess to me, and I customized and tweaked the hell out of it...


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## Robert Randolph (Dec 1, 2017)

InLight-Tone said:


> @Robert Randolph said: The *vast *majority of DAW users right now are hobbyists, and based on the sales data that has been shared with me, Live is currently the best selling DAW by a fairly significant margin. It also dominates _nearly _all of the online usage polls.
> 
> Yes Live may be the best selling DAW to "hobbyists", but among professionals, those that make a living bringing in money from composing music, you would rarely see someone using Live except the EDM crowd. Reaper, uh, no way.
> 
> ...



I agree with basically everything you said.

However not everyone has the same opinions as each other as to what is important, and I've managed to make Reaper very nice for myself. However, I never recommend it to anyone unless they are already very sick of their current DAW and need specific functionality that Reaper offers.

The chart isn't to claim any DAW is better or worse, just express features and general facets of the experience.

The scores generated don't at all represent what I think is a good or bad product. (Particularly that I don't think Reaper is the best DAW out there, even though that is what I use along with DP). Nor do I think any single product is good for all users, which is why I spend so much time making a system that lets pepole customize the ratings.


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 1, 2017)

Robert Randolph said:


> I agree with basically everything you said.
> 
> However not everyone has the same opinions as each other as to what is important, and I've managed to make Reaper very nice for myself. However, I never recommend it to anyone unless they are already very sick of their current DAW and need specific functionality that Reaper offers.
> 
> ...


I respect that you have spent so much quality time with each DAW and value your opinions and observations for sure...


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## KV626 (Dec 2, 2017)

Robert Randolph said:


> However not everyone has the same opinions as each other as to what is important, and I've managed to make Reaper very nice for myself. However, I never recommend it to anyone unless they are already very sick of their current DAW and need specific functionality that Reaper offers.



Every now and then I get sick of Pro Tools for some reason and recently I've started 2 projects in Logic (I'm doing film music) - I've worked on DP for years as well, lately though I find it more and more difficult to work with (GUI and eye strain, playback performance/cpu load, lack of stability/reliability with large projects to name a few). While I do like working with Logic, there are many things that seem awkwardly implemented compared to Pro Tools (inability to "unlink" regions from the tempo map for example, a real PIA and huge waste of time) and some basic features that are missing, such as region consolidation. After nearly 2 months yesterday I've decided to continue these projects in Pro Tools instead. Even when I'm sick of it or mad at Avid or whatever, spending time in another DAW always reminds me why I love Pro Tools so much. There are great things I can do in LPX, but I do everything so much faster in Pro Tools! And when it comes to editing PT is unparalleled (and yes I do use it for composition as well).

As for Reaper I never really used it so I can't comment. I always hear great things about it but I don't know, so far I've never really felt any real need to try it.


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## Vik (Dec 2, 2017)

Since it sometimes takes years to really learn a DAW, I must admit that I question if any single person would be able to set up such a chart, even with some help from others. Some DAWs are so deep that one still discovers functions af several years, and while having read all the manuals of all DAWs would be requires to set up such a chart, one wouldn't be able to remember everything in the manuals + some stuff isn't in the manual - and some stuff in the manual doesn't work as expected. And a chart which doesn't take bugs/easy of use/workflow into consideration wouldn't be really useful for me personally. I've spent much time just trying to figure out the differences between Logic and Cubase, but I'm not there yet. 
So, with full respect for all the effort that may have been put into this, I'd take a chart like this with a lot of grains of salt.


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## Red (Dec 2, 2017)

I think the chart is more focused on hobbyists, and what would help them get the most bang and fun out of a quick toy purchase.

I'm pretty sure anyone who have switched daws this often isn't focusing on the composition and midi workflow aspects of them.

As the author stated, I think he is more interested in what kinds of "features" (gimmicky shortcuts that could sound better when done from scratch but are really easy and fast to use). Like that chord maker in cubase or the apple loops of logic.

Although I haven't had much time with Reaper, I can see why when it comes to having a complicated, cool looking screen with meters, moving bars and graphs that you can customize to infinite optimization, all the while looking really cool and meta while doing it, Reaper would get most points.


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## robgb (Dec 3, 2017)

Robert Randolph said:


> Reaper allows combination of any actions, creation of custom actions programmatically, cyclical actions (a single key sequentially executes actions from a list) and allows the user to use actions that accept metadata that affect how the action or successive actions in the macro work.


Exactly. Reaper is macros on steroids.


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## robgb (Dec 3, 2017)

Vik said:


> Since it sometimes takes years to really learn a DAW


Not really. Generally speaking, most DAWS function alike, so the learning curve starts with the first DAW you use. From there it's just a matter of understanding how the new DAW is different from the old DAW, and that usually takes a couple weeks or maybe a month of use (if that).


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## Robert Randolph (Dec 4, 2017)

Red said:


> As the author stated, I think he is more interested in what kinds of "features" (gimmicky shortcuts that could sound better when done from scratch but are really easy and fast to use). Like that chord maker in cubase or the apple loops of logic.



You are absolutely correct about it being features, but not about it being 'gimmicky shortcuts'. I think if you read the chart you would realize that.

Workflow is a very personal thing, and it depends on a lot of factors. I don't even attempt to tackle that bag of worms. There's people happily working in every DAW out there that adore the workflow.


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## sinkd (Dec 4, 2017)

robgb said:


> ROTFL! Yeah, I've noticed that since switching to Reaper and singing its praises I have been frequently accused of fanboyism. I've used every DAW you can think of except Digital Performer. Reaper just works best for me.


That's because you haven't tried Digital Performer. You may never know what you are missing.


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## EvilDragon (Dec 4, 2017)

august80 said:


> You gave Reaper a higher score in the macro department, over Cubase. This tells me your aren't very familiar with one of these programs.



No, this shows how you aren't at all familiar what Reaper can do in this department. It literally craps over Cubase and every other DAW for that matter when macros and custom commands are concerned.


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## stigc56 (Dec 4, 2017)

I noticed the bit about Community Support and that DP scored lowest, and I fully agree. Motunation has given me the worst community experience EVER!. Of course that only counts for beginners, but in the DP example it's quite difficult to get knowledge elsewhere. I also think that the feature set of MIDI makes Cubase superior to all the others, and I have been a bit around all of the DAWS.


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## Quasar (Dec 4, 2017)

InLight-Tone said:


> ...Don't get me wrong, if I have to stare at something the majority of my day, I want it to look good and be clear, but Reaper looks like a mess to me, and I customized and tweaked the hell out of it...



How can a Reaper look like a mess if you've customized and tweaked the hell out of it, considering that Reaper can look virtually anyway one wants it to look?

I get the MIDI editor criticisms of Reaper, and wish a few ME things were different. I also get the "Linux of DAWs" thing to a certain though limited extent, as it behooves one to put in some work to tame it to one's preferred workflow. The various menu items for instance, out of the box, are almost insanely scattered about in a random, disorganized way. But I'll never get the appearance criticisms. I've watched more than one audio tutorial and wondered "What DAW is that?" until I realized it was Reaper, themed to look radically different than what I have.


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## EvilDragon (Dec 4, 2017)

Yep, this looks like a mess.


Look, we all know everybody hates the un-skinned "Windows windows" (like FX chain), but that's probably not changing any time soon... Solution? Use the extended mixer where you can just click on an FX slot and float the effect in its own wndow, without seeing the nasty FX chain window ever again. At least for that unskinned window. Plenty of other programs have dialogs that retain the OS look and feel. This keeps the resource usage down.


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## Quasar (Dec 4, 2017)

EvilDragon said:


> No, this shows how you aren't at all familiar what Reaper can do in this department. It literally craps over Cubase and every other DAW for that matter when macros and custom commands are concerned.



I can't compare Reaper to Cubase, but it's true that Reaper's custom action possibilities are essentially limitless. I can't imagine how its macro capabilities could get any better.


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 4, 2017)

Quasar said:


> How can a Reaper look like a mess if you've customized and tweaked the hell out of it, considering that Reaper can look virtually anyway one wants it to look?
> 
> I get the MIDI editor criticisms of Reaper, and wish a few ME things were different. I also get the "Linux of DAWs" thing to a certain though limited extent, as it behooves one to put in some work to tame it to one's preferred workflow. The various menu items for instance, out of the box, are almost insanely scattered about in a random, disorganized way. But I'll never get the appearance criticisms. I've watched more than one audio tutorial and wondered "What DAW is that?" until I realized it was Reaper, themed to look radically different than what I have.


I guess we're all different, what feels comfortable to one is grating to another. Reaper is cool in some aspects, no doubt, but too many parts of it rubbed me the wrong way. For instance the scripting ability is phenomenal, yet those CC editing scripts by Julian, while impressive made me feel like I was driving a go kart. The native Cubase midi CC editing is solid in comparison.

Cubase for me just gets out of the way and I'm actually productive in there which is a feat in itself. I somewhat like Studio One as well, but the flat interface and lack of advanced midi features wore me down over time. Plus the performance in building large disabled templates which I prefer, just wasn't happening..


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## Quasar (Dec 4, 2017)

InLight-Tone said:


> I guess we're all different, what feels comfortable to one is grating to another. Reaper is cool in some aspects, no doubt, but too many parts of it rubbed me the wrong way. For instance the scripting ability is phenomenal, yet those CC editing scripts by Julian, while impressive made me feel like I was driving a go kart. The native Cubase midi CC editing is solid in comparison.
> 
> Cubase for me just gets out of the way and I'm actually productive in there which is a feat in itself. I somewhat like Studio One as well, but the flat interface and lack of advanced midi features wore me down over time. Plus the performance in building large disabled templates which I prefer, just wasn't happening..


 I do relate to some of what you're saying. Though there are many, many amazing scripts made by dazzlingly intelligent Reaperites, I much prefer the simplicity of native integration. I use a few workaround scripts, but take a pass on many, as my tolerance for fiddling with stuff is rather low.

The idea is to just be able to use whatever DAW as a tool without thinking about it very much. Whatever does that for you is the DAW you should use.


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## Vik (Dec 4, 2017)

robgb said:


> Generally speaking, most DAWS function alike, so the learning curve starts with the first DAW you use. From there it's just a matter of understanding how the new DAW is different from the old DAW, and that usually takes a couple weeks or maybe a month of use (if that).


That's true for simple tasks like adding plugins, adjusting levels etc. But when it comes to more specific areas like articulation control, notation, how to deal with the the many ways to control CC automation, beat mapping/time warping etc, my experience has been the opposite. Since I know Logic very well, many of the things in other DAWs (and notation programs) seem cumbersome - even if they may be better overall programs. 

Learning basic use of a DAW is a question of hours or days. But with DAWs nowadays have like 2000 pages of manuals, they are so deep and versatile that learning even only one DAW properly can take very long time. Personally I find Reaper cluttered, Cubase seem in several ways to be counterintuitive (but has many nice functions), Dorico doesn't rely enough on key commands for me, but on popup windows which require more learning and so on. And Logic has for many years been missing development in the areas which made me interested in Cubase/Steinberg: expression maps/notation/CC automation/articulation control and so on. And even old Sibelius has features which would have been great in all DAWs, but which may not in any of them, since they are more oriented towards...'simpler' ways of making songs that the kind of compositions notation programs are focusing omg dealing with. 

I'm also sure that if you select any handful of random DAW users and ask them to say something about 2-3 DAWs, they won't all be saying the same thing. So - if one of them - like you or I - would make a DAW chart evaluating all areas of DAWs, we wouldn't have been giving them the same number of points for UI, functions and so on. 

To use Dorico as an example again... while it's not a DAW as such, it deals with many of the same things as DAWs do, and it's the last program I wanted to learn. Now, it's still in it's early days and miss many functions, but it could have been *a lot* easier to learn if it would have pretty much all functions available in "all" kinds if ways, like as menu options, key commands and particularly as things that could be found through contextual menus. But Dorico isn't designed to work like that. They don't plan to implement all commands as key commands, and having contextual menys everywhere, which is known to be a big time saver without cluttering the UI, is something they either haven't gotten to yet, or don't want. So having a background from, say, a DAW or a notation program which is more key command oriented or context menu oriented doesn't help much. 

The bottom line for me is that it's almost always useful to have all functions available as key commands, normal menus and contextual menus. DAWs which don't have this take a lot longer to learn in depth. #2: the easiest way to implement a function is often the way which requires the fewest steps for the user to execute. And some DAWs need 5 steps to perform what you can do with one step in another. In such cases, one needs to figure out what those 5 steps are. This also takes time. 

So - like it or not...  I don't believe that the need to compare DAWs will be eliminated if a person like you, me or someone else, sets up a chart like this, with one exception: it would be really useful if one knew that person well, especially if we both were interested in the same stuff. Buy if you are into hip hop and ADM and mainly rely on the piano roll and another users write nothing above 50 BMP and only use Kontakt with step ionic and a score window, they have very different needs. Maybe they couldn't give much advice each other much at all.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 5, 2017)

Here is what I think for many of us is an issue. When you use a DAW pretty much exclusively for years, like I have with Logic, it teaches you to think the way it thinks. So then when you go to a different DAW and it does things differently, your initial instinct is to think, "Well that is wrong!."

ED is a smart guy and if he makes Reaper work well, it can work well. I am a reasonably smart guy but when I tried it for a few hours, I wanted to end my life, which I attribute to my first statement.


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## Vik (Dec 5, 2017)

Sure, Jay. But some solutions simply are much better than others too.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 5, 2017)

Vik said:


> Sure, Jay. But some solutions simply are much better than others too.



Not empirically, only subjectively.


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## EvilDragon (Dec 5, 2017)

Yup.


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## Davidson A & M (Dec 7, 2017)

Reaper looks like it wins price to performance contest.


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## Stevie (Dec 7, 2017)

It has already been said but as a long time Cubase power user I can only say: Macros, LE and PLE are ridiculous compared to Reaper's possibilities. It's true, you have to spend some time with it and maybe even dive into scripting. But that's what I already did with Cubase, when I tried to extend it with AutoHotKey scripts. In the MIDI department, Cubase might seem like the holy grail, but don't get fooled. Reaper beats it. Not because Reaper is better (as already mentioned, the standard MIDI tools aren't that great) but because Reaper features an API and there are a lot of smart people out there who provide us with great tools/scripts.


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## Robert Randolph (Dec 8, 2017)

Davidson A & M said:


> Reaper looks like it wins price to performance contest.



But does performance matter that much?

Workflow is very important, and this chart doesn't really say anything about workflow. You can have a gazillion awesome features, but if you can't integrate them in to your daily grind, then it's not very useful.


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## MarcelM (Dec 8, 2017)

Robert Randolph said:


> But does performance matter that much?
> 
> Workflow is very important, and this chart doesn't really say anything about workflow. You can have a gazillion awesome features, but if you can't integrate them in to your daily grind, then it's not very useful.



i agree. workflow is more important and cubase has a better workflow compared to reaper for sure. tbh studio one has the best and fastest workflow. its ok if reaper works best for you, but i dont think its a fair comparison.

oh evil dragon, if you show the reaper skin - you should have also shown its bloody ugly piano roll including the even more ugly cc lanes and compare that one to the one from cubase


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## gregh (Dec 8, 2017)

Ashermusic said:


> Not empirically, only subjectively.


i see this subjective thing from people all the time when talking about DAWs and their user interaction but it is not true really. Any empirical judgement is made with respect to a metric - by definition. Workflow and design can also be measured against a metric eg learnability, time to complete tasks, visibility, accessibility and so on. People have been measuring effectiveness in design for a very long time and those sorts of measurements can be made about DAWs


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## JohnG (Dec 8, 2017)

gregh said:


> those sorts of measurements can be made about DAWs



I doubt it, Greg, honestly. I think Jay's right about "what you're used to feels right." Writing music is not like most other tasks. Even architecture, to which it's most closely allied (in my view) has a different set of engineering issues that can _never_ be violated, for structural reasons. We just don't have that in music.

You can only measure the suitability of a tool for a task or category of tasks. But in music, what I do or you do may be so different as to be, effectively, unrecognisable. I use notation all the time, but composer X may not even read music, so that means the strength or weakness of an entire part of his DAW is irrelevant to him. He may, nevertheless, write music that everyone thinks is better.

So I think Jay's right on this one. I have yet to hear of a tool that's not available in all the "full featured" DAWs that's indispensable, and yet some people will view a tool that I think is peripheral as -- indispensable. 

I don't see how you get around this.


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## gregh (Dec 8, 2017)

JohnG said:


> I doubt it, Greg, honestly. I think Jay's right about "what you're used to feels right." Writing music is not like most other tasks. Even architecture, to which it's most closely allied (in my view) has a different set of engineering issues that can _never_ be violated, for structural reasons. We just don't have that in music.
> 
> You can only measure the suitability of a tool for a task or category of tasks. But in music, what I do or you do may be so different as to be, effectively, unrecognisable. I use notation all the time, but composer X may not even read music, so that means the strength or weakness of an entire part of his DAW is irrelevant to him. He may, nevertheless, write music that everyone thinks is better.
> 
> ...




here is an example - i design an interface where the play and pause buttons are on separate pages and not visible from the mixer or anywhere else. I compare time to change from editing a waveform to playing it in my interface and any of the existing DAWs - obviously my new interface is going to be slower. That's objective measurement. Of course that is an exaggerated example for illustration, but the same applies to searching menus for functions and so on.


To give a real example, how quickly does your DAW allow for quantising to a tuple of 27/14? Whether you need that or not is irrelevant to the objective nature of that measurement


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## JohnG (Dec 8, 2017)

gregh said:


> how quickly does your DAW allow for quantising to a tuple of 27/14? Whether you need that or not is irrelevant to the objective nature of that measurement



I see what you are driving at, and of course there is some subset of issues with a DAW that everyone needs (a start and stop button, for example).

That said, I think the esoteric nature of your tuplet example proves not that there is a series of objective measures that everyone needs in a DAW, but in fact its opposite, that there is an enormous number of features in each DAW that some, even many users never use, but that are nevertheless vital to some other segment of users.

Besides, when I see a chart that rates, numerically, one DAW compared with another based on the soft synths that come with each, and then see that rolled up as part of the cumulative score, I think that's a canard. Why? Because it would never cross my mind to use those instruments. Not because they are bad or I think they are bad, but because -- I just don't.

I don't use them because I do this for a living and, by the time free / included soft synths became common in DAW programs, I already had others I was accustomed to using. By contrast, someone who wants to use included sounds might think that comparison is interesting, but even then -- such a comparison is almost unavoidably subjective. Who prefers Absynth over Zebra or vice versa? Some bits might be objective, like the number of FX, but in terms of how it works, its layout, and the actual sound -- often the subjective elements will outweigh the more objectively measurable attributes.

Another example is the recording and mixing comparison, which I also think is misguided. I have Pro Tools for recording live players because:

1. It has zero latency and...

2. ...100x more important, every engineer knows how to use it quickly.

Maybe there is something that one could argue is "better" than PT in DP or Cubase or Reaper or whatever when it comes to recording and mixing, but if I am trying to record music with an engineer and a really expensive bunch of players, I'm going to use Pro Tools because the engineer will be familiar with it.

And that, in turn, means that familiarity actually _does_ beat details of functionality, even if a purely objective measure would say that, hypothetically, Reason is better at recording than Pro Tools. Measured in dollars (in recording, time = money), and even the possibility that the players' time might elapse before recording is finished, the speediness with which the engineer can operate PT far outweighs a theoretical advantage of some other program.

Moreover, sometimes the comparisons themselves are not fixed because of the availability of user customisation. DP, like at least some other DAWs, allows the user actually to customise key switches for almost every conceivable function, so the answer to "how many clicks to do X" will always be, "it depends on whether or not you set up a key switch to do what you want faster." The availability of such customisation renders objective measures of efficiency nearly impossible.

So that's why I think Jay's right on this one.


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## gregh (Dec 8, 2017)

arguing at cross purposes JohnG - I have no problem with people making subjective choices - although that is often because there are covert metrics at play. But your point about ProTools is a good one - you give a metric as to why you prefer it. For someone else that metric is irrelevant. Having the metric does not determine the preference, it just makes it available for someone to use when choosing what DAW suits their preferences. But none of that is subjective.

Similarly for included synths - of no interest to me either, but of interest to some. Hence having a metric (which might just be a list) is going to help people make their choice. The list is not a subjective thing, although the preference for included synths might be (or might not as the metric might be "how many more synths do you want")

Even take a classic example of QWERTY vs Dvorak keyboard. The Dvorak is quicker, easier to learn and so on but has never been taken up in numbers because the legacy base i so huge and the benefit so marginal that it is not worth the effort. Preference might seem subjective but it is not even here it is just that the metric for bothering is not tested.

My reason for going on about this related to Reaper - there is an incredible resistance to interface and workflow improvements on the Reaper forum - examples being improving consistency in dialogues and other graphicc elements, and improving accessibility for people with impaired vision. The hostility is always couched in terms of "its all subjective" when something like contrast and visibility is easily measured and can indicate just how many people will struggle with a particular action that is not that visible (DP font size in Windows is a good example of something that is not at all satisfactory and excludes a great many potential users - if that hasn't been fixed since i last looked )

My view is that this confusion between measurement and preference has damaged Reaper development


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## juliansader (Dec 10, 2017)

gregh said:


> I find the reaper forum suffers fromquite a bit of sexism as well as the other (fanbois) stuff I, and many many others, mentioned earlier. The sexist jokes and references and so on are probably the most unpleasant aspect of the reaper forum.





gregh said:


> If you are someone who is happy fiddling with computers then Reaper is good - very stable and efficient. But the interface is not great out of the box and the attitudes of some in the forum can be annoying (there is a lot of sexism, quite a bit of defensiveness, cliquey).





gregh said:


> My reason for going on about this related to Reaper - there is an incredible resistance to interface and workflow improvements on the Reaper forum - examples being improving consistency in dialogues and other graphicc elements, and improving accessibility for people with impaired vision. The hostility is always couched in terms of "its all subjective" when something like contrast and visibility is easily measured and can indicate just how many people will struggle with a particular action that is not that visible



I don't know why you got this bad impression of the REAPER forum, but fortunately it is much better than you think! In fact, in my experience, the REAPER forum is actually the most helpful and friendly of all the music-related forums that I frequent. (Astonishingly, it is even possible to have a civil debate about US politics in the Lounge sub-forum.)

* I searched the forum for "sexist" words, and the only hits I got were some ribald jokes about the name "Cockos" -- a decade ago. The novelty has faded since.

* UI improvement and consistency are among the feature requests with the most enthusiastic support.


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## EvilDragon (Dec 10, 2017)

Females are very welcome at Cockos forum.


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## gregh (Dec 10, 2017)

EvilDragon said:


> Females are very welcome at Cockos forum.





juliansader said:


> * I searched the forum for "sexist" words, and the only hits I got were some ribald jokes about the name "Cockos" -- a decade ago. The novelty has faded since.



as long as they don't mind being called "girls" or the sexual references that are left posted rather than being moderated out. Most people on the forum are normal but there is a lot of sexist banter and the lack of moderation keeps that visible. Should be called out more for what it is - although I do notice it is not as bad is it used to be. But any search for women or girls will quickly reveal sexist attitudes. 
For an example have a look at the Concerto Theme thread where the most appalling sexually degrading language is used and when eventually called out by DrKev, he gets attacked for oppressing free speech. No-one else supports him. Disgraceful behaviour and lack of moderation.


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## EvilDragon (Dec 10, 2017)

Well, that's what you get with free speech. :D I for one appreciate how lightly moderated Cockos forum is. Most of "interesting" stuff is pretty much contained in "the lounge" these days.


That guy was btw likely high on something :D


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## gregh (Dec 10, 2017)

EvilDragon said:


> Well, that's what you get with free speech. :D I for one appreciate how lightly moderated Cockos forum is. Most of "interesting" stuff is pretty much contained in "the lounge" these days.
> 
> 
> That guy was btw likely high on something :D



sure, I doubt he was in a normal state but the double standards regarding sexism are fairly clear - imagine if his comment had been that strong but racist, or anti-semitic or attacking people with profound disabilities. I think it would have been moderated away or at least called out more by the other posters - at least I hope it would.

"lightly moderated" can be used as an excuse for "uncaring" or "indifferent". "Freedom" to oppress, vilify and engage in hate speech is not a freedom at all, as it is just the license to reduce the right of others to live in a world without oppression


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## juliansader (Dec 10, 2017)

gregh said:


> sure, I doubt he was in a normal state but the double standards regarding sexism are fairly clear - imagine if his comment had been that strong but racist, or anti-semitic or attacking people with profound disabilities. I think it would have been moderated away or at least called out more by the other posters - at least I hope it would.
> 
> "lightly moderated" can be used as an excuse for "uncaring" or "indifferent". "Freedom" to oppress, vilify and engage in hate speech is not a freedom at all, as it is just the license to reduce the right of others to live in a world without oppression



You are confusing "sexist" with "sexual". 

Sexism, similar to racism or anti-semitism, refers to prejudice and discrimination. The guy made a crude *sexual* remark (inbetween some crude swearing). He did not attack, oppress or vilify anyone, and he seems to have been high, not hateful.


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## gregh (Dec 10, 2017)

juliansader said:


> You are confusing "sexist" with "sexual".
> 
> Sexism, similar to racism or anti-semitism, refers to prejudice and discrimination. The guy made a crude *sexual* remark (inbetween some crude swearing). He did not attack, oppress or vilify anyone, and he seems to have been high, not hateful.


I would think you are wrong here Julian. The remarks were degrading to women, if you doubt that, ask some women how they feel about them. Anyway, enough of this discussion in this forum, I feel it is too off topic. Although important.


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