# Which DAW is the least buggy?



## Synetos (Jan 29, 2021)

I am curious if every DAW maker is equally failing to test their releases, or are there any that really don't break things with every change?

My experience is limited to Cubase/Nuendo and Studio One. I dabbled a bit with Logic and Reaper, but not enough to make an informed decision. 

Something has to be better than Steinberg, because they break things and leave things broken, repeatedly.


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## d.healey (Jan 29, 2021)

All software has bugs. Different computers, operating systems, software configuration, users, and workflows will trigger different bugs. Some people will experience zero bugs while others will experience lots.

I find Ardour and Reaper to be very stable, you may not though...


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## pondinthestream (Jan 29, 2021)

For me Studio One is fairly reliable. Bitwig has some strange problems closing down but is otherwise ok. Reaper always seemed to throw bizarre problems at critical stages of a project. None are seamless but that is the order of seamlesssness for me. S1 best, Bitwig, Reaper.


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## Synetos (Jan 29, 2021)

d.healey said:


> All software has bugs. Different computers, operating systems, software configuration, users, and workflows will trigger different bugs. Some people will experience zero bugs while others will experience lots.
> 
> I find Ardour and Reaper to be very stable, you may not though...


Yes, I agree that all software is buggy, although it scales with effort in testing. Yes, lots of variables go into having issues. However, there are DAWs that are worse overall. That was my question, since I haven't experienced them all, I wonder what the hive mind thinks.

By buggy, I don't mean features missing, I mean pure buggy things like CPU, memory leaks, crashing, etc. Then update releases that break things that previously worked fine. Things like that.


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## EgM (Jan 29, 2021)

I use Studio One every day and have not experienced a crash for as long as I can remember. I do have a very stable PC where nothing else even crashes though.


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## greggybud (Jan 29, 2021)

Synetos said:


> I am curious if every DAW maker is equally failing to test their releases, or are there any that really don't break things with every change?
> 
> My experience is limited to Cubase/Nuendo and Studio One. I dabbled a bit with Logic and Reaper, but not enough to make an informed decision.
> 
> Something has to be better than Steinberg, because they break things and leave things broken, repeatedly.


Cubase is one of the oldest and most feature rich DAWs. Think of of a 30-year old luxury home continually adding rooms and being remodeled for a bigger family over 30 years. When making a new addition, you still have an old foundation. Electrical, plumbing, all kinds of potential code violations can arise.

I won't address the gripes and complaints of some of the kids threatening to move out to that better house.

So the wife begged for a jacuzzi. It shorted out the garbage disposal. And the teenage daughter just wants a "simple" light dimmer for her bedroom, but due to the old code, its an expensive addition.

Give that newer more basic house down the street some time, and it could age too.

Its all about allocation of your limited resources for the best bang at release. Prosumers, not professionals are in the drivers seat.


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## Synetos (Jan 29, 2021)

greggybud said:


> Cubase is one of the oldest and most feature rich DAWs. Think of of a 30-year old luxury home continually adding rooms and being remodeled for a bigger family over 30 years. When making a new addition, you still have an old foundation. Electrical, plumbing, all kinds of potential code violations can arise.
> 
> I won't address the gripes and complaints of some of the kids threatening to move out to that better house.
> 
> ...


I suppose that makes sense. Personally, I have remodeled several 100+ year old homes in my lifetime and no matter how much time and effort I put in them, its still an old home with a squeaks and smells than never go away. Sometimes building something new from the ground up is better. I did that a few times too. No home was perfect, but there is something to be said about new and shiny...no squeaks and no smells of yesterday lingering.

I own just about everything Steinberg sells, so I am not doing a drive by shooting directly or solely at them. Cubase/Nuendo are feature rich, but definitely not frustration free. I guess we all need to balance the equation and decide if those features are worth it or not. 

Having worked as a developer, I can see poor QA a mile away. Steinberg is very poor at QA. Sort of an arrogance about them and dropping alpha releases out as production ready. It is a business model that plays off the goodwill and presumed dependence of the user base. Much like Pro Tools a few years back when they were the perceived king of the recording studio. They priced themselves right out of the next generation of home project studios. As the old studio model fades away, Avid is far less relevant today as a result.

Frankly, I just wish these companies would spend a significantly greater amount of time focusing on quality, rather than an upgrade cycle. Hence, my quest for opinions on others that I have not tried.


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## Germain B (Jan 29, 2021)

My experience with Cubase is really good so far.
I was on Cubase 10 during a year and a half without any crash, just a minor graphic bug that was not a problem.
Since 11 I had 2 or 3 crashes, but maybe Sine is responsible here, I don't know.


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## Synetos (Jan 29, 2021)

EgM said:


> I use Studio One every day and have not experienced a crash for as long as I can remember. I do have a very stable PC where nothing else even crashes though.


I am using it now as well. I was getting frustrated with some things I wanted to do, but then realized I was trying to recreate things I did in other DAWs and not really looking at what the Studio One approach was, and that it might be a better mouse trap. So, far, I am liking it more and more.


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## cloudbuster (Jan 29, 2021)

On my systems Ableton has been the worst offender over the years and I'm not alone; no need to get into the details here. 

Bitwig: the only issue I'm experiencing is the sound engine refusing to properly get back to work from a standby, but then you just need to restart it with one click, no big deal, could be my hardware setup. Rock stable otherwise.

Reaper doesn't seem to like some long abandoned 32bit VSTs, like Fusspilz Oatmeal, but other than that everything has been running just flawlessly over the years - no complaints.


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## Synetos (Jan 29, 2021)

Germain B said:


> My experience with Cubase is really good so far.
> I was on Cubase 10 during a year and a half without any crash, just a minor graphic bug that was not a problem.
> Since 11 I had 2 or 3 crashes, but maybe Sine is responsible here, I don't know.


I was put off real quickly when I upgraded Nuendo to 11, and then could even using the marker track cause it had a buggy GUI thing. I installed the update, but havent gone back to see if it was fixed. 

Thant is the kind of QA stuff I am talking about. You dont change things and break basic features from previous versions. That cant happen in a release, unless you are not testing it properly. Clearly, they are not testing.


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## Synetos (Jan 29, 2021)

cloudbuster said:


> On my systems Ableton has been the worst offender over the years and I'm not alone; no need to get into the details here.
> 
> Bitwig: the only issue I'm experiencing is the sound engine refusing to properly get back to work from a standby, but then you just need to restart it with one click, no big deal, could be my hardware setup. Rock stable otherwise.
> 
> Reaper doesn't seem to like some long abandoned 32bit VSTs, like Fusspilz Oatmeal, but other than that everything has been running just flawlessly over the years - no complaints.


Yes, I never had issue with reaper the little bit I used it, except issue getting VEP to work right. Reaper is very good about small updates, often. They dont do these big bang upgrades. I think that is much smarter way to evolve. Small changes, easier testing, and less likely to release a bugger update. Even if you do, much easier to find and fix it quickly. That said, I cant stand the GUI. Of all thing they ought to do...make it prettier. I dont want to mod it with skins from other users. I prefer it look good by default.


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## Wunderhorn (Jan 29, 2021)

It also depends on the complexity of your project/template and how many third party elements are involved. Running a complex audio rig is always a bit like a house of cards.


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## Loïc D (Jan 29, 2021)

Bugs in DAW might come from 3rd parties : plugins, soundcard drivers, control surfaces, etc.


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## Synetos (Jan 29, 2021)

Loïc D said:


> Bugs in DAW might come from 3rd parties : plugins, soundcard drivers, control surfaces, etc.


Yup. Many issues when the OS gets an upgrade. But...there ought to be more testing going on. If the only variable I change is a DAW upgrade, then the cause is a bit more narrow...as was the case with Nuendo 11. 
I do think eLicenser is often been a problem for Cubase and VEP, but it seems to be getting upgrades way more often now, which is good.


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## Lukas (Jan 29, 2021)

Loïc D said:


> Bugs in DAW might come from 3rd parties : plugins, soundcard drivers, control surfaces, etc.


Then they are not bugs in the DAW though


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## chlady (Jan 29, 2021)

I have been very stable with Digital Performer 10.13 for quite while and am a long time user. Not to say I haven't a had occasional crashes at times like all Daws . I actually had one last week , but that was related to a new 3rd party plugin BF Momentum I installed recently which appears to be problem on their end which which they are looking at.


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## jmauz (Jan 29, 2021)

Cubase on a PC or Logic. Pro Tools on a Mac is quite solid too IME.

After 20+ years working on DAWs most of the 'bugginess' I've experienced had to do with hardware issues/incompatibilities. Also, never EVER upgrade to a new version until you've waited at least 6 months and several rev's have been released.


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## jcrosby (Jan 29, 2021)

Lukas said:


> Then they are not bugs in the DAW though


Sure they are. One DAW can have issues with a plugin while almost every other DAW doesn't. I've seen this a number of times when testing software... Pretty much every beta I've done you'll see various DAW specific issues pop up as development progresses PT's typically the fussiest of the bunch, Logic tends to be pretty solid, and Live tend to be surprisingly stable too. (Mind you I only test for a small handful so that's a pretty vague sampling..)


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## twincities (Jan 29, 2021)

reaper is incredibly stable. whether it hits the other marks you need or not is up to you, but if you need dependability, reaper is tough to beat.


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## NekujaK (Jan 29, 2021)

I've used Reason for nearly 20 years and I can count on one hand the number of times Reason has crashed or glitched out on me due to it's own native functionality.

When VST support was introduced about 10 years ago, there was a slight number of crash incidents, but all were due to compatibility issues with specifc plugins. Reason has improved its VST handlng significantly since then, including shielding the Reason engine from VST processing, so that if a plugin should crash, the crash is isolated to the plugin and doesn't affect the Reason environment.


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## dzilizzi (Jan 29, 2021)

Reason for me has been the most stable. Though, as a DAW it's pretty limited. All the other DAWs crash for me - some more, some less. As my machine specs have got better, I have had much less crashes with ProTools than any of the others. Studio One is the next least, though I don't use it as much as PT and Cubase. Cubase crashes the most and it is generally caused by a plugin, even though it seems to blacklist practically everything.


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## gyprock (Jan 29, 2021)

I’ve been using Studio One on a Mac and it’s rock solid. However I recently purchased one of Dirk’s CTO templates that I believe he created on a Windows machine. Every time I disabled/enabled a track of this template, my iMac would crash. If I imported the tracks into a new project everything was fine. Go figure. In this case, it appears the file format created on Windows is the issue. Presonus looked at my crash report and said it was related to a plug-in. If so, why could I create a brand new project with the same plugins and it wouldn’t crash? These are the types of problems that define how you rate the stability of a DAW. If I never attempted to import the template into a new project then my impression of the DAW would have been negative whereas now I think it is solid.


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## PaulieDC (Jan 30, 2021)

Cubase 11 for Win10 has been pretty good (started on 10 nearly 2 years ago). For tracking and mixing I've used Studio One v2/3/4 for 6 years on Windows and it's always been stellar. Switched to Cubase in 2019 (as mentioned) for my tower but now returned to Studio One v5.1 on my laptop, and as expected, rock solid.

My vote for reliability is Studio One just from years of using it. However, I have zero experience with any other DAWs.

I have learned NOT to install the NVidia HD Audio driver when there's a video driver update. That alone can send ANY DAW into a frenzy.


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## IgneousOne (Jan 30, 2021)

FL Studio on Windows 10 is generally really stable, I have used it for years. Crashes are usually caused by third party VSTs.


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## Lukas (Jan 30, 2021)

gyprock said:


> Presonus looked at my crash report and said it was related to a plug-in. If so, why could I create a brand new project with the same plugins and it wouldn’t crash?


Because when you initially load a plug-in in a new song it does not receive any saved plug-in data. Could be the (total recall) data created by the same plug-in but on another computer with a different OS and potentially with an earlier plug-in version is somehow unexpected and makes the plug-in crash. Which plug-in is it?



jcrosby said:


> Sure they are. One DAW can have issues with a plugin while almost every other DAW doesn't.


Issues, yes.



jcrosby said:


> I've seen this a number of times when testing software... Pretty much every beta I've done you'll see various DAW specific issues pop up as development progresses


If you're a long time beta tester then you're certainly familiar with the term "bug". A bug is a fault in a particular computer program. When the fault is in the plug-in code, it's obviously not a DAW bug.

A DAW can do a couple of things to try to compensate incompatibilities in plug-ins (Cubase has some mechanisms to "help" buggy plug-ins) but if a plug-in crashes, the DAW can't help. If a plug-in runs fine in one DAW but not in another DAW, this does not mean the fault is in the DAW. If a plug-in claims to support one particular feature (for example reporting keyswitch information to the host which is a VST3 feature) but potentially crashes when this feature is used in a particular way it may be perfectly stable in a host that does not use this feature but lead to crashes when loaded in another host which supports this feature.


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## Peter Satera (Jan 30, 2021)

IgneousOne said:


> FL Studio on Windows 10 is generally really stable, I have used it for years. Crashes are usually caused by third party VSTs.


Funnily enough I have a very stable Sine player and spitfire, but K6 using Time Macro, Micro, CSB and CSW when using FL in loop mode will intermittently crash. I put it down to thread ripper too.

Overall, I agree, it's very stable just lacking pro features, which is a shame, cause BRSO is better than the likes of expression maps imo.


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## gyprock (Jan 30, 2021)

Lukas said:


> Because when you initially load a plug-in in a new song it does not receive any saved plug-in data. Could be the (total recall) data created by the same plug-in but on another computer with a different OS and potentially with an earlier plug-in version is somehow unexpected and makes the plug-in crash. Which plug-in is it?


The template had Valhalla Vintage and Eventide Blackhole. My new project had the same but they weren’t causing a problem. Presonus didn’t identify which plug-in was causing problems. Their tech support just said that Mac crash dumps were usually the result of a plug-in fault. My dialog with Presonus was useless. I was probably communicating with a junior tech guy.


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## Lukas (Jan 30, 2021)

gyprock said:


> Presonus didn’t identify which plug-in was causing problems. Their tech support just said that Mac crash dumps were usually the result of a plug-in fault.


Haha okay... "usually" indeed doesn't help that much  "Usually" you can see which plug-in crashed in the crash dump (on both Win and Mac).


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## Synetos (Jan 30, 2021)

jmauz said:


> Cubase on a PC or Logic. Pro Tools on a Mac is quite solid too IME.
> 
> After 20+ years working on DAWs most of the 'bugginess' I've experienced had to do with hardware issues/incompatibilities. Also, never EVER upgrade to a new version until you've waited at least 6 months and several rev's have been released.


Agreed...I should have waited on Nuendo and Cubase 11. I never do, so I guess it's my own fault. I can "wish" DAW programmers would test more, but I can also not be an early adopter and let the live Beta release work itself out.


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## Synetos (Jan 30, 2021)

PaulieDC said:


> Cubase 11 for Win10 has been pretty good (started on 10 nearly 2 years ago). For tracking and mixing I've used Studio One v2/3/4 for 6 years on Windows and it's always been stellar. Switched to Cubase in 2019 (as mentioned) for my tower but now returned to Studio One v5.1 on my laptop, and as expected, rock solid.
> 
> My vote for reliability is Studio One just from years of using it. However, I have zero experience with any other DAWs.
> 
> I have learned NOT to install the NVidia HD Audio driver when there's a video driver update. That alone can send ANY DAW into a frenzy.


Agreed on the Nvidia driver. I disable onboard audio in BIOS, and I never use my 4k monitor for audio playback. So there's no reason to have the nvidia driver installed.


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## Synetos (Jan 30, 2021)

gyprock said:


> I’ve been using Studio One on a Mac and it’s rock solid. However I recently purchased one of Dirk’s CTO templates that I believe he created on a Windows machine. Every time I disabled/enabled a track of this template, my iMac would crash. If I imported the tracks into a new project everything was fine. Go figure. In this case, it appears the file format created on Windows is the issue. Presonus looked at my crash report and said it was related to a plug-in. If so, why could I create a brand new project with the same plugins and it wouldn’t crash? These are the types of problems that define how you rate the stability of a DAW. If I never attempted to import the template into a new project then my impression of the DAW would have been negative whereas now I think it is solid.


There was something funky going on with Studio One and VEP, but that has worked itself out. I really think it was an eLicenser thing.


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## Synetos (Jan 30, 2021)

twincities said:


> reaper is incredibly stable. whether it hits the other marks you need or not is up to you, but if you need dependability, reaper is tough to beat.


Most of Reaper issues of me were GUI. The color is hard to see for my eyes, and it doesnt scale well on my 43" 4k. Cubase doesnt scale well either. Studio One scales beautifully.

I dont have any complaints about Reaper otherwise. If the GUI were more like Studio One, I would probably be using it for years already. That really is the weakest part of Reaper, IMO. If they would fix that, and not rely on user created custom skins, I think it would have far better adoption.

I tried messing with skins, but they seem version specific, and not part of the product release.


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## Synetos (Jan 30, 2021)

Wunderhorn said:


> It also depends on the complexity of your project/template and how many third party elements are involved. Running a complex audio rig is always a bit like a house of cards.


Yes, and I have run complex setups in the past. The cut over from 32bit to 64bit OS support was a rough couple years. I have so many plugins that I never use. I have thought about not installing them and it might limit added variables. 

OS updates and hardware driver for video/nic/etc have traditionally been the source of trouble. 

i see a pattern in most of my issues...early adoption of new software and hardware. If I were more disaplined to hold off, i might have a happier DAW life.

Just WAIT on all upgrades and updates! That is what I feel this thread scream at me to learn. It would solve many troubles for just about any DAW platform. The differences then would be features and workflow, and less about stability as that would be more equal across all DAWs.


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## Synetos (Jan 30, 2021)

gyprock said:


> The template had Valhalla Vintage and Eventide Blackhole. My new project had the same but they weren’t causing a problem. Presonus didn’t identify which plug-in was causing problems. Their tech support just said that Mac crash dumps were usually the result of a plug-in fault. My dialog with Presonus was useless. I was probably communicating with a junior tech guy.


I love that Eventide Blackhole Reverb. I own their whole suite of prodcuts, and that is the only one i really use.


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## ReleaseCandidate (Jan 30, 2021)

For me that's Live with Bitwig as second only because I used it way less (Live more than 10 years now).
Both last time crashed on me during beta (11 and 3.3), both problems were solved by each company.
But from all of the DAWs I did (or do) beta test, Ableton has both the best organized (using centercode) and most responsive beta test team (also the most beta testers). The other betas were Bitwig (still great support), and Studio One.
Reaper is quite stable too, but I can crash it using 2 plugins (that I know of). Cakewalk and Mixbus follow suit (but I don't use them much).

And yes, if a plugin misbehaves and the DAW crashes because of that, that's a problem of the DAW (and the plugin of course). If a plugin can crash another program, that program isn't robust enough. Actually you can blame Steinberg for their VST APIs too, they left too much to the implementation to decide.


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## vitocorleone123 (Jan 30, 2021)

EgM said:


> I use Studio One every day and have not experienced a crash for as long as I can remember. I do have a very stable PC where nothing else even crashes though.


Opposite experience. I’m using it every day and it crashes every day. Nothing else on the computer does. it’s very stable. Except for Studio One.

beginning to regret my purchase


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## Lukas (Jan 30, 2021)

ReleaseCandidate said:


> If a plugin can crash another program, that program isn't robust enough.


The host is not another program. When a plug-in crashes, the host crashes.



ReleaseCandidate said:


> Actually you can blame Steinberg for their VST APIs too, they left too much to the implementation to decide.


Are you a DAW or plug-in developer or why do you mean to know that?


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## ReleaseCandidate (Jan 30, 2021)

Lukas said:


> The host is not another program. When a plug-in crashes, the host crashes.


Well, actually the host is a program, but the plugin isn't, that phase was terribly worded by me.
Disregarding sandboxing, if a plugin crashes, the communication (the implementation of the VST API) between host and plugin caused that problem (if the same plugin doesn't crash everywhere).
A plugin is the same as any other (dynamically or statically loaded) library. If it crashes, both sides have to check what's going on, without pointing at the other.


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## EgM (Jan 30, 2021)

vitocorleone123 said:


> Opposite experience. I’m using it every day and it crashes every day. Nothing else on the computer does. it’s very stable. Except for Studio One.
> 
> beginning to regret my purchase


Curious, what's your audio interface, OS, SO version, plugins used in project when that happens?


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## TimCox (Jan 30, 2021)

Least buggy: Not DP, but I love it. I'm also on Windows and I know it's more stable on a Mac


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## ed buller (Jan 30, 2021)

I am using CUBASE 11. I switched to CUBASE ten years ago from Pro-Tools. Since using Cubase i've had maybe twenty crashes. None in the last 4 years. Pretty much all of them where the result of me doing something silly or installing a crap plug in. 

I have spent the last year making a record. I was in 4 studios. The most expensive was AIR..the cheapest was SARM. A used Pro-Tools. On every occasion in all 4 studios we had crashes. None stopped workflow for very long but the one in AIR required switching rigs.


I LOVE MY PC AND CUBASE


best

ed


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## Lukas (Jan 30, 2021)

ReleaseCandidate said:


> if a plugin crashes, the communication (the implementation of the VST API) between host and plugin caused that problem (if the same plugin doesn't crash everywhere).


Again a (wrong) generalization. Any piece of software can crash and the reasons can be anything. Wrong implementations of VST are just one of them.

Software development is sometimes slightly more complex than that.


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## ReleaseCandidate (Jan 30, 2021)

Lukas said:


> Again a (wrong) generalization. Any piece of software can crash and the reasons can be anything.


Yes, that's of course true (because it's a trivial generalization , but speaking about the 'normal' case with a sufficiently tested and stable plugin and DAW, the cause of the problem is the data sent between both. And that's the problem, ideally DAW and plugin support/developers talk to each other an the user, whereas sadly often both just point to the other. 



Lukas said:


> Wrong implementations of VST are just one of them.


The problem isn't even a "wrong", but a slightly different interpretation of the API. Apart from bugs (unforeseen situations) in the actual code, which account for most problems.



Lukas said:


> Software development is sometimes slightly more complex than that.


Exactly, that's why "it's the plugins fault, not the DAW's" a priori is (most of the time) not correct.


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## vitocorleone123 (Jan 30, 2021)

EgM said:


> Curious, what's your audio interface, OS, SO version, plugins used in project when that happens?


Clarett4pre USB latest software 
Win10 latest build
S1 latest build
500 plugins total... doesn’t really seem to matter what’s loaded or not - it’ll crash with one plug-in, closing a song, removing a presonus plug-in from the chain.

Some hardware - 3 synths and some effects.

It’s actually less stable than Waveform, and that’s saying something.


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## JohnG (Jan 30, 2021)

Some DAWs cater to people doing simpler projects. Consequently, maybe they crash less because they're not working on 10-minute-long cues with picture, many tempo changes, huge libraries, and so on? 

IDK. I'm sort of "who cares?" Unless the DAW crashes constantly (which means it's probably some user problem), use the one you like. People can make great music on just about any DAW nowadays.

Besides, there is no reliable generalisation because everyone is using different hardware, interfaces, sometimes OS versions differ -- nobody's rig is comparable. 

Over the years I have seen people complain that a program "doesn't work" when they are using it completely wrong, on a machine that is not up to minimum spec, or some other dopey thing.


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## shponglefan (Jan 30, 2021)

In absence of any empirical testing, there's no way to really determine which DAW is the most stable.

A lot of it is going to come down to individual use. If a DAW has a particular bug that person A constantly encounters (e.g. due to workflow or specific features they use), but person B doesn't, you'll wind up with two different perceptions of the same software.

In my own anecdotal perception, none of the DAWs I've mainly used (Reaper, Studio One, Bitwig Studio) have bugs that impede day-to-day use.


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## Crossroads (Jan 30, 2021)

Synetos said:


> I am curious if every DAW maker is equally failing to test their releases, or are there any that really don't break things with every change?
> 
> My experience is limited to Cubase/Nuendo and Studio One. I dabbled a bit with Logic and Reaper, but not enough to make an informed decision.
> 
> Something has to be better than Steinberg, because they break things and leave things broken, repeatedly.


To be honest, of all DAWs I tried Cubase seemed to be the most stable of all especially when having large projects. It is rock solid for me, always has been. I actually find it a miracle how stable it is, given it's incredibly large and old track record.

I guess it all comes down to luck, sometimes. I never experience issues with Cubase, others, well, a lot. It might not hurt to know that considering hardware and software, I always play on the safe side. Tried and true is a major selling point for me, down to every single component and combination of components inside my PC. But for me, seeing Cubase being used as the center of professional composer's setups worth millions does send a certain message, at least to me.

Reaper is supposed to be the most stable of all DAWs, but alas, that DAW is definitely not for me even though I like the idea. Ideals and real world experience can make quite a difference.


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## EgM (Jan 30, 2021)

vitocorleone123 said:


> Clarett4pre USB latest software
> Win10 latest build
> S1 latest build
> 500 plugins total... doesn’t really seem to matter what’s loaded or not - it’ll crash with one plug-in, closing a song, removing a presonus plug-in from the chain.
> ...


It's not saying much to be honest sorry to say, since thousands are using it daily for work without a crash. But I'm still curious about what could be causing it—tried checking windows logs for info? Also when it crashes, does it vanish or show any information?


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## vitocorleone123 (Jan 30, 2021)

EgM said:


> It's not saying much to be honest sorry to say, since thousands are using it daily for work without a crash. But I'm still curious about what could be causing it—tried checking windows logs for info? Also when it crashes, does it vanish or show any information?


Nope. Just crashes to the desktop. Truly the worst DAW experience I've ever had in terms of stability (I'm quite enjoying it, otherwise, though it's lacking some features I used on my less expensive DAW) - my other 2 DAWs crash, but not every day I use them. Anymore.

The .log file is virtually empty and hardly gets written to. Probably because it crashes so hard and so quickly to the desktop.

Again, it's just Studio One that behaves this way. Perhaps it just isn't mean to be. Some combo of things that's making it, and only it, unstable.


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## greggybud (Jan 30, 2021)

Synetos said:


> Clearly, they are not testing.


I think you may be confused.

With any beta testing, the objective is to find issues, bugs, problems, changes etc. The results of beta testing is then reported to the proper teams. It is then up to the developer to determine which bugs to address given their own planning and marketing data, the amount of time and financial resources, involved.

Beta testing only reports the issues. To suggest Steinberg isn't testing is making a poor assumption.


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## EgM (Jan 30, 2021)

vitocorleone123 said:


> Nope. Just crashes to the desktop. Truly the worst DAW experience I've ever had in terms of stability (I'm quite enjoying it, otherwise, though it's lacking some features I used on my less expensive DAW) - my other 2 DAWs crash, but not every day I use them. Anymore.
> 
> The .log file is virtually empty and hardly gets written to. Probably because it crashes so hard and so quickly to the desktop.
> 
> Again, it's just Studio One that behaves this way. Perhaps it just isn't mean to be. Some combo of things that's making it, and only it, unstable.


That's truly uncommon, I want to help you out on this issue, you should not be having these problems. Can you please check your windows logs under applications and see what's going on?


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## pondinthestream (Jan 30, 2021)

twincities said:


> reaper is incredibly stable. whether it hits the other marks you need or not is up to you, but if you need dependability, reaper is tough to beat.


That was not my experience, used Reaper for a very long time so was hyper invested and reluctant to shift. Now on Bitwig and Studio One and so much happier. Bitwig has been a bit flaky, S1 rock solid. Referring to midi and vsts in Reaper, not audio and fx, there it was very stable


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## PaulieDC (Jan 30, 2021)

Synetos said:


> Agreed on the Nvidia driver. I disable onboard audio in BIOS, and I never use my 4k monitor for audio playback. So there's no reason to have the nvidia driver installed.


Know what? I'm going to do just that. My audio interface is always on and I don't use internal audio for anything, why am I even letting it start its engines? Good tip, thanks.


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## PaulieDC (Jan 30, 2021)

vitocorleone123 said:


> Opposite experience. I’m using it every day and it crashes every day. Nothing else on the computer does. it’s very stable. Except for Studio One.
> 
> beginning to regret my purchase


Yikes, that's really not the norm with Studio One. The only time I ever had weirdness was when Waves released an update and something wasn't right but Waves pushed out a patch quickly if I'm remembering right. Or I did a clean reinstall, can't quite remember. Do you use any Waves plugins?


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## vitocorleone123 (Jan 31, 2021)

PaulieDC said:


> Yikes, that's really not the norm with Studio One. The only time I ever had weirdness was when Waves released an update and something wasn't right but Waves pushed out a patch quickly if I'm remembering right. Or I did a clean reinstall, can't quite remember. Do you use any Waves plugins?


No Waves anything. I’m a new user and S1 has had one update since I bought and installed it in November.


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## ReleaseCandidate (Jan 31, 2021)

JohnG said:


> Some DAWs cater to people doing simpler projects. Consequently, maybe they crash less because they're not working on 10-minute-long cues with picture, many tempo changes, huge libraries, and so on?


No, because you can't tell from the outside which things are more error prone for each DAW, that may cause trouble. Is a single 32GB Kontakt instance more or less complex than a soft synth that almist maxes out your CPU? Are 35 plugins on a track worse than a single one, that uses all of your CPU? Is a huge template that just uses VEPro and some FX plugins on 500 tracks less or more errorprone than one that uses 10 tracks but 30 instrument plugins in layers and the double the amount of FX? 
And bugs and crashes are two separate things, most bugs are annoying (even more than a crash), but don't crash the program. But bugs are more likely to occur in more complex and specially unusual projects/configurations/usages... because they haven't been tested (that much) as other, because your user base is different, and even with a public beta you donvt get enough tester for these test cases. 
With, for example Cubase, you know that there had been testing with usual sample orchestra user configurations. 
So, usually unusual usage is more prone to trigger errors that usual one. 

Another thing is old vs. new, there is no clear advantage on either side. But there is no really 'new' DAW in sufficiently high usage anyway.


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## IFM (Jan 31, 2021)

Well FWIW I’m on a Mac Pro 6,1 and was using Logic for a long time and have had a few crashes from time to time, However I’m usinf C11 for my current project and so far I’m on the 4th piece and zero crashes.


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## Saxer (Jan 31, 2021)

It often depends on the software version of the DAW. The last versions of a main update are often most stable. In Logic it was the last 7, the last 9 (can't remember the exact version) 10.2.8, 10.4.2 and 10.5.1 - always with the corresponding operating system of that time.
The current 10.6.1 is stable but the event list editor window is buggy as hell (already since 10.3 but they added some new extra bugs recently).

When new features are added it takes a while to debug all the new features and remove the new bugs that were added.


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## Synetos (Jan 31, 2021)

greggybud said:


> I think you may be confused.
> 
> With any beta testing, the objective is to find issues, bugs, problems, changes etc. The results of beta testing is then reported to the proper teams. It is then up to the developer to determine which bugs to address given their own planning and marketing data, the amount of time and financial resources, involved.
> 
> Beta testing only reports the issues. To suggest Steinberg isn't testing is making a poor assumption.


I am not confused. My point is that Steinberg didnt test it and released v11 when it was clearly not ready to be. 

When the first thing I do after installing Nuendo 11 is open up a basic template and discover that I cant set markers and things disappear in the Inspector, that made me super annoyed. There is no way v11.0.0 was tested properly, or it would never have made it out of QA. Hence, calling it a Beta release masquerading as a production release of v11. Sorry, not okay. If it is okay, as you suggest, to "choose" not to fix something like that before release, then you are making my point. It is not a business model I want to support going forward.

Hence, I started this thread to hear about other options I might want to consider, based on VI-Control hive mind perception of stability as a way to gauge how other DAW makers run their business.


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## dzilizzi (Jan 31, 2021)

The problem with running on PC's is there is no standard configuration. Which means no standard driver setup. A lot of problems in general are caused by drivers not getting along or using a generic driver that doesn't quite do the job. So then add a complicated program on top of that with multiple plugins from multiple companies who can't test every possible configuration and you get crashes. 

This was an issue for me for years with ProTools. Their recommended computers were always out of date and could only be found used. The plus side of their subscription service has been quicker bug fixes and it has been fairly stable. But my machine now has enough CPU and RAM to handle what I throw at it. It will still freeze at times but it doesn't crash with the freezes like it used to. It just tells me it is time to freeze or bounce finished tracks.


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## PaulieDC (Jan 31, 2021)

Synetos said:


> My point is that Steinberg didnt test it


That scenario actually does not exist with a major software company. When we write stuff, we HAVE to try to think up what 10,000 people might be doing or using. I’m not making excuses for Steinberg, some of the stuff should be tested BETTER, I grant you that. But there are levels of software testing that are mandatory in any software company. After two decades of doing this I can tell you the number one problem with buggy software: deadlines. Not lack of testing.

Maybe better said: Lack of ample testing because of… deadlines.


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## greggybud (Jan 31, 2021)

PaulieDC said:


> That scenario actually does not exist with a major software company. When we write stuff, we HAVE to try to think up what 10,000 people might be doing or using. I’m not making excuses for Steinberg, some of the stuff should be tested BETTER, I grant you that. But there are levels of software testing that are mandatory in any software company. After two decades of doing this I can tell you the number one problem with buggy software: deadlines. Not lack of testing.
> 
> Maybe better said: Lack of ample testing because of… deadlines.


I agree with better and deadlines. But don't forget money. Money is important. I have many public forum rants about some most seemingly simple on/off function close window issues which are fixable, yet take an incredible amount of re-write = lots of money. It's not always as things appear based on function alone.


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## PaulieDC (Jan 31, 2021)

greggybud said:


> I agree with better and deadlines. But don't forget money. Money is important. I have many public forum rants about some most seemingly simple on/off function close window issues which are fixable, yet take an incredible amount of re-write = lots of money. It's not always as things appear based on function alone.


True. Problem is, compiling the program or .exe file... after the latest version is compiled and released, they are already hammering away at the next list of changes. A simple thing like you mentioned COULD be fixed in 30 seconds if it's discovered or suggested in a forum (or from feedback), but you can't send out that one change. You already have other changes in the code, and to compile out a new version means all you did goes with the "simple change", and no software company can or will do that. Sometimes there's a separate support file that they can push out but if the change is in the code for the main app, it's just going to have to wait until a future release, if that makes sense.

That's just one scenario of course. Ever have a feature that worked end up being borked on a new version? (Photoshop Print preview in 2016 ThankYouVeryMuch, took Adobe TWO YEARS to fix it). There's your rushed deadline. Because of... you said it already. MONEY.

Amazing all this stuff eve works, lol.


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## ReleaseCandidate (Feb 1, 2021)

PaulieDC said:


> You already have other changes in the code, and to compile out a new version means all you did goes with the "simple change", and no software company can or will do that.


Of course nobody does. Because with a working source code versioning system (actually even without one you'd just copy the code) you have a branch of the released version to do bugfixes to that.
Yes, there surely are companies that produce throw-away programs like that, but not fixing bugs in the currently released version is luckily not the norm.


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## TomislavEP (Feb 1, 2021)

I'm probably biased on this, but I have to say that I haven't had any serious issues with REAPER ever since I've switched from Pro Tools shortly after PT12 came out. I'm using PC as a basis of my DAW system and had embraced Windows 10 very early. Never had any deal-breaking problems there either, even with Windows updates that were known for causing problems for many people. I'm guessing that all depends on particular hardware and software configuration, drivers, etc. And just having dumb luck, I suppose.


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## Synetos (Feb 1, 2021)

PaulieDC said:


> Maybe better said: Lack of ample testing because of… deadlines.


You are right. Of course they did "some" testing, but for whatever the reason, clearly not enough. Maybe they even knew about the bug that I hit right off the bat, but chose to fix it in the mix after the fact so they can hit the revenue dates. If I knew that to be true, I would certainly not support that going forward.

Lesson Learned = Assuming the second mouse gets the cheese without triggering the trap, I will just stop being the "only fools rush in" person and let things stabilize before installing updated or version releases. Maybe I need to assume all new releases are broken until the street proves otherwise.


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## PaulieDC (Feb 1, 2021)

Synetos said:


> Your are right. Of course they did "some" testing, but for whatever the reason, clearly not enough. Maybe they even knew about the bug that I hit right off the bat, but chose to fix it in the mix after the fact so they can hit the revenue dates. If I knew that to be true, I would certainly not support that going forward.
> 
> Lesson Learned = Assuming the second mouse gets the cheese without triggering the trap, I will just stop being the "only fools rush in" person and let things stabilize before installing updated or version releases. Maybe I need to assume all new releases are broken until the street proves otherwise.


Good approach. There IS the factor where the developers might get it right but didn't (couldn't) count on an incompatibility with a certain driver, Windows Update, etc. Man, Sonarworks Reference 4 is my latest acquisition and I love what it does but putting that on a machine with NVidia HD Audio drivers is like mixing vinegar and baking soda, what a mess. And you don;t catch it at first, all seems well if you just use the plugin on your Main Out. I don't NEED the NVidia audio drivers and have since uninstalled them, but I've always let the whole NVidia package install after each video update was pushed out. Perfect example something outside the code getting missed. I DO think an audio company that writes audio software does need to think proactively and install whatever other audio junk us users might have on our machines, knowingly or not, so it can be tested.

So if you have a serious reliance on a DAW, income or not, it's best to hold off on any X.0 release until that first patch gets released. If you earn 100% of your living with a DAW, wait for X.5 minimum. I'm a no-music-income orchestration passionate hobbyist with a day job of developing software (semiconductor manufacturing, nothing audio-related), so when the new latest-and-greatest comes out I jump on it right away, looking for weird stuff and incompatibilities. I do that with Adobe products as well, having a photo biz as a small side job, and that has bit me hard in the past. Can't help it, I'm a hopeless early adopter, lol, but if you're a pro composer, let us tech goofballs take the hit first.


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## PaulieDC (Feb 1, 2021)

ReleaseCandidate said:


> Of course nobody does. Because with a working source code versioning system (actually even without one you'd just copy the code) you have a branch of the released version to do bugfixes to that.
> Yes, there surely are companies that produce throw-away programs like that, but not fixing bugs in the currently released version is luckily not the norm.


Right. Yikes, a stream of X.0.1 fixes would end in a nightmare. Microsoft learned that with XP Service Pack 1. They finally had to release XP Service Pack 2 which pretty much was a total replacement of most of the system files. I remember certain software vendors actually putting DO NOT INSTALL ON WINDOWS XP SP1 on the packaging.

Wow... packaging... almost forgot we used to have that. Actually, we DO... from all of the SSDs we have to buy to hold all of this stuff.


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## ed buller (Feb 1, 2021)

Crossroads said:


> To be honest, of all DAWs I tried Cubase seemed to be the most stable of all especially when having large projects. It is rock solid for me, always has been. I actually find it a miracle how stable it is, given it's incredibly large and old track record.


Yup....I only personally know two Hollywood composers who don't use it . They are Logic and DP. When I was at Remote everybody used CUBASE. Bleeding Fingers too. That's 30 plus composers all running the same software and I can't remember any lunches where they'd all bitch about crashes. Since I installed 11 ( sept ) it's never crashed . 

best

ed


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## ZeroZero (Feb 3, 2021)

greggybud said:


> Cubase is one of the oldest and most feature rich DAWs. Think of of a 30-year old luxury home continually adding rooms and being remodeled for a bigger family over 30 years. When making a new addition, you still have an old foundation. Electrical, plumbing, all kinds of potential code violations can arise.
> 
> I won't address the gripes and complaints of some of the kids threatening to move out to that better house.
> 
> ...


I have been with cubase for decades - since Cubase score 31 years ago. Every so often they have had the courage to complete rewrite Cubase from the ground up, Atari, Windows, Score, VST, SX. Many times these rewrites have completely reconfigured the DAW. I think this might be the case when MIDI 2 get's realised - hopefully Cubase 12.
Frankly I find it mostly stable, unless I do something foolish. Yes there are some minor bugs that have been around for decades, but no show stoppers here. I think it's a mature, capable and innovative DAW. I would not change it for anything. I just wish they would improve expression maps, but this too would change under MIDI 2.


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## Synetos (Feb 11, 2021)

I have been with Cubase since v4.x, so not as long as you, but a decent amount of time...like 14ish years.

I was probably a bit harsh on them in this thread, but in part I think it was because I was annoyed that i upgraded one of my Cubase Pro 10.5 licenses to Nuendo, 40 days before the v11 release, and they decided to turn the old 45 day grace period into 30 day. I was not alone in that frustration, and there were several of us complaining on the forum after the Nuendo 11 preview. Steinberg deleted the entire thread of comments.

So, I will be honest enough to say that put a bad taste in my mouth. My own fault I guess, but why does an upgrade have to be so secret? Why not build anticipation? I guess it is to grab a few bucks from the suckers like me.

In the end, I ended up paying almost $600 to upgrade Cubase Pro 10.5 to Nuendo 11. In the process, I lost a Cubase license. I could have purchased a new Nuendo license on a 50% off sale for less than that, and still had my spare Cubase license.

So, after all that, they got me to be critical of flaws I might have normally taken in stride. They also had me annoyed enough to seriously look at Studio One V5, and I kind of like it. In fact, I like it a lot.
Perhaps my Nuendo/Cubase days have reached a logical end.


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## ControlCentral (Feb 11, 2021)

NekujaK said:


> I've used Reason for nearly 20 years and I can count on one hand the number of times Reason has crashed or glitched out on me due to it's own native functionality.
> 
> When VST support was introduced about 10 years ago, there was a slight number of crash incidents, but all were due to compatibility issues with specifc plugins. Reason has improved its VST handlng significantly since then, including shielding the Reason engine from VST processing, so that if a plugin should crash, the crash is isolated to the plugin and doesn't affect the Reason environment.


I have a bunch of DAWs and I agree that Reason has been #1 for stability. I don't remember if it has ever crashed on me. As @synetos said, it's the QA. really good. Reaper is #2-- rarely crashes, is super-light which helps, small incremental updates and quite graceful when it does crash; I'm back up in no time with full auto-backups of session and undo history. I'm thinkking of adding Cubase to the lineup b/c although I'm somewhat of a generalist I want a dedicated midi Daw. I installed the base version to try and it has crashed my entire computer already a number of times. Not encouraging.


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## ControlCentral (Feb 11, 2021)

Synetos said:


> ...Personally, I have remodeled several 100+ year old homes in my lifetime and no matter how much time and effort I put in them, its still an old home with a squeaks and smells than never go away. Sometimes building something new from the ground up is better. I did that a few times too. No home was perfect, but there is something to be said about new and shiny...no squeaks and no smells of yesterday lingering...


This is exactly how I feel about Samplitude. Great DAW for a lot of reasons and I love it to bits but you just feel that legacy code creaking in the background, just layers and layers piled on top...


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## JohnG (Feb 11, 2021)

Synetos said:


> let things stabilize before installing updated or version releases. Maybe I need to assume all new releases are broken until the street proves otherwise.


I think this is a good idea too. I use DP and I am accustomed to it, so it seems fine to me. Nevertheless, I often wait a little while before installing most updates.

That said, the recent updates to DP have been fantastic, so it's sometimes hard to wait!


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## PaulieDC (Feb 11, 2021)

Synetos said:


> ...are there any that really don't break things with every change?







couldn't resist...


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## dzilizzi (Feb 11, 2021)

PaulieDC said:


> couldn't resist...


You obviously don't actually own a pen with nibs. The nibs break, ink regularly gets everywhere and messes up your writing. Or it runs out of ink every other word (bar). Fountain pens with cartridges aren't much better. Does look pretty though.

That is a really cool nib. Never seen one like it. Don't think it will work on the piece it is sitting on. Off to look at pen nibs now since I have everything on the Spitfire sale and Opus has been delayed indefinitely, I actually have money for other things.


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## Synetos (Feb 11, 2021)

PaulieDC said:


> couldn't resist...


I actually often used a quill ink pen on staff paper back in college. Always looked cool when I was done. Sadly...as I recall...there was nothing like good old baroque counterpoint rules to kill my creativity. haha


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## Synetos (Feb 11, 2021)

dzilizzi said:


> You obviously don't actually own a pen with nibs. The nibs break, ink regularly gets everywhere and messes up your writing. Or it runs out of ink every other word (bar). Fountain pens with cartridges aren't much better. Does look pretty though.
> 
> That is a really cool nib. Never seen one like it. Don't think it will work on the piece it is sitting on. Off to look at pen nibs now since I have everything on the Spitfire sale and Opus has been delayed indefinitely, I actually have money for other things.


Looks more like one used for making blank staff lines.


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## PaulieDC (Feb 11, 2021)

dzilizzi said:


> You obviously don't actually own a pen with nibs. The nibs break, ink regularly gets everywhere and messes up your writing. Or it runs out of ink every other word (bar). Fountain pens with cartridges aren't much better. Does look pretty though.
> 
> That is a really cool nib. Never seen one like it. Don't think it will work on the piece it is sitting on. Off to look at pen nibs now since I have everything on the Spitfire sale and Opus has been delayed indefinitely, I actually have money for other things.


That was an 8-second google search and grabbing the first thing that looked decent, lol.


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## Synetos (Feb 11, 2021)

PaulieDC said:


> That was an 8-second google search and grabbing the first thing that looked decent, lol.


Now you are gonna get an offer to buy them in your Facebook feed for weeks.


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## joebaggan (Feb 11, 2021)

For me, Reaper has been the buggiest, and the most ugly thing I've ever seen. But can't really complain based on the price.


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## Tremendouz (Feb 11, 2021)

joebaggan said:


> For me, Reaper has been the buggiest, and the most ugly thing I've ever seen. But can't really complain based on the price.


It's really interesting how different experiences people can have based on hardware, the plugins used and other factors. To me Reaper has been absolutely rock solid on Windows 10 and two PCs save some 4-5 plugins that caused issues.


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## javarnayu (Feb 11, 2021)

Before I was working with Cubase and I switched to Reaper, and although Cubase was also quite stable I have to admit that with the same plugins installed in both daw, Reaper is more stable and more efficient than Cubase.


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## dylanmixer (Feb 12, 2021)

Cubase 11 is lightning fast and air tight on PC.


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