# Help me choosing a DAW



## srodrigo (Aug 5, 2022)

Hi,

I hope this is the right subforum 

I'm looking for a DAW. I'm new to music production. I used CakeWalk 20+ years ago to enter all notes of classical piano pieces and make it sound "good" there (weird hobby...), but apart from that, I've barely touched a DAW since. I installed Cubase and Ableton trials 1-2 years ago, but didn't play much with them. Cubase felt alright, but too many clumsy issues with multiple windows and screen resolutions. Ableton felt just too difficult to use.

Since I've heard, it's all about the workflow, so I'll summarise what I'm looking for. I'm a pianist and, for now, I only compose piano music. My workflow is something like this:
1. Mess around on my piano for a while (days) until I get something I can start working with. I usually record on a USB directly from my digital piano (maybe there are better ways, a.k.a. using a DAW, ha).
2. Write the score. This part is important for me, as I don't like the piano roll stuff on a DAW, and I'd like to sell the sheetmusic. Currently using Musescore as v3 is great. I also like Dorico though, and was about to get the entry version, but I'm okay with Musescore for now.
3. Refine, iterating over 1-2 as many times as needed, until I have a final score.
4. Play it and record it in midi. I'm planning to do this with Pianoteq (or some VSL piano, but probably Pianoteq), and use this VST as the final VI sound.
5. Mix and master the final recording ready to be put out there.

NOTE: I haven't got passed step 3 yet  I hope I haven't missed anything.

I _might_ branch out later on and add some orchestral parts, but it'll probably be mostly piano for a while. This is something to consider though if some DAWs have some nice VIs to get started, but not paramount right now, as you need good third-party orchestral VIs anyway.

I won't get into electronic music (I know some DAWs are recommended specifically for that, so just mentioning). What I make is either piano covers or sort of classical/pop/film piano music. I'm planning to get Pianoteq or VSL anyway, so I don't care much about the stock piano VIs.

I know that the best way is to try a good amount of DAWs, and I plan on trying a few, but it might be a rabbit hole. That's why I'm not asking for a final recommendation before purchase (obviously), but a bit of guidance to get started and focus on 2-3 DAWs max. to try out.

Unfortunately, I might have to rule out Logic Pro. As good as it looks, and supposedly it comes with nice plugins to get started, I don't have a mac and I don't think I want to marry Apple again. Also, a high end mac is ridiculously expensive. I might have to get one for other work anyway, but it might be a cheap one for very specific things, so maybe it's better to assume this is not an option.

Cubase could suit me. But I wasn't blown away precisely. Actually, I found quite a few annoyances with the UI, and felt slow. Also, their usb-licenser obsession is annoying. Being in the same "ecosystem" as Dorico might be a bonus point eventually?

Studio One is getting a lot of praise and people say it's easy to use. This is the next one I was planning to try. But I've barely had a look at their website, so no idea yet.

I tried FL Studio for a bit and it was... okay? Great piano roll, but it's not something I'm that interested in anyway.

Ableton felt like a plane cockpit, I couldn't get passed the door.

I'm a programmer, but tuning Reaper ad infinitum is not something I'm interested in.

Is there any other DAW I'm overlooking that sounds like it'd be a good one to explore for me?

Thanks in advance!


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## pcohen12 (Aug 5, 2022)

Based on your info, Studio One definitely sounds worth looking into.

One other idea is to invest in Dorico and do everything there - record ideas, engrave the results, adjust MIDI data for playback as necessary, pull in external instrument plugins and effects, and export to audio. (See the "Playback" section here: https://www.steinberg.net/dorico/features/) Since it seems notation is very important and you have fairly "simple" needs otherwise that may not require a full-fledged DAW, Dorico may be a better overall solution and workflow for your use case.


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## WhiteNoiz (Aug 5, 2022)

Well, Cakewalk has been free for some time now for starters.

S1 is a good all-rounder, I guess you could call it an easier and somewhat cut down Cubase, with some unique features. Generally fun to use. (Pretty sure it has a subscription plan, so you could try out the full featured version; I think it also has Notion with all its sound expansions, so you can experiment in that too for orchestrations and stuff, without going directly to the DAW)

Reaper has skins, not sure what else you'd want to program yourself? There are already premade scripts and skins for it, I'd guess you won't have to program anything yourself. Big plus is its resource usage, it feels optimised and light-weight. From my experience, CPU usage is far lower than S1 and it's more stable.

You won't need a high-end mac for simple piano pieces, unless you plan to expand a lot (though it seems unclear by what you said). You'd probably be just fine with a basic Mini.


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## greggybud (Aug 5, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Also, their usb-licenser obsession is annoying.


Steinberg has changed their copy protection system. The new protection system is SAM, Steinberg Activation Manager. No usb-eLicenser needed.


srodrigo said:


> Cubase could suit me. But I wasn't blown away precisely. Actually, I found quite a few annoyances with the UI, and felt slow.


Well, for me workflow is faster than anything else I have tried. But...I use 4 video display monitors and the Cubase Key Commands, Macros, Logical Editor, and PLE, are controlled under Metagrid, and take advantage of the 4 Cubase mix consoles. If I were to attempt Cubase on a single display no matter the size, I would resign in disgust.

So I can't emphasize nearly enough, use what you naturally feel comfortable with. Cubase is the most feature-rich DAW and that can be a 2-edged sword.

Do check out Dorico.


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## srodrigo (Aug 5, 2022)

pcohen12 said:


> Based on your info, Studio One definitely sounds worth looking into.
> 
> One other idea is to invest in Dorico and do everything there - record ideas, engrave the results, adjust MIDI data for playback as necessary, pull in external instrument plugins and effects, and export to audio. (See the "Playback" section here: https://www.steinberg.net/dorico/features/) Since it seems notation is very important and you have fairly "simple" needs otherwise that may not require a full-fledged DAW, Dorico may be a better overall solution and workflow for your use case.


Thanks for the suggestion. That's something I hadn't even though of, but might be an option. I know that most folks out there use DAWs even if they just play the piano, but tend to add a bit of strings and effects. Maybe they are using a cannon to kill a fly, I don't know. Or maybe they aren't that much into music notation (some of them are though). One of the guys I follow literally sells sheet music that look like straight from a midi file, not even bothered to add proper grace notes... I don't want to do this.

I just wonder how powerful Dorico is as a "DAW". It's got EQ and others, but I wonder if it's got useful features for mastering. For example, Studio One has a feature to adjust the volume for each streaming platform, which is cool.

My only fear would be to invest on it and then have to get a DAW anyway, compared to getting a DAW from the start and living with Musescore (which is so far quite decent and produces nice looking sheet music). The Pro version of Dorico costs as much as Cubase :/ Notation is quite important for me and Dorico has obviously been on my radar for a long time. I just wonder whether I'll invest a lot on it and then find a wall down the road and have to get a DAW on top.

I'm also wondering about how natural it'd sound to export a Dorico score. I had in mind to play myself on the DP and work with that as a base, doing any midi editings needed, but mostly allowing for a realistic play. There are things that come to my mind like delays and rubatos that might sound too artificial/robotic? The music notation side was more to provide quality sheet music, but I was thinking of that as a separate thing to the recording itself.



WhiteNoiz said:


> Well, Cakewalk has been free for some time now for starters.
> 
> S1 is a good all-rounder, I guess you could call it an easier and somewhat cut down Cubase, with some unique features. Generally fun to use. (Pretty sure it has a subscription plan, so you could try out the full featured version; I think it also has Notion with all its sound expansions, so you can experiment in that too for orchestrations and stuff, without going directly to the DAW)
> 
> ...


I wonder if Studio One really has Notion. The features page is a bit confusing. It says _Notion Integration_, but then it doesn't tick _Notion_ right below. Weird. Maybe it's some sort of Notion inside S1 instead of as a standalone application? Maybe this is a dumb question, I've never used any of both I'm afraid.

The thing I've read about Reaper is that it's incredibly customisable, which is cool, but it's quite difficult to get to a good workflow. Some people recommended staying away from it if you want to focus on producing music instead of grooming the DAW. A bit like Linux in the OS's world. I'm not sure I want to go that route given I compose and play on the side, unfortunately, so I don't have much spare time.



greggybud said:


> Steinberg has changed their copy protection system. The new protection system is SAM, Steinberg Activation Manager. No usb-eLicenser needed.
> 
> Well, for me workflow is faster than anything else I have tried. But...I use 4 video display monitors and the Cubase Key Commands, Macros, Logical Editor, and PLE, are controlled under Metagrid, and take advantage of the 4 Cubase mix consoles. If I were to attempt Cubase on a single display no matter the size, I would resign in disgust.
> 
> ...


Thanks for letting me know about Steinberg's copy protection! That's a good thing.

I typically use 2 screens (1 when I'm on holiday). But even 2 was a bit clumsy as one was 4K and the other was was not. Good to know that it'd be a bit of a pain on one screen. I guess this might be for most DAWs though anyway?

I'm planning to try out S1 and see if I can try Cubase again (probably not on the same machine). I've got Dorico SE, but I could install the trial with all the features to compare too.


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## DaddyO (Aug 5, 2022)

Studio One does not include Notion. The Notion integration is for people who already (or will) own Notion.


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## ed buller (Aug 5, 2022)

Cubase...

best

e


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## greggybud (Aug 5, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> I typically use 2 screens (1 when I'm on holiday). But even 2 was a bit clumsy as one was 4K and the other was was not. Good to know that it'd be a bit of a pain on one screen.


Well, I think with any DAW you evolve over time. I have "grown into" Cubase since the late 90s. Personally, I like to minimize my clicks, no matter if it's the mouse, or pressing a button on Metagrid. Therefore I'm the type of guy who opts for turning my head and eyes slightly to view 1 of 4 monitors, as opposed to switching so many _Workspaces_ and _Configurations_ on fewer monitors. Don't get me wrong, I still do a lot of switching Cubase windows, just not like I would if I were held to 1 video display. Key Editor, Drum Editor and Sample Editor are most common for me.

Cubase has a huge advantage if you do in-depth midi editing. 

Also, I don't use a big 4k. I use 2 34-inch ultra-wides, a 28inch ultra and 19inch normal. For me they just work better.


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## pcohen12 (Aug 5, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> I just wonder how powerful Dorico is as a "DAW". It's got EQ and others, but I wonder if it's got useful features for mastering. For example, Studio One has a feature to adjust the volume for each streaming platform, which is cool.


Yeah, very much understood. You can load in whatever plugins you want on the master channel for doing mastering, but it certainly won't be as flexible/featured as a DAW.



srodrigo said:


> I'm also wondering about how natural it'd sound to export a Dorico score. I had in mind to play myself on the DP and work with that as a base, doing any midi editings needed, but mostly allowing for a realistic play. There are things that come to my mind like delays and rubatos that might sound too artificial/robotic? The music notation side was more to provide quality sheet music, but I was thinking of that as a separate thing to the recording itself.


Gotcha...yeah, Dorico would be notation-first with audio/production as a (middle-class) secondary citizen, whereas any DAW will focus on the audio/production aspects with notation ranging from horrid to passable. I will say that delays/rubatos are going to be frustrating no matter what software you work with - you'll either need to set up some intricate tempo mapping, or just be okay with the beats/bars not meaning anything 😅

If it's helpful, Dorico goes on sale throughout the year, so if you are considering it, I wouldn't pay full price unless you really can't wait.


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## srodrigo (Aug 5, 2022)

DaddyO said:


> Studio One does not include Notion. The Notion integration is for people who already (or will) own Notion.


Thanks, that's certainly disappointing :/



greggybud said:


> Well, I think with any DAW you evolve over time. I have "grown into" Cubase since the late 90s. Personally, I like to minimize my clicks, no matter if it's the mouse, or pressing a button on Metagrid. Therefore I'm the type of guy who opts for turning my head and eyes slightly to view 1 of 4 monitors, as opposed to switching so many _Workspaces_ and _Configurations_ on fewer monitors. Don't get me wrong, I still do a lot of switching Cubase windows, just not like I would if I were held to 1 video display. Key Editor, Drum Editor and Sample Editor are most common for me.
> 
> *Cubase has a huge advantage if you do in-depth midi editing. *
> 
> Also, I don't use a big 4k. I use 2 34-inch ultra-wides, a 28inch ultra and 19inch normal. For me they just work better.


Interesting. Would you mind explaining why it's got such an advantage for midi editing? I don't think I'd need massive editing (maybe yes), but good to know.



pcohen12 said:


> Yeah, very much understood. You can load in whatever plugins you want on the master channel for doing mastering, but it certainly won't be as flexible/featured as a DAW.
> 
> 
> Gotcha...yeah, Dorico would be notation-first with audio/production as a (middle-class) secondary citizen, whereas any DAW will focus on the audio/production aspects with notation ranging from horrid to passable. I will say that delays/rubatos are going to be frustrating no matter what software you work with - you'll either need to set up some intricate tempo mapping, or just be okay with the beats/bars not meaning anything 😅
> ...


Maybe it'd be enough even with the limitations, who knows. It's just the _all or nothing_ you can face  But maybe with a free DAW I could sort out the final touches. Difficult to know, that's the thing!

Since I don't really have experience with this, I might be oversimplifying it (or overcomplicating it). But I thought it might be easier to keep the score writing separate, then I play it to record it in midi, tweak velocities and a few mistakes here and there, render it with the VI/VST (hopefully the same used for the recording), and finish the rest of the production process. I'd imagine that writing the score and trying to make it sound natural would be more difficult? So I'm not too worried about having two "copies" of the work, one on "paper", and the other one on audio. Maybe I'm just delusional though :D

I'm not sure whether Dorico Elements would be enough, specially if I need the DAW features. Definitely not paying the full price if I needed the Pro version. I think I saw a sale not long ago though, lol. Cubase as well if I'm not wrong.


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## Quelconque (Aug 5, 2022)

DaddyO said:


> Studio One does not include Notion. The Notion integration is for people who already (or will) own Notion.



While it's true S1 doesn't include Notion (it's included with the suscription though), it has a nice score editor. 

I too like more to write on the score than to use piano roll, and S1 is perfect for me for that. It does lack some option like writing notes above the measures (I would very much like to be able to write my chords on it) and it is not fit for printing parts, but once you're over with the DAW parts you can export directly to Notion or just export the midi to Musescore and edit the score there. 

Cubase, does have a score editor too, but while more powerful than the one in S1, it's not very userfriendly. Overwise, if not for the score editor I think that once you're used to it, Cubase is better than S1.


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## WhiteNoiz (Aug 6, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> I wonder if Studio One really has Notion. The features page is a bit confusing. It says _Notion Integration_, but then it doesn't tick _Notion_ right below. Weird. Maybe it's some sort of Notion inside S1 instead of as a standalone application? Maybe this is a dumb question, I've never used any of both I'm afraid.


There were suggestions by users to integrate them at some point, not sure what happened with that. From what I remember Notion can load 3rd party VSTs, maybe it has some direct import to S1 option but as far as I know you can't open Notion inside S1 or use it along the piano roll or something. But it's been some time, maybe that's changed. I mostly meant that it's included in the subscription:








PreSonus Sphere | PreSonus







www.presonus.com







srodrigo said:


> The thing I've read about Reaper is that it's incredibly customisable, which is cool, but it's quite difficult to get to a good workflow. Some people recommended staying away from it if you want to focus on producing music instead of grooming the DAW. A bit like Linux in the OS's world. I'm not sure I want to go that route given I compose and play on the side, unfortunately, so I don't have much spare time.


As always, it depends... If you want fancy GUIS, packaged FX etc. It can definitely get things done if you vibe with it. In terms of messing with the piano roll, MIDI, recording etc., it's pretty much like everything else. You'll have to explore it. But other than eye candy, it doesn't really miss anything.

You'd probably be just fine with Musescore and Reaper. At least for your current workflow. (But Notion was really good with making fast inputs/editing)

As for if the included sounds are worth it... I think they're passable, at least as a demo. Attached an example with just strings I did as an exercise (just input everything with the mouse and a generic, preset mastering fx chain )


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## srodrigo (Aug 6, 2022)

Quelconque said:


> While it's true S1 doesn't include Notion (it's included with the suscription though), it has a nice score editor.
> 
> I too like more to write on the score than to use piano roll, and S1 is perfect for me for that. It does lack some option like writing notes above the measures (I would very much like to be able to write my chords on it) and it is not fit for printing parts, but once you're over with the DAW parts you can export directly to Notion or just export the midi to Musescore and edit the score there.
> 
> Cubase, does have a score editor too, but while more powerful than the one in S1, it's not very userfriendly. Overwise, if not for the score editor I think that once you're used to it, Cubase is better than S1.


Thanks for the info about the score editor in S1. I thought the Cubase one would be better, but looks like it's not.

I really wonder whether I'd use the score editor at all though... I really need to write down my scores before I record the piece/song, at which point I'd use Musescore (or Dorico if I were rich). It helps me in many ways, often to realise the song it's actually unfinished and I'm just improvising every time I play it. So if I record the song playing it myself after the score is final, I don't think I'd ever use the embedded notation editor.

I can't currently think of a reason why I would have a different workflow. Definitely not writing the score and letting the DAW play it for me for the final recording, I want to play it myself (which is why I'm probably discarding the Dorico-only option, despite looking quite interesting). If I were to record other stuff like orchestral, maybe things would change (and even though, you can play the parts with the keyboard). But mostly for piano, I'll probably be okay.



WhiteNoiz said:


> There were suggestions by users to integrate them at some point, not sure what happened with that. From what I remember Notion can load 3rd party VSTs, maybe it has some direct import to S1 option but as far as I know you can't open Notion inside S1 or use it along the piano roll or something. But it's been some time, maybe that's changed. I mostly meant that it's included in the subscription:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm not too keen on paying for a subscription. Not that paying $400+ is great either .

Reaper was my third option. The issue is that it's not as cheap as people sell. $225 for a commercial license at full price is still almost half as much as S1 and almost one third of Cubase, but is not peanuts either. I might give it a go too and see, maybe it does the job for me. But I think I'm starting today with S1 and see how it goes.

Thanks for sharing this recording! It indeed sounds passable. Good to have an idea


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## srodrigo (Aug 6, 2022)

BTW I read on some other thread that the CEO of PreSonus triggered the alarm bells on some interview. Some folks think he wants to convert S1 into another GarageBand. I'm not sure this is a valid concern as they have 3 different versions and looks like he meant to make the free one dead simple. But I still wonder whether Cubase is a safer bet. I don't want to have to move to another DAW, ideally.


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## pcohen12 (Aug 6, 2022)

@srodrigo If you do decide to give S1 a go and prefer one-time purchases over subscriptions, it looks like @leo007 has a copy of S1 Professional available for only $170 here! Leo is a kind, first-class, awesome dude (I actually bought my copy of S1 from him 🙂)


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## pulpfiction (Aug 6, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Reaper was my third option. The issue is that it's not as cheap as people sell. $225 for a commercial license at full price is still almost half as much as S1 and almost one third of Cubase, but is not peanuts either. I might give it a go too and see, maybe it does the job for me. But I think I'm starting today with S1 and see how it goes.


That is not quite right.

"You may use the discounted license if:
You are an individual or business using REAPER commercially, and yearly gross revenue does not exceed USD $20,000, "



REAPER | Purchase


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## WhiteNoiz (Aug 6, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Reaper was my third option. The issue is that it's not as cheap as people sell. $225 for a commercial license at full price is still almost half as much as S1 and almost one third of Cubase, but is not peanuts either.


As mentioned above, you can get it for 60 if you make less than 20k... Although technically you can use it as a permanent trial (if you just wanna test it, at least). (Cakewalk is still free, haha)


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## Semarus (Aug 6, 2022)

While I would strongly recommend Cubase generally speaking, as it's my DAW of choice, I would implore giving Dorico 4 another look. It functions very similarly like a DAW with a mixer section, robust automation, including VST support for the mastering plugins you like to use, and even its own brand of expression mapping for your favorite VST instruments/sample libraries.
There are a multitude of videos and recorded live streams (which they do regularly), demonstrating all of this and more on the Dorico YouTube channel.


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## srodrigo (Aug 6, 2022)

pulpfiction said:


> That is not quite right.
> 
> "You may use the discounted license if:
> You are an individual or business using REAPER commercially, and yearly gross revenue does not exceed USD $20,000, "
> ...





WhiteNoiz said:


> As mentioned above, you can get it for 60 if you make less than 20k... Although technically you can use it as a permanent trial (if you just wanna test it, at least). (Cakewalk is still free, haha)


Yah, I saw that. I'm not aiming that high yet. I might never make $20k/year, let alone in the near future. So maybe that is not a concern... I'll see if I can try it out too.

I've still heard that it's more complicated to use than other DAWs, and relies quite a bit on the community contributions (model that I don't like at all even if it decreases the price, at least in software development, it ends up being a mess and some stuff turns into abandonware eventually). Actually, I don't have data about this, but reading this forum it seems like more people move from Reaper to another DAW, for convenience, than the other way around.

Anyway, the best thing is to try it out myself and see.



Semarus said:


> While I would strongly recommend Cubase generally speaking, as it's my DAW of choice, I would implore giving Dorico 4 another look. It functions very similarly like a DAW with a mixer section, robust automation, including VST support for the mastering plugins you like to use, and even its own brand of expression mapping for your favorite VST instruments/sample libraries.
> There are a multitude of videos and recorded live streams (which they do regularly), demonstrating all of this and more on the Dorico YouTube channel.


I wonder how many of those features are only on the Pro version. I'll check it out and have a look at the videos too. Still makes me a bit anxious that looks like a DAW but it's not a DAW, so smells like facing some limitations eventually, but I might be getting the wrong feeling (I'm new to this after all ).

Dorico + Reaper might be an option compared to Cubase/S1 + Musescore. I promise I'll do my research. I'd be hesitant about getting the full version of Dorico though, in case I later need Cubase/S1 as well.

[off-topic]
From what I've seen, looks like Nuendo is something like Cubase + more stuff. Cubase has some scoring editor but Dorico is better. Then Dorico is getting some DAW features. Maybe all three will eventually converge into one product? I can see they might push back on this in order to increase sales though.
[/off-topic]


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## srodrigo (Aug 6, 2022)

BTW I've just installed the S1 trial. If I maximise it on my second screen, some windows [correction: popups] don't show up (Add Track, for example). If I minimise it, then they show up. On the native screen (which is 4k, might have something to do?) it works fine both minimised and maximised.

Not a good start, it reminds me of some GUI weirdness I saw when I tried Cubase long ago.


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## Semarus (Aug 6, 2022)

Nuendo has extended functionality for media scoring.
Cubase has definitely improved how the windows are organized on the screen, utilizing the lower half much better than it did in the past.
I think non-pro Dorico is fairly limited, so you may not be able to do all that you intend without springing for the full version.


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## Jrides (Aug 6, 2022)

yes. You forgot about Cakewalk. It’s free these days. Some nice updates recently. I’ve been playing around with it for a few days.


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## srodrigo (Aug 6, 2022)

Probably a silly (but genuine) question: what's the catch with Cakewalk (since a couple of people have mentioned it on this thread, I went and had a look)? It's supposed to be a good quality DAW, FOR FREE. Why are people still paying $500+ for Cubase, Studio One, and the likes? Has it got a suboptimal workflow that people don't like, or something like that?


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## Semarus (Aug 6, 2022)

I'm a long time user of both Cubase and Live , and I found it lacking for my workflow, lacking for more advanced features I had become accustomed to from other products, and ultimately felt like I was working within a web browser. So while I might be biased, perhaps if I was just starting out it might be suitable, it doesn't quite cut it for me.


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## Jrides (Aug 6, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Probably a silly (but genuine) question: what's the catch with Cakewalk (since a couple of people have mentioned it on this thread, I went and had a look)? It's supposed to be a good quality DAW, FOR FREE. Why are people still paying $500+ for Cubase, Studio One, and the likes? Has it got a suboptimal workflow that people don't like, or something like that?



I recently watched a YouTube video where a guy was describing why he left cakewalk and started using a different DAW. His main reasoning? “It’s not a part of the gang.” I think he called them the big five. He had this whole video about how cakewalk isn’t as talked about or popular anymore now that it’s free. How going to a free model made it less respected more or less? It was pretty sad. Very reminiscent of someone in high school who was not allowed to sit at the table with the cool kids. Dude look like he was almost about to cry. Keep in mind it looks like he might’ve been like 50 years old, so it was bizarre. So much insecurity around not belonging to a perceived group. I didn’t know grown up adults, still suffered from this type of need to fit in. I think that’s part of it for some people. Of course after watching the video, I downloaded it immediately LOL.


*** edit*** here is the video I was referring to above.



for other more developed humans, it’s just preference of workflow and features. Each DAW does things a little different. And as my friends four-year-old daughter recently revealed to us… Different people like different things. Lol


There’s no real reason not to use Cakewalk, if it does what you need in a way that suits you. I have seen people do some pretty amazing stuff with reaper, $60and FL studio $100. I have seen people claim those two DAW‘s are toys for amateurs. However, have failed to present examples of their work.

I say try it… If you like it, don’t worry about what other people think. If you don’t like it, move on to something else and don’t worry about what other people think.


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## Semarus (Aug 6, 2022)

That is very odd, I mean, it's one thing if a healthy community for product support is important to someone, but just because it's not popular is a silly reason indeed.


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## srodrigo (Aug 6, 2022)

Thanks folks for explaining 

I can imagine that some people feel a bit uneasy about investing time on products that might not survive the long-run for whatever reason (not that being a free DAW means it's going to disappear soon) and have to switch and invest time again.

I'll try to squeeze Cakewalk as well. My TODO list is growing :D 5 items already (hopefully it'll stay like that). Glad that Black Friday is still no quite here and have time.

I found importing a midi track and playing it with Pianoteq ridiculously easy with Studio One last night (the VST was already recognised and I just had to drag & drop it). Then EQ and export. I skipped some steps, but just to have an idea. I really liked it, specially given I didn't follow any tutorial and I'm not too used to DAWs. However, there are a couple of GUI glitches as I mentioned (opening a New Project doesn't show the window either on my second screen, same issue as Add Track (T)). I'll try to spend at least a week on it before I try Dorico 4 (different beast), but I like how simple the UI is (when it works...). I didn't manage to figure out on my own when I tried Ableton, for example.


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## tony10000 (Aug 7, 2022)

Studio One 5 Artist or Cubase 12 LE both sound like good candidates. You can upgrade both if/when you need more functionality.


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## srodrigo (Aug 7, 2022)

tony10000 said:


> Studio One 5 Artist or Cubase 12 LE both sound like good candidates. You can upgrade both if/when you need more functionality.


Maybe it's too late [EDIT: I meant 'early'] for a spoiler, but the more I look into Dorico 4, the more I'm thinking some folks above were right and it might be worth investing on it instead of on a Pro version of some DAW. I still have a ton of research to do though.

About my initial idea of using Musescore... is not bad (it's great for a free notation software), but it feels like it's always lagging behind in features (understandably). I don't like the sounds it comes with, it sounds really bad. Musescore 4 seems to be adding support for VST, so maybe this is solved. But again, lagging behind. Maybe I should just embrace Dorico and get a cheap version of a DAW (or a free one) if I need to do any work (mixing/mastering) with the audio of the final recording. I definitely dislike composing on a DAW anyway, I've felt at home with notation even before I could read it, lol. And I like to have my scores polished even if it's for myself (not to mention if I were to put them for sale, they need to be decent, or more than that). I might not need a behemoth DAW though, so the money could go to Dorico Pro when I catch it on sale, then get Reaper, Cakewalk, or the small versions of S1 or Cubase. This last point feels right, specially given that, even if you could get away with just-Dorico, I've read that it's recommended to get Viena Ensemble Pro to avoid bloating it with plugins. At that point, I probably makes more sense to spend the money on a DAW and do the mixing/mastering there instead of on Dorico.

BTW I might repeat this multiple times, but thanks everyone for your help, you folks really rock!


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## Jrides (Aug 7, 2022)

Yeah. The most basic functions are dead easy in Studio one. you can certainly get your head around the very basics without reading a manual. I sold my copy and moved to reaper. In fact I went from cakewalk pro audio 9, to Samplitude, to Reaper, then studio one, and back to reaper. Although I really didn’t like the workflow, Studio one is really intuitive for beginners just getting started.

have fun and enjoy!





srodrigo said:


> Thanks folks for explaining
> 
> I can imagine that some people feel a bit uneasy about investing time on products that might not survive the long-run for whatever reason (not that being a free DAW means it's going to disappear soon) and have to switch and invest time again.
> 
> ...


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## Tim_Wells (Aug 7, 2022)

I came from Sonar (many years ago) to Cubase. The learning curve was steep. Sonar seemed to work in the classic MS Windows paradigm (which I was used to). Cubase was designed by German engineers who have their own special way of doing thing.

It took some time to learn and get used to, but I'm very happy I stayed with Cubase. It's incredibly powerful and I don't see the ownership pulling the rug out from under me anytime soon.


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## srodrigo (Aug 7, 2022)

Jrides said:


> Yeah. The most basic functions are dead easy in Studio one. you can certainly get your head around the very basics without reading a manual. I sold my copy and moved to reaper. In fact I went from cakewalk pro audio 9, to Samplitude, to Reaper, then studio one, and back to reaper. Although I really didn’t like the workflow, Studio one is really intuitive for beginners just getting started.
> 
> have fun and enjoy!


What was exactly the issue(s) in the workflow that made you move back to Reaper from Studio One?



Tim_Wells said:


> Cubase was designed by German engineers who have their own special way of doing thing.


I loved that 

I'm still planning to try it out (again, because I tried v11 I think, and I focused too much on the notation side). 4th on my TODO list after Reaper.


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## srodrigo (Aug 7, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> I've read that it's recommended to get Viena Ensemble Pro to avoid bloating it with plugins. At that point, I probably makes more sense to spend the money on a DAW and do the mixing/mastering there instead of on Dorico.


I need to research more about about VE Pro. But from what I understand, it makes more sense for orchestral works where people use a ton of different VIs. I'm not sure how many plugins I'd need for mixing and mastering (I need to look into these topics too ), but if it's a couple of them and they bloat Dorico (which I don't know yet), another point for a cheap version of a DAW, which will probably include enough plugins for these stages too (so no need to buy extra plugins on top of the not-so-cheap VE Pro which costs more than a cheap DAW).


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## Jrides (Aug 7, 2022)

Once I got past the basics and started diving into some more features, it became a little less intuitive. Definitely had to start digging through the manual. Studio one relied too heavily on mousing around for my personal taste. It was a more visually oriented DAW. Reaper allowed me to control pretty much any function with user defined key combinations/macros. These could be triggered by a number of methods, including dedicated buttons or tablet. I really couldn’t customize studio one to be exactly the way I wanted to work and I could with reaper at the time.


Studio one was definitely fun to mess around with when I first got it. It didn’t take me more than a day to figure out how to make sounds come out of it, that almost resembled a song. Very much had instant gratification appeal.


On a separate note… I don’t use Sttaff pad. However I wonder if it could be useful for what you are trying to do in some capacity.


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## srodrigo (Aug 7, 2022)

I see. To be fair, I'm a mouseless geek. Everything I use when I code has to have a good mouseless support. I even used 100% mouseless text editors for years.
But, as I'm a DAW dinosaur, that's not important at the beginning. Definitely a plus for later though. I even liked using the numbers row on Musescore instead of clicking on the different note durations, despite not knowing many shortcuts there.

I've been reading a bit about Staffpad. It looks amazing, to be honest. It would definitely speed up the process of composing and notating, instead of the initial pen & paper, then introduce it on Muse/Dorico. But I don't have a tablet and I'm pushing back on getting more gadgets, I've got a ton already  .


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## Pappaus (Aug 7, 2022)

Srodrigo - I have both studio one and Cubase and prefer studio one but that is just due to familiarity as I used that from version one. One consideration is that you may not need all the functions of the flagship versions and can get by with th e less expensive versions. Also notion is relatively inexpensive the last time I looked. I am not as tech-savvy as these other posters may be, but my experience as a new user was studio one was so easy and Cubase always had some difficulty. If I had been with Cubase as long as I was with studio one, I might be saying the reverse, but in my experience, studio one is easier and the product is actively evolving. Not trying to make a statement in the “my DAW is better’ wars, but just giving my experience.


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## AEF (Aug 7, 2022)

After a few years of dissatisfaction with my workflow I tried all the following: Logic, DP, S1, Nuendo, Cubase, and Reaper.

They are all great, in different ways. If i had to pick one, having no previous experience with any, it’d be 1a) Cubase 12. and 1b) S1. On my current setup, id go Cubase bc its better on CPU _for me_.


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## srodrigo (Aug 8, 2022)

Pappaus said:


> One consideration is that you may not need all the functions of the flagship versions and can get by with th e less expensive versions.


Yep, I wouldn't be getting the full versions if I invest in Dorico (even if I didn't, I don't think I'd need full versions any time soon anyway).



AEF said:


> On my current setup, id go Cubase bc its better on CPU _for me_.


That's interesting. I've read it's usually the other way around. But it varies from one computer to another.


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## Al Maurice (Aug 8, 2022)

@srodrigo -- judging by your criteria, maybe you should check out digital performer, it has about the best alignment algorithms for notation and unlike other DAWs, you can usually avoid additional quantising. Also you can always move around the bar lines until everything aligns up where you need it. There's even an export MusicXML option, unfortunately no MusicXML import exists as of now.

You can download a one month evualation to give it a go.


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## Jimbo 88 (Aug 8, 2022)

So I have to throw in my 2 cents about Cakewalk or "CbB" as we call it now days. I have done very well for myself using it for 30 years now and music composing has been my only income since 1987. It's free, and the forum and help available is outstanding. The forum is really friendly with people at all levels asking and solving all kinds of issues. Just don't bad mouth Cakewalk there.

I jumped over to Cubase when Cakewalk looked like it was tanking, and I love Cubase. I use both DAWs everyday depending on the task at hand.

Now that I'm not composing to picture as much as I use to, I compose much like you do. I sketch it out in CbB (which is just a replacement for paper at this point.) CbB's notation is very basic, so nothing you are going to happy with. I export a midi file, or just input into Sibelius or Dorico (I'm hoping Dorico integrates with Cubase). After I'm finished with the score, I export back into a DAW to tweak for sound.
I feel more comfortable composing in CbB and mixing in Cubase. 

Once I have the score back into a DAW I can record live instruments to go along with the midi and I'm very happy with the results. When i do a choir piece i need to record vocals. Cubase has audio manipulating (variaudio) capabilities that are outstanding as far as composers go. So say I recorded a singer (or instrument) and they sing it or play it just like in the notation, but I decide I'd like that note shorter...or longer...or want to experiment with other pitches...Cubase is the best ever. But you still can do that in CbB.

My advice, because there is a steep learning curve in all this, start with Calkwalk by Bandlab. It's free. You can do everything you need there along with Muscore. Get a couple of pieces completed and then decide if you want to invest more time and money into other Apps. Sibelius is a just an advanced version of Muscore. It might even be easier and quicker to learn. Keep your eye on Dorico and Cubase for future stretching when and if you feel you are being limited by what you have. 

Good Luck!


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## srodrigo (Aug 8, 2022)

@Al Maurice Thanks for suggesting another alternative. I think the no import option for MusicXML might be an issue though :(

@Jimbo 88 You've got an interesting workflow with 2 DAWs and 1 notation software! I wonder why not sketch in Dorico straightaway if you are going to import it later anyway. But otherwise it's similar to what I have in mind, so good to see that professionals approve 

I think I could live with Musescore for a while. For simple piano pieces, it doesn't need bells & whistles. I found a couple of annoying things, but so far not many headaches. And hopefully version 4 doesn't sound that much of midi and supports VST. I'd really like to try composing on Dorico though, given now it's got some DAW features and I could use my piano VST as well, so I don't need to go back and forth exporting from a DAW and all that. But we'll see. I'm open to all options. It's more that I'm keeping an eye on sales, which will come in a few months hopefully, so I want to have everything researched and tried out to see what's best.
Maybe your advice of starting with the free software is in case I don't stick to making music, which is fair. I'm hoping I will though


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## Jimbo 88 (Aug 8, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> @Jimbo 88[/USER] You've got an interesting workflow with 2 DAWs and 1 notation software! I wonder why not sketch in Dorico straightaway if you are going to import it later anyway. But otherwise it's similar to what I have in mind, so good to see that professionals approve


Good point...I guess I'm just more familiar with Cakewalk and can work much faster there at this point.
I'll probably slowly migrate that direction. Cakewalk has been updating like mad and is getting better and better all the time. It's super easy to punch a couple of buttons and be recording a music idea as oppose to open up, choose a format, etc.. Things like quantization (which I use too much), shifting notes, transposing... are way more accessible.


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## srodrigo (Aug 13, 2022)

I haven't finished trying everything out yet. But so far:

- Studio One: great interface, easy to use, no problems at all... except for some popups that don't show up on my non-4k second screen. Not sure why this is, but it's annoying.
- Reaper: I want to love this. I love how lightweight it is. It's a masterpiece of software. But it has an atrocious UI. I have even worse issues than with Studio One. On my second screen, some windows look stretched, with dropdowns overlapping each other, and crazy stuff like that. Menus don't seem to be scrollable with mouse, I have to click on the arrows (haven't checked whether this is configurable, but it doesn't matter if I have some other issues with the windows). And the colours on the default theme seem to be chosen by one of the programmers; the texts don't have enough contrast to be readable. I'll keep evaluating it because it's a steal for how good the functionality and stability is, and it works on all 3 major OSs, but I'm afraid this is not for me until they ship a version with a decent UI. I would even say it is NOT acceptable to charge some people over 200 dollars and ship with this UI. Even for 60 is debatable. Guys, you have a rough diamond, polish it and you might wipe out the competition.
- Cakewalk: I gave it a quick try. Not as straightforward as the other two, and I had some issues with it picking my bluetooth headphones "hands free" configuration, which made the sound crackle and took me a while to find out why. Also, when I change the audio settings, the settings windows don't really refresh and I need to keep clicking on Apply all the time. Apart from that, it looks much better than Reaper and has everything I probably need.

I didn't have time to try Cubase LE yet, but it might be a bit too limited.

In any case, I think I'm going the cheap or free route. I haven't "earned the right" to spend non-trivial monies on big versions of software when I haven't even shipped a piece of music out there yet (friends don't count). I'll humble down and work my way up instead of convincing myself that I need the highest end stuff to start with.
- DAW: Cakewalk might do the trick (I just hope I won't have to move to mac). It's ridiculous that this software is free. Maybe Reaper if I can get the UI issues sorted out. Or Cubase LE if it has what I need, but I might hit a wall and have to swipe the VISA.
- Notation: Musescore 4 is still not there, but I got a nightly build this week and looks amazing, the UI has improved so much. Dorico is the dream, but do I REALLY need it? Probably not. So I'll put my head down, make music, and revisit when I've earned the badges. Musescore 3 was good enough for a simple piano piece, I should be able to carry on with that for the time being (the engraving was quite useful, so I'd discard Dorico SE or Elements, as they don't include it).


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## daychase (Aug 13, 2022)

@srodrigo MuseScore 4 just released a second public alpha! It's compatible with VSTs, although it lacks keyswitch functionality (akin to Articulation Sets) to my understanding; still, apparently the plan is to have a beta out in a month or two.


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## srodrigo (Aug 14, 2022)

daychase said:


> @srodrigo MuseScore 4 just released a second public alpha! It's compatible with VSTs, although it lacks keyswitch functionality (akin to Articulation Sets) to my understanding; still, apparently the plan is to have a beta out in a month or two.


Thanks for the info! I was trying (probably not hard enough) to find about their release schedule, but no luck. About the first Alpha, A member of the team said that it wasn't recommended for any serious work. Good to know that it's getting there.

EDIT: Grammar


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## OHjorth (Aug 14, 2022)

The stuff you wanna do looks pretty basic. I would go Reaper for the price. You absolutely do not need to use scripts for it.


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## srodrigo (Aug 14, 2022)

OHjorth said:


> The stuff you wanna do looks pretty basic. I would go Reaper for the price. You absolutely do not need to use scripts for it.


If only it didn't have the most annoying UI of all, for my setup


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## Braveheart (Aug 14, 2022)

I have Cubase, Ableton and other DAW’s, but I always use Studio One Pro. Easy to use, great tools for creation (scratch pads, etc.). I also have Faderport 8 and Console 1 and the integration is awesome.


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## srodrigo (Aug 28, 2022)

Braveheart said:


> I have Cubase, Ableton and other DAW’s, but I always use Studio One Pro. Easy to use, great tools for creation (scratch pads, etc.). I also have Faderport 8 and Console 1 and the integration is awesome.


Studio One is good, really easy to use (at least for my simple stuff). But I'm not sure it's worth the extra money.

Talking about money, I've tried my best to get used to Cakewalk, but I can't. I get audio glitches or plain distortion when I playback midi with my VST. Even creating a fresh project. I had also issues when switching from headphones to speakers during the same session. None of this happens with Studio One or Reaper with the same midi. No matter how powerful it is, it doesn't make sense for me if it gets on my way too much. Both Reaper and Studio One are straightforward for simple tasks like this and didn't give me any issues.

So I guess I'll go with Reaper, even if I have to live with GUI issues like this on my spare screen 🥲


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## tack (Aug 28, 2022)

Yikes. Reaper might look like ass because the developers don't prioritize aesthetics but _that_ is definitely a bug that would get fixed if reported. (I can't reproduce here, having tried a few different system ui scale percentages.)


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## srodrigo (Aug 28, 2022)

tack said:


> Yikes. Reaper might look like ass because the developers don't prioritize aesthetics but _that_ is definitely a bug that would get fixed if reported. (I can't reproduce here, having tried a few different system ui scale percentages.)


Not the only one I'm afraid. Look at the bottom of the dialog, the buttons aren't quite visible.





I'll see if I report these two issues. Hopefully they'll have a look.


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## rrichard63 (Aug 28, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> even if I have to live with GUI issues like this on my spare screen


Does Reaper's developer specify a minimum screen size (in pixels) for compatibility?


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## srodrigo (Aug 28, 2022)

rrichard63 said:


> Does Reaper's developer specify a minimum screen size (in pixels) for compatibility?


That's a good question. I don't know. The resolution on my second screen is 1920x1080. Maybe Reaper is going nuts because the other one is 4k (everything looks fine on that one, just too small for long periods).


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## LearningToCompose:) (Aug 28, 2022)

Choose carefully, you might be stuck with it 
I've tried leaving FL Studio, I always come back  
Went to Reaper for some time and it went pretty well, great DAW.
Then I took a break and I had forgotten so much when I came back. 
Got frustrated and went back to FL because I know that DAW.


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## tack (Aug 28, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> The resolution on my second screen is 1920x1080. Maybe Reaper is going nuts because the other one is 4k (everything looks fine on that one, just too small for long periods).


Aha, yeah, that's what's happening. I can reproduce this by changing my primary display to 200% scaling and then when dragging Reaper to one of my flank displays at 100%, the theme elements dynamically rescale but the non-theme elements (window frame, menubar, other UI controls) retain the 200% scaling from the primary display. This is likely because Reaper's using an API for UI controls from 1992. (I exaggerate. But not by much.)


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## Spid (Aug 28, 2022)

tack said:


> Yikes. Reaper might look like ass because the developers don't prioritize aesthetics but _that_ is definitely a bug that would get fixed if reported. (I can't reproduce here, having tried a few different system ui scale percentages.)


That’s actually one of the big fail of Reaper and why I don’t like it anymore… it always feels like a piece of software that totally lacks coordination to have any consistency and good aesthetics for all windows and features. It looks like Linux… brilliantly made, but made by multiple people that never spoke together and don’t have the same notion of design, therefore everyone does his/her part of the software on his/her own, even if it means to have something that is totally unpleasant to see. I know, fanboys will claim we can custom it all… but paintjob skin don’t fix design errors.

Since I moved to Apple, I’m very sensitive to design, even more about software design since that’s something we tend to see all day long.


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## tack (Aug 28, 2022)

Spid said:


> It looks like Linux… brilliantly made, but made by multiple people that never spoke together and don’t have the same notion of design


Linux user since 1993 here. While I definitely could get behind this comment in the past, I find GNOME-based distros to be fairly polished out of the box for the past few years. There are many applications that look terrible on Linux -- just as there are many applications that look terrible on Windows (including Reaper, under discussion here) -- but I daresay the core OS is pretty nice aesthetically.

Reaper has always bothered me visually. I get why some people revolt. I desperately wish the developers actually invested in appearance (and UX more broadly) more than the superficial lipstick-on-a-pig level allowed by Reaper's color themes (especially when I see how much effort they spend on features I don't care about). But, for the same reason I have used Linux these past decades, I use Reaper because I know how to make it run circles around the competition for the kinds of things that are important to me.


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## srodrigo (Aug 28, 2022)

LearningToCompose:) said:


> Choose carefully, you might be stuck with it
> I've tried leaving FL Studio, I always come back
> Went to Reaper for some time and it went pretty well, great DAW.
> Then I took a break and I had forgotten so much when I came back.
> Got frustrated and went back to FL because I know that DAW.


Lol yeah, difficult to leave our origins 
I liked FL Studio actually, I had the demo for a while.


tack said:


> Aha, yeah, that's what's happening. I can reproduce this by changing my primary display to 200% scaling and then when dragging Reaper to one of my flank displays at 100%, the theme elements dynamically rescale but the non-theme elements (window frame, menubar, other UI controls) retain the 200% scaling from the primary display. This is likely because Reaper's using an API for UI controls from 1992. (I exaggerate. But not by much.)


Thanks for checking! Glad that it's not my setup. I've just registered on the forum, I'll report the issues as soon as I can.


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## kitekrazy (Aug 28, 2022)

Interesting thing with software is we always seek approval from others.


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## Spid (Aug 28, 2022)

tack said:


> Linux user since 1993 here. While I definitely could get behind this comment in the past, I find GNOME-based distros to be fairly polished out of the box for the past few years. There are many applications that look terrible on Linux -- just as there are many applications that look terrible on Windows (including Reaper, under discussion here) -- but I daresay the core OS is pretty nice aesthetically.
> 
> Reaper has always bothered me visually. I get why some people revolt. I desperately wish the developers actually invested in appearance (and UX more broadly) more than the superficial lipstick-on-a-pig level allowed by Reaper's color themes (especially when I see how much effort they spend on features I don't care about). But, for the same reason I have used Linux these past decades, I use Reaper because I know how to make it run circles around the competition for the kinds of things that are important to me.


I've used Linux too back in the '90s... I was running a Sun Station server at home, just for fun. So yeah, I messed with it, but I could never use it professionally for anything. I know they did a LOT of progress since, the Ubuntu years and later, but as said, since I'm on Mac, I'm very VERY sensitive to UI/UX... one of the reason why I can't stand Windows either... and yet I would admit Windows isn't bad at all and can be perfectly useful for music usage.

But as always, if it works for you, then it's perfect. It doesn't matter what others use or don't use... we can make perfect music with anything these days. So I'm not anti-anything, I just express why I don't like something, that's it


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## srodrigo (Sep 3, 2022)

Quick update: I've been busy writing music and practicing, so I didn't have much time to spend on messing around with DAWs.

I managed to set Reaper up to avoid the GUI glitches I posted above. Setting the HiDPI mode to "Multimonitor aware v2 (experimental)" makes Reaper look correctly on both monitors as if they had the same resolution. This was the biggest blocker for me.

I've also found a theme (Smooth 6) that looks good on my setup and is readable, so another issue gone.

I haven't gone through all the process of mixing, mastering, and adding video. It comes with plugins for everything I need. People tend to buy specific plugins for reverb, EQ, etc. down the road anyway, but to start with it should be enough.

I was considering Cubase now that it's on sale (-40%), but I didn't try it out yet. Still £300 for the full version, and even £50 (similar to Reaper) for Elements, which is quite limited in comparison. And upgrades are another wallet sink over time.

Also, for some reason, Pianoteq (the piano VST I use) gives me a LOWER latency when I use it on a Reaper track than the standalone application. I haven't tried on other DAWs, but this was a great surprise. It now feels as responsive as playing the onboard piano sounds.

So Reaper it is. I'll carry on with the trial, then probably get the personal license. I'll pivot if it doesn't work for me when I get into actually making tracks and videos.

Discarded so far:
- Cakewalk: I love it and it's free, but it's audio issue after issue for me :/
- Studio One: I didn't try this feature out much, but video doesn't seem to be quite there compared to other DAWs. It doesn't appear as a track, which I find very weird. I'm planning to make videos too, so good video support is important.


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## Superabbit (Sep 3, 2022)

Jrides said:


> I recently watched a YouTube video where a guy was describing why he left cakewalk and started using a different DAW. His main reasoning? “It’s not a part of the gang.” I think he called them the big five. He had this whole video about how cakewalk isn’t as talked about or popular anymore now that it’s free. How going to a free model made it less respected more or less? It was pretty sad. Very reminiscent of someone in high school who was not allowed to sit at the table with the cool kids. Dude look like he was almost about to cry. Keep in mind it looks like he might’ve been like 50 years old, so it was bizarre. So much insecurity around not belonging to a perceived group. I didn’t know grown up adults, still suffered from this type of need to fit in. I think that’s part of it for some people. Of course after watching the video, I downloaded it immediately LOL.
> 
> 
> *** edit*** here is the video I was referring to above.
> ...



Wow, that video takes DAW preference to a new level of asinine. I wonder if he's still scared that the cool kids are going to make fun of his brand of sneakers.

The icing on the cake (no pun): he screws up the thing that actually _matters_. The audio that goes with his video is wretched, with repeated glitches and digital clipping. I want to take his hand and explain to him that nobody who matters is going to have a lower opinion of him based on what DAW he uses, but they're sure going to be paying attention to how good (or in this case poor) the audio he produces is. He blames it on the capture. He doesn't care enough to go back and re-record (or edit) a 14-minute tantrum about how his favorite software turned freeware and he thinks it commands less respect as a result? "Your audio sounds like someone's torturing a garbage disposal in the background, but I must say I admire your choice of Cubase as a production platform."

Yeesh.

Well, I'm glad the OP gave Cakewalk a try. I think it's a heck of a value, and for my uses holds its own in comparison to any of the payware DAW's. I also like Mixcraft and Studio One, but with all the wonderful choices we have, no single DAW is going to be the best choice for everybody.

DP and Cubase seem to have good followings around here (due to the participation of scoring specialists?), I'm sure they're up to any audio task you could put them to. As are REAPER, Studio One, Waveform, Mixcraft, Samplitude, Pro Tools....(showing my bias toward timeline-based workflows here). With all the choices, and the time and effort it takes to learn them, try before you invest. If integration of complex hardware is of great importance to you, Waveform, Cakewalk, and Mixcraft are the products of small development teams who don't have the resources to wine and dine hardware manufacturers, so caveat emptor.


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## Spid (Sep 3, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> I was considering Cubase now that it's on sale (-40%), but I didn't try it out yet. Still £300 for the full version, and even £50 (similar to Reaper) for Elements, which is quite limited in comparison. And upgrades are another wallet sink over time.



If you already own a license of Reaper, Logic, Protools, Studio One, Reason, FL Studio and others, you can get Cubase Crossgrade, which is a favorable price when you come from a competitor DAW. With the current -40% sales, the Crossgrade is listed at 215€. The Crossgrade will provide the same Cubase Pro 12 license, just at a favorable price once you confirmed you have a conçurent DAW license.



srodrigo said:


> Also, for some reason, Pianoteq (the piano VST I use) gives me a LOWER latency when I use it on a Reaper track than the standalone application. I haven't tried on other DAWs, but this was a great surprise. It now feels as responsive as playing the onboard piano sounds.



When you use Pianoteq in a DAW, the latency will depend of your DAW audio driver settings. When you use Pianoteq in standalone, it will depend of the audio driver setting of Pianoteq. So if they’re set differently, let’s say 256 samples in Reaper, and then 1024 samples in Pianoteq, you will have a higher latency in Pianoteq. It’s just something to set properly in the preferences of each application.


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## Braveheart (Sep 3, 2022)

Spid said:


> If you already own a license of Reaper, Logic, Protools, Studio One, Reason, FL Studio and others, you can get Cubase Crossgrade, which is a favorable price when you come from a competitor DAW. With the current -40% sales, the Crossgrade is listed at 215€. The Crossgrade will provide the same Cubase Pro 12 license, just at a favorable price once you confirmed you have a conçurent DAW license.
> 
> 
> 
> When you use Pianoteq in a DAW, the latency will depend of your DAW audio driver settings. When you use Pianoteq in standalone, it will depend of the audio driver setting of Pianoteq. So if they’re set differently, let’s say 256 samples in Reaper, and then 1024 samples in Pianoteq, you will have a higher latency in Pianoteq. It’s just something to set properly in the preferences of each application.


Best Service sells the crossgrade for cheaper


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## NuNativs (Sep 3, 2022)

Cubase is on sale, take advantage, you won't regret it.


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## srodrigo (Sep 3, 2022)

Spid said:


> If you already own a license of Reaper, Logic, Protools, Studio One, Reason, FL Studio and others, you can get Cubase Crossgrade, which is a favorable price when you come from a competitor DAW. With the current -40% sales, the Crossgrade is listed at 215€. The Crossgrade will provide the same Cubase Pro 12 license, just at a favorable price once you confirmed you have a conçurent DAW license.


Yeah but it excludes the personal license
_(Commercial license only / excl. discounted license)_


Spid said:


> When you use Pianoteq in a DAW, the latency will depend of your DAW audio driver settings. When you use Pianoteq in standalone, it will depend of the audio driver setting of Pianoteq. So if they’re set differently, let’s say 256 samples in Reaper, and then 1024 samples in Pianoteq, you will have a higher latency in Pianoteq. It’s just something to set properly in the preferences of each application.


Good point. I'll check next time to see what's the difference. I never managed to get Pianoteq to give me an almost unnoticeable latency in standalone, but there must be a way.


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## Spid (Sep 3, 2022)

Braveheart said:


> Best Service sells the crossgrade for cheaper


Best Service isn’t always cheaper, it depends where you live and what currency you’re using. For Cubase, it’s 209€ instead of 215€ but then you have to wait for Best Service to contact Steinberg anyway. So for 6 bucks, one might want to get it directly from Steinberg and get it faster. For VSL, Best Service is listed at the EXACT SAME price than VSL website. YMMV


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## Rudianos (Sep 3, 2022)

I have been using Cakewalk for a year. I like it. Does everything I need (I think) - But I like notation... and as such I have been toying around with PreSonus S1 and so far that method works so much better than Cakewalk. I will be getting Cubase in the Sale too for the expression map potential. If I like it more as DAW great ... if not the other ones will benefit from owning that.


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## Sycraft (Sep 3, 2022)

Superabbit said:


> Well, I'm glad the OP gave Cakewalk a try. I think it's a heck of a value, and for my uses holds its own in comparison to any of the payware DAW's.


Man that video is something else. I don't understand people who need to be in the "cool kids club" with regards to hardware/software. Like you said, Cakewalk is a good DAW. I used it for years until I bailed for Cubase (and now Nuendo). In my case, I bailed after Gibson shut it down and it looked like it was going to die. Steinberg offered a real good crossgrade offer and I jumped, and I'm glad I did. However, it was, and remains, a good DAW. It's pretty easy to use, the feature set is good, etc. If it were $500 I'd say that Cubase is the clear winner, never consider Cakewalk. However, it is $0 and at that price is amazing.

Also, for those that don't know the history with poor Cakewalk, Roland bought the company when the founder sold it. They ran it for years and it was pretty nice as there was some cool integration with their stuff. But I guess it wasn't selling enough and/or moving enough hardware, so they sold it to Gibson who wanted it for their Tascam stuff. At first it seemed exciting, they started doing some new development, they released a couple new plugins that were pretty good (I liked and miss the limiter)... and then one day they just killed it. Like literally with no warning internal or external said "Cakewalk is shutdown, go away," more or less. Not that they were selling it, just getting rid of it.

That's when I jumped ship. Sometime later Bandlab decided to buy it and continue development and release it as a free product. A lot of us were skeptical, I mean free? Like really? What was the catch going to be? Was it going to be full of ads? "Free" but really charging for every little thing? Nope, it is actually fully functional. No idea what Bandlab gets out of it.



NuNativs said:


> Cubase is on sale, take advantage, you won't regret it.


I personally agree. I'm happy I made the jump and wish I had earlier. Cakewalk (Sonar back then) is good software but of all the DAWs I've ever tried I like Cubase (Nuendo) the best.


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## Superabbit (Sep 3, 2022)

Sycraft said:


> Man that video is something else. I don't understand people who need to be in the "cool kids club" with regards to hardware/software.


To take whiner's advocate position here (I kinda wailed on him in the YouTube comments), he has one point about hardware integration. It's not directly to do with Cakewalk's licensing model except that all Bandlab's Cakewalk team do is development and support. That's where the Bandlab money goes. There's no Cakewalk marketing person to make deals with hardware manufacturers. This will be the case for any small team, such as the ones that produce Mixcraft, MuLab, Waveform, and REAPER. Also ones like Magix Samplitude who don't seem to be very close with the usually US-based controller companies.

Bandlab's lead dev for Cakewalk goes way back in the industry. He has some personal contacts at Microsoft and Steinberg that help them keep on top of developments with the OS and VST compatibility, but that's kind of back channel.

It's part of how these companies keep the prices low and the development nimble. The DAW's in the above paragraph are among the best as far as being bug-free (this is very much so for the current Cakewalk, although Gibson let the quality slide to the point where Sonar had a bad rep). That's because they are development-focused more than marketing-focused. Hardware integration, bundling deals, that's where marketing muscle can pay off for the user. It's all a trade-off. Someone wants to be more confident that they can find a controller that will be plug-n-play with your DAW, they should look at one of the better-connected biggies (and for heaven's sake do the homework before buying it, unlike El Whino). If you don't mind a bit more fussing to get it to work, if hardware is less important, then you can pay less for the aforementioned DAW's.

I have a Korg nanoKONTROL2, which is supposed to have tight integration with PT, DP, Cubase, Logic, and Sonar, but Korg's Windows driver is püp. I have to use the native Windows driver, kudos to Microsoft for having one. So the issue isn't so much Cakewalk as it is Korg not keeping their end of the bargain. Just because it has a "Cubase" or "Sonar" mode doesn't mean that it's going to be plug-n-play.



Sycraft said:


> A lot of us were skeptical, I mean free? Like really? What was the catch going to be? Was it going to be full of ads? "Free" but really charging for every little thing? Nope, it is actually fully functional. No idea what Bandlab gets out of it.


They've never stated anything except general "we want to promote music-making," but it's not hard to observe and speculate. One is brand awareness. I never heard of Bandlab until the Cakewalk deal. Now I notice wherever they're mentioned. Another is goodwill. I think Bandlab did the music world a solid with the Cakewalk deal, so I'm predisposed to give their products a look. Related, there's prestige. Cakewalk has, as you said, an amazing cost:feature ratio, and it's a way to show the music world that Bandlab are taking a long view and that products they acquire can (GREATLY) benefit from their stewardship.

The devs all work in home offices, so there's little to no infrastructure to pay for, and I'd be surprised if there are much more than half a dozen employees in the Cakewalk division of Bandlab. So it's cheap. Tostitos and Anheuser Busch and whoever pay much more to sponsor college football bowl games and get nothing from it but brand awareness and goodwill (and premium seating).

This is all just what I observe, I have no insider knowledge.

For those who move to other DAW's, it's still good to have Cakewalk or some other secondary DAW around in case something bad happens with the main DAW. As Gibson proved, the rug can be pulled out at any time. Company budgets can be shifted, new, worse management can be installed, titles can be sold. Steinberg would probably love to drop support for VST2 in Cubase and Nuendo. We're at their mercy! Keep insurance.


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## Sycraft (Sep 3, 2022)

Superabbit said:


> It's part of how these companies keep the prices low and the development nimble. The DAW's in the above paragraph are among the best as far as being bug-free (this is very much so for the current Cakewalk, although Gibson let the quality slide to the point where Sonar had a bad rep).


I'd actually blame Roland for that. They were the ones who owned it when the Really Dark Days(tm) happened, that being X1 and X2. Nobody really seemed to like X1's UI/UX and it had a ton of bugs. Then X2 came out and was a disaster. I quit doing anything because it was so bad. X3 was then quite a redemption, a very solid product overall.

Not saying there weren't issues during the Gibson years, but the end of the Roland years were what I remember having the most issues.



Superabbit said:


> Steinberg would probably love to drop support for VST2 in Cubase and Nuendo. We're at their mercy! Keep insurance.


They are going to drop it either the next version of Cubase, or the one after that. They've said it is gone in two years or less. Probably the next version 12.5/13 will still have it but the one after that 13/14 almost certainly won't. I've been working on trying to get all my stuff up to VST3 and I only have a couple I haven't found replacements for yet.


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## jih64 (Sep 3, 2022)

Everyone will try and push towards their favorite DAW, just be aware of that. All I will say is that my recommendation would be to do yourself a favour and stay as far away as possible from REAPER and CbB(Cakewalk). I used both for about 8 Years, (_of course then it was Pro Audio 9 then SONAR and now CbB_), ditching them both around 2016.

As for stuff being FREE, just remember, in most cases, '_You get what you paid for_', you may well end up paying in ways other than money.

But if they work for you go for it, but there are a number of better choices out there.

Best of luck with it.


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## Superabbit (Sep 3, 2022)

jih64 said:


> As for stuff being FREE, just remember, in most cases, '_You get what you paid for_'


Would you include your advice in that category? 

It's human nature to want to validate our own conclusions and choices by encouraging others to make the same ones. This is true whether our choice is to embrace something or to reject it.

My favorite DAW is Cakewalk. I'm glad that the OP tried REAPER and likes it (even though it goes against my own human nature; I'd rather have helped them sort out their audio issues with Cakewalk than see them join a different "tribe"). 

The best DAW is the one that feels right and has the features to do the tasks someone asks of it. It doesn't matter whether I think the OP could have gotten his Cakewalk audio issues worked out with a bit of help or whether someone else had a bad experience with REAPER or whether yet another user thinks Cubase or Studio One is The Answer. They tried REAPER and liked it, and that puts it at the top of their heap. Now it's time to make music.


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## srodrigo (Sep 4, 2022)

Superabbit said:


> For those who move to other DAW's, it's still good to have Cakewalk or some other secondary DAW around in case something bad happens with the main DAW.


Indeed. I'm not uninstalling Cakewalk (unless I need more space) even if I'm going to use something else.

I think any software has the chance of becoming abandonware, but Reaper is some programming freak's personal project. Unless he sells it, I think it's safe. Not sure about the other ones you mentioned, I'm not familiar with them.


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## srodrigo (Sep 4, 2022)

jih64 said:


> Everyone will try and push towards their favorite DAW, just be aware of that. All I will say is that my recommendation would be to do yourself a favour and stay as far away as possible from REAPER and CbB(Cakewalk). I used both for about 8 Years, (_of course then it was Pro Audio 9 then SONAR and now CbB_), ditching them both around 2016.
> 
> As for stuff being FREE, just remember, in most cases, '_You get what you paid for_', you may well end up paying in ways other than money.
> 
> ...


Yeah, sometimes these threads become a "use my favourite DAW!". I still think it's useful, not just for me, but for other newcomers who might come across this thread.

Reaper is not free though  Sure, it's cheap, but not free. Not coming with VIs and not spending money on a polished (G)UI makes them able to set a lower price point. I'm okay with both missing though, as I used worse GUIs before and I just compose/arrange for piano. I don't think the owner needs the money anyway, he even says "I'm okay if you don't pay for Reaper if you can't afford it" 🤷‍♂️ Yet the software is fast and stable to the point that shames other major DAWs. Even Studio One at $400 had some GUI glitches (New Project never shows the popup window on my secondary screen, what about that for 400 bucks) and loads everything slower (initial load, and video, just out of my memory). The only thing I'll probably miss from Studio One is their export for multiple platforms (they set different volume settings for each one). I'm sure there's something in Reaper that could replicate this though.

I found Reaper to be really easy to use despite people's complains. The only thing I had to dig into was to enable my digital piano, but it's just in the preferences as any other thing, I just needed to look it up once. Then everything worked fine. I tried video yesterday, also drag and drop and get it done and aligned with the audio track. Studio One wasn't as good for this. The quick midi editing I did for some recording was also easy (basic cleanup such as adjusting velocity, moving notes around a bit, etc.). So far I haven't found it to be more complicated than, say, Studio One. But this is very basic usage, so who knows. Maybe that's why I don't need a capped Cubase/Studio One (or pay $400+ for a non-capped version).

Since I don't own a mac and I didn't like Ableton, the only other DAW that could probably be a fit is Cubase, which I haven't tried in a while, and I'm not willing to at the moment as A) it eats 50GB even for Elements and I barely have that space left right now, that I need for videos, and B) while I completely understand they aren't a charity shop like Reaper, their pricing model is a money sink over the years. Same issue with Dorico.
I'm probably missing other things.

I'm okay with moving on later on if needed, but I think I'm sorted with Reaper and Musescore for a while. Let's see if the hobby sticks and even grows into something more professional later.


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## srodrigo (Sep 4, 2022)

jih64 said:


> Everyone will try and push towards their favorite DAW, just be aware of that. All I will say is that my recommendation would be to do yourself a favour and stay as far away as possible from REAPER and CbB(Cakewalk). I used both for about 8 Years, (_of course then it was Pro Audio 9 then SONAR and now CbB_), ditching them both around 2016.


Out of curiosity, may I ask what issues did you find? Anyway, 6 years is a long time for a software piece to evolve. Maybe you'd like them if you tried them again.

I can tell I don't know what I'm doing, but managed to use a few DAWs (S1, Reaper) to get my simple things done without even Google-ing. Cakewalk was less straightforward, but still manageable (audio issues aside, those did put me off for real). I imagine it's a different thing for more complex workflows. But then I've also heard that "standards" such as Cubase are a bit weird too. So YMMV holds strong.

My only issue with Reaper is the _Linux vive_. I'd like to stay away of rabbit holes of customisation. I still like that I can customise menus (which doesn't take long) and key bindings. This is work for efficiency that I'm willing to put in as I'd do if I were coding and making sure I fly through my editor, it pays off by miles in the long-term.

EDIT: Grammar.


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## Superabbit (Sep 4, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> I'm not uninstalling Cakewalk (unless I need more space) even if I'm going to use something else.


Nice. Well, if you ever have the extra time and effort to sort out whatever that audio issue is/was, drop into the Cakewalk forum and we'll get it sorted out. I find that with Cakewalk, it usually comes down to something with the driver mode; they still support these odd legacy Windows driver models and sometimes Cakewalk will choose the wrong one, or it will choose a driver that the user previously uninstalled or something like that. The audio engine itself is fairly efficient and robust these days.

When I first tried Cakewalk, 4 1/2 years ago, it was in dire need of attention. If it had stayed as rough as it was in that first release (which was really the last "Sonar" release), I wouldn't be using it now. But the dev team they rehired from Cakewalk, Inc. started beating on the codebase like it had insulted their mother. I could see where they were going, and it was a good direction, they've stayed on it ever since.

From what I hear about it, I'd love for every DAW to have REAPER's audio engine.

As much as I've wanted to love REAPER, as many chances as I've given it over the years, I suppose it's developed to the point now that I could use it if I didn't have access to Cakewalk or Studio One. 8 or 9 years ago, the first usability test I would do on any DAW I tried out was to see how long and how much frustration it took for me to arm a track for recording, record myself saying a few words, then edit a couple of seconds out of what I recorded. That seemed like a good way to get an initial feel for whether we'd get along. I wasn't opposed to cracking a manual in these tests, to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious.

The times were usually in the neighborhood of 5 minutes or less. When I did it on REAPER it took me _over an hour_ to get to "hello world, test one two." I already had all my hardware set up and ready to go, so it wasn't that. I started laughing about halfway through it was so ridiculous. As it turned out, I think, one of the big stumbling blocks was that I didn't realize that I needed to create a clip before I could record audio. But what was worst was that the manual had no step-by-step "this is what to do to start recording audio" procedure.

It was much like the Linux of the day where the manual and generally available knowledgebase was lopsided: very detailed about more difficult topics, but information on such basic things as "how do I run a program from the command line" was absent. Because the manua was, I believe, at the time a volunteer effort, and users who are advanced enough to write a technical manual are often too advanced to remember what it was like to never have seen the thing before. They document the stuff they think is difficult and therefore most needs documenting, not the most basic stuff that a new user would need to know. The manual probably had dozens of pages on REAPER's awesome routing capability yet zero on how to start recording. This situation was _much _improved last time I checked.


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## srodrigo (Sep 4, 2022)

Superabbit said:


> Nice. Well, if you ever have the extra time and effort to sort out whatever that audio issue is/was, drop into the Cakewalk forum and we'll get it sorted out. I find that with Cakewalk, it usually comes down to something with the driver mode; they still support these odd legacy Windows driver models and sometimes Cakewalk will choose the wrong one, or it will choose a driver that the user previously uninstalled or something like that. The audio engine itself is fairly efficient and robust these days.
> 
> When I first tried Cakewalk, 4 1/2 years ago, it was in dire need of attention. If it had stayed as rough as it was in that first release (which was really the last "Sonar" release), I wouldn't be using it now. But the dev team they rehired from Cakewalk, Inc. started beating on the codebase like it had insulted their mother. I could see where they were going, and it was a good direction, they've stayed on it ever since.
> 
> ...


Seems like you had a hard time :D I can imagine Reaper was tough in the old days. Now it feels simple to me so far. I can't tell about hardware though, I'm not using anything beyond my digital piano.

I might spend some more time on Cakewalk if I'm bored, just for fun. But it feels a bit like an unnecessary uphill walk now that I'm committing more to Reaper. The audio issues were weird indeed. It just felt like extra work to get the same things that worked straightaway on other DAWs. Even switching from headphones to laptop speakers was a bit painful and had to go and change the setup. The big issue about the radio noise when playing midi was so frustrating that I gave up. I managed to get it to work once, and it was fine once more without touching anything, which made me quite happy as I really wanted to use Cakewalk. In any case, it looks like pain I don't need and distracts me from the music itself. And it's Cakewalk Windows only, so if I ever switch OS (probably) I'm covered with Reaper.


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## Sycraft (Sep 4, 2022)

Superabbit said:


> The times were usually in the neighborhood of 5 minutes or less. When I did it on REAPER it took me _over an hour_ to get to "hello world, test one two." I already had all my hardware set up and ready to go, so it wasn't that.


That was my basic issue the three times I tried Reaper. I tried it once right after it came out, since I really liked Winamp, once when Gibson killed Cakewalk, and again about 3 months ago. Each time I found that in addition to hating the UX design it just seemed to be more work than necessary to get it to do what I wanted. Like all DAWs have a learning curve, but despite the supposedly very large learning curve of Cubase I found that given its good documentation I had little trouble getting into it and getting it to work very fast for me. Reaper felt like I was always fighting with it, and that really if I wanted to PROPERLY use it I needed to be a coder and start rolling my own customization.

While I can understand the philosophy of "here's a base, just do whatever you want with it," that's not for me. It is the same complaint that I have with Linux vs Windows: Yes, I can, in theory, customize everything to be just what I want or need. However in reality I'm not a programmer, and I also don't want to spend the time, I want something that works with the least amount of effort.


I've also heard great things about Reaper's amazingly stable audio engine... but then I've never had issues with Cubase and stability so I don't know that I would see any benefit.


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## Sycraft (Sep 4, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Since I don't own a mac and I didn't like Ableton, the only other DAW that could probably be a fit is Cubase, which I haven't tried in a while, and I'm not willing to at the moment as A) it eats 50GB even for Elements and I barely have that space left right now, that I need for videos, and B) while I completely understand they aren't a charity shop like Reaper, their pricing model is a money sink over the years. Same issue with Dorico.
> I'm probably missing other things.


FYI Cubase doesn't need 50GB, that is just for optional content. Cubase 12 itself is about 610MB which gets you the DAW and all the included FX plugins. The VIs are extra and those take up varying space, depending on their content. Retrologue is under 100MB, whereas Halion Sonic is over 3GB for the base pack, and more with all the addons. Then there are content sets which are things like loops and such that you can install.

Not wrong about it costing more, but if space is the concern you can try the DAW for under 1GB. Even Nuendo, which has more stuff in it, is under 1GB for the base install.


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## lexiaodong (Sep 4, 2022)

Cakewalk free!


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## srodrigo (Sep 5, 2022)

Sycraft said:


> FYI Cubase doesn't need 50GB, that is just for optional content. Cubase 12 itself is about 610MB which gets you the DAW and all the included FX plugins. The VIs are extra and those take up varying space, depending on their content. Retrologue is under 100MB, whereas Halion Sonic is over 3GB for the base pack, and more with all the addons. Then there are content sets which are things like loops and such that you can install.
> 
> Not wrong about it costing more, but if space is the concern you can try the DAW for under 1GB. Even Nuendo, which has more stuff in it, is under 1GB for the base install.


Thank you! That changes things. They could say 1GB-50GB instead of just 50GB, lol.

I'll give it a shot then, it won't harm.


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## jih64 (Sep 5, 2022)

Superabbit said:


> Would you include your advice in that category?



No Starship Krupa, it matters not what my advice would be in that category other than what I have said.

To the other dude, yes I know things can change a lot in 6 years, but not those 2, the problems/issues are so deeply ingrained that nothing short of a major rebuild from the ground up, or new people in charge would fix it. In the case of Cakewalk, how it is so deeply ingrained within Windows is a huge problem, how they have never really fixed issues with it's existing old, I mean OLD code base, just putting on band-aid fixes whilst leaving the old flaky code in place. You can see this by simple things like copy/cut and paste, move over and fill hole, etc, fixed with ripple editing, yet they leave the old flakey code and functions inplace. There are many examples of such things. From what I have seen it is still flaky and clunky and crashy and buggy.

REAPER, well the only way that will ever get fixed is to get someone in who has a different mindset than the current head honcho's. The best thing that could happen to REAPER is that it got sold. I mean you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig, just a pig with lipstick on, and that goes for more than just it's aesthetics. The old saying, 'Beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone' fits here. Once again not just talking about aesthetics.

That's my last on this topic, in the end if it works for you, more power to you, but just know you don't have to put up with things, there _are_ better out there, sometimes it just takes a bit of distance before you can see it.

All the best everyone


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## srodrigo (Sep 5, 2022)

I just tried Cubase Elements for a bit during lunch. It hanged for minutes and had to kill it. All I was doing is to double click on a midi track and do right click to see if I could edit. Not a good start at all.


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## Sycraft (Sep 5, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> I just tried Cubase Elements for a bit during lunch. It hanged for minutes and had to kill it. All I was doing is to double click on a midi track and do right click to see if I could edit. Not a good start at all.


What kind of soundcard do you have? I'm just curious since it sounds like you are having big trouble with various DAWs and I wonder if that's the common factor. That said if you like the system you have and Reaper works and others don't, well then no reason not to use it if you like it. But I do wonder if there is something on your system external to the DAWs that is giving some of them fits. Both Cakewalk and Cubase (or Nuendo in my case) haven't given me any freezing issues in recent memory (I reloaded Cakewalk about 2 months ago to load up some old stuff). Only issue I've encountered recently is that BFD3 was having fits with Nuendo 12, but I then discovered I was using a SUPER old version, I didn't know they'd been sold to inMusic, and after updating it is now happy.

Something I have noticed is that some soundcards seem to be more fiddly than others. We had issues at work with media capture stations because some hardware seemed to not play well with some software, whereas it was fine with others.

That's one of the things that got me personally stuck on RME is their stuff has been some of the most "it just works" audio hardware I've ever tried.


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## Superabbit (Sep 5, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Seems like you had a hard time :D I can imagine Reaper was tough in the old days. Now it feels simple to me so far.
> 
> I might spend some more time on Cakewalk if I'm bored, just for fun. But it feels a bit like an unnecessary uphill walk now that I'm committing more to Reaper....In any case, it looks like pain I don't need and distracts me from the music itself. And it's Cakewalk Windows only, so if I ever switch OS (probably) I'm covered with Reaper.


This. Once I found a DAW I could dance with, the top priority was to get good at _that_ DAW. Any creative tool, really, including mixing plug-ins. Even though Mixcraft's UI and workflow are very influenced by Cakewalk, it still took me a _long_ time to transition to the point that I could do everything as quickly.

Which, BTW, I encourage you to download and install Kilohearts Essentials and Meldaproduction MFreeFX Bundle. They're both free to use, and since it seems like you like to keep your options open, I find that it's better to get cozy with a set of mixing FX that aren't tied to a single DAW.

I like the ReaPlugs (ReaFIR especially is way underrated), and I'm sure the native REAPER FX are similarly good. However, if I build my chops using the Sonitus FX in Cakewalk (which are tied to Cakewalk), my skills aren't as easily transferable to another DAW. If I move to another DAW, or decide to have a backup or augment, then I'm at least using the same FX I've built my chops with.

The Meldaproduction and/or Kilohearts free collections will cover your mixing FX needs. Their GUI's are also a little more attractive than the native REAPER FX, if that sort of thing matters (it does to me, I must admit).

About the other DAW's I mentioned: Waveform has been around in one form or other for 20 years. It was originally the brainchild of Julian Storer, also the creator of JUCE. He partnered with Mackie to distribute it, then Mackie stopped developing it, releasing no updates for about 5 years. At that point, Storer got the name and IP back and restarted development. Since then, they have released Waveform Free, which is usually the previous version of Waveform without the expanded plug-in collection. So it's a cross-platform freeware DAW, Windows, Mac, and even Linux. It has an idiosyncratic workflow, with the paradigm supposedly originally being single window. I've never clicked with it. It suffers from cross-platformitis in that on a given platform, the UI and menus don't follow the conventions of the OS. Basically it always looks like it's running on Ubuntu, even on a Mac.

Mixcraft started out with the idea of having the fastest learning curve possible, and expanded in features from there. I used to participate in their beta program, and they have an amazing commitment to quality. Mixcraft does NOT ship with known bugs. As soon as any defect may appear, a fix will be issued almost immediately. Very nimble development. If you want a very solid program and be productive quickly, it's an excellent choice. Unfortunately there are some blind spots, such as support for custom (or even default) keystrokes. It's very mouse-y.


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## Superabbit (Sep 5, 2022)

Sycraft said:


> Like all DAWs have a learning curve, but despite the supposedly very large learning curve of Cubase I found that given its good documentation I had little trouble getting into it and getting it to work very fast for me.


Good documentation is so essential for DAW's and NLE's (video production). Really, any specialized program.

My take on DAW learning curves, I think there are various steps. The first one is recording something and playing it back (or in another paradigm, dropping in some loops). Then, getting it to render a finished mix. Then, doing some more sophisticated mixing and maybe editing. This goes for both audio and MIDI.

Beyond that, there's automation, pitch and timing extraction, loop editing, comping, sampling, etc.

For someone brand new to DAW's, it may take months to get to the "beyond that" stage.

When BandLab first dropped Cakewalk by BandLab, for new users there was no "manual" as such (there is now a 1900 page Reference Guide in PDF form). The only help was by linking to cranky online HTML with a crap search function. That's all been remedied in splendid fashion, there's now actual offline help and the aforementioned Ref Guide. But it took long, long months for them to edit and publish the Reference Guide, at some point I actually had someone email me a copy of the Sonar one to work with, but it obviously hadn't been updated in a long time and was error-ridden. All remedied, but it was a long wait.

That slowed me down considerably, but much thanks to the very helpful forum veterans for answering my questions. That's another important thing for me: how engaged and helpful is the online community? REAPER's is great, Cakewalk's is great, so is Mixcraft's. I check them out before I try the DAW.


Sycraft said:


> They've said it [VST2] is gone in two years or less.


I have almost 40 virtual instruments and 25 FX that are still only available in VST2 form. Some of the instruments, Hybrid 3, XPand!2, Vacuum Pro, and the Orchestral Companions, are daily driver, bread-and-butter for me. The FX include my beloved Freakshow Industries and Glitchmachines sound design stuff.

For me, it would be hundreds of dollars in perfectly good plug-ins rendered unusable (or at least unsupported by Cubase).


Sycraft said:


> I've also heard great things about Reaper's amazingly stable audio engine... but then I've never had issues with Cubase and stability so I don't know that I would see any benefit.


Where a tightly-coded audio engine shows its worth is with older, trailing edge hardware. Until a couple of months ago, my main DAW system was a Dell Optiplex with an i7 3770 and 16G of RAM. I've since moved up to an i7-6770 and 32G of RAM. Those are still pretty comfortable for DAW use, but then I also sometimes work on an old Dell Latitude with 8G RAM and a 2nd-generation i7.

On the laptop, you can tell the difference. I have to tune it, shut down other processes, crank the latency, etc. in order to mix with Cakewalk on the laptop. Works fine once I do, but it reveals the difference. Mixcraft's engine is more efficient, and this shows on the laptop. Makes no difference on the other, more capable systems.


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## Sycraft (Sep 5, 2022)

Superabbit said:


> Where a tightly-coded audio engine shows its worth is with older, trailing edge hardware. Until a couple of months ago, my main DAW system was a Dell Optiplex with an i7 3770 and 16G of RAM. I've since moved up to an i7-6770 and 32G of RAM. Those are still pretty comfortable for DAW use, but then I also sometimes work on an old Dell Latitude with 8G RAM and a 2nd-generation i7.


Gotcha. Performance has never been all that much of an issue for what I do since I have a high end computer anyhow (for games). I've just seen a lot of people talk up Reaper as being super stable, which it very well may be... but I haven't noticed Nuendo to NOT be stable so I wouldn't really notice a difference. I've had unstable DAWs in the past, Sonar X2 was a complete disaster, I just don't find I have any trouble these days.

You are right about Cakewalk having a great community, I used to hang out on their forums all the time.


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## srodrigo (Sep 6, 2022)

Sycraft said:


> What kind of soundcard do you have? I'm just curious since it sounds like you are having big trouble with various DAWs and I wonder if that's the common factor. That said if you like the system you have and Reaper works and others don't, well then no reason not to use it if you like it. But I do wonder if there is something on your system external to the DAWs that is giving some of them fits. Both Cakewalk and Cubase (or Nuendo in my case) haven't given me any freezing issues in recent memory (I reloaded Cakewalk about 2 months ago to load up some old stuff). Only issue I've encountered recently is that BFD3 was having fits with Nuendo 12, but I then discovered I was using a SUPER old version, I didn't know they'd been sold to inMusic, and after updating it is now happy.
> 
> Something I have noticed is that some soundcards seem to be more fiddly than others. We had issues at work with media capture stations because some hardware seemed to not play well with some software, whereas it was fine with others.
> 
> That's one of the things that got me personally stuck on RME is their stuff has been some of the most "it just works" audio hardware I've ever tried.


I've got a Dell XP 15 9570. It's got some Realtek soundcard. I'm not sure which one specifically though. I could try to update the drivers if there are any updates missing. Both Reaper and S1 were fine, so I'm leaning more towards older DAWs having trouble rather than my hardware itself. But who knows! I'm not using any audio interface either at the moment.


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## srodrigo (Sep 6, 2022)

Superabbit said:


> This. Once I found a DAW I could dance with, the top priority was to get good at _that_ DAW. Any creative tool, really, including mixing plug-ins. Even though Mixcraft's UI and workflow are very influenced by Cakewalk, it still took me a _long_ time to transition to the point that I could do everything as quickly.
> 
> Which, BTW, I encourage you to download and install Kilohearts Essentials and Meldaproduction MFreeFX Bundle. They're both free to use, and since it seems like you like to keep your options open, I find that it's better to get cozy with a set of mixing FX that aren't tied to a single DAW.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the suggestions! I'll have a look.

I keep my options open because I'm starting out and my needs might change. Otherwise, I'd prefer to commit to a DAW as mucha as possible, otherwise I'll invest all my music time budget into it instead of making music.


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## Sycraft (Sep 6, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> I've got a Dell XP 15 9570. It's got some Realtek soundcard. I'm not sure which one specifically though. I could try to update the drivers if there are any updates missing. Both Reaper and S1 were fine, so I'm leaning more towards older DAWs having trouble rather than my hardware itself. But who knows! I'm not using any audio interface either at the moment.


So, that might be why some DAWs are having fits. While the Realtek chips that get used in computers are actually extremely solid and can do low latency, a lot of pro software gets shirty with them. So if you decide you want to give more of a try to some other DAWs, there are some things you can do to try and fix that. For Cakewalk (and some others), you can look changing the driver mode. MME is one that should basically always work, but is high latency and not the best choice. However probably won't have any issues. DirectSound is another option that is newer and similar, should work well but isn't the best choice.

WASAPI2 is the one that should work well with it. At least back in the day it worked well in Cakewalk with Realtek chips, though they could be different ones of course as they make new ones over the years. That can work very low latency and in my experience was real stable in Cakewalk. However sometimes things have issues with it.

Then there's Cubase, that is an "ASIO or GTFO" program, as Steinberg invented ASIO. ASIO is great and is what pro stuff like, but only pro cards tend to support it. In the case of the Realtek they do have a beta ASIO driver you can get from their site, but I've had not the best experience with it. Another option is what you are probably doing now is using the Steinberg Generic Lower Latency ASIO Driver, which is Steinberg's wrapper for ASIO to WASAPI. You'd think being made by them it would be good, but in my experience it is a problem.

So there is another solution, the one I'd recommend: Uninstall that (it was installed automatically with Cubase) and install ASIO4ALL. This is a general purpose ASIO to WASAPI wrapper and it works really, really good in my experience. I use it on my laptop for when I don't want to hook up one of my audio interfaces. It isn't as low latency as having a soundcard with its own ASIO driver, but I find it to be fast and stable.

Not only should it make Cubase happy, but it might make some of the other DAWs happy too. Most DAWs love ASIO, and so if you put that on there and have them use it, they are likely, in my experience, to be happy and not have so many crashing issues.

Something you can try, if you are interested. On the other hand if you've already discovered a DAW that you like and it works happy with your soundcard it isn't necessary.


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## srodrigo (Sep 7, 2022)

Sycraft said:


> So, that might be why some DAWs are having fits. While the Realtek chips that get used in computers are actually extremely solid and can do low latency, a lot of pro software gets shirty with them. So if you decide you want to give more of a try to some other DAWs, there are some things you can do to try and fix that. For Cakewalk (and some others), you can look changing the driver mode. MME is one that should basically always work, but is high latency and not the best choice. However probably won't have any issues. DirectSound is another option that is newer and similar, should work well but isn't the best choice.
> 
> WASAPI2 is the one that should work well with it. At least back in the day it worked well in Cakewalk with Realtek chips, though they could be different ones of course as they make new ones over the years. That can work very low latency and in my experience was real stable in Cakewalk. However sometimes things have issues with it.
> 
> ...


Thank you so much for the detailed explanation! I'm quite happy with Reaper so far, so I might stick to it. But I still want to do a fair comparison, specially with Cubase. I read about ASIO4ALL but didn't get to try it out, I'll have a look. Cubase was using the Generic Low Latency ASIO driver. I'll see if ASIO4ALL works better.


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## Superabbit (Sep 7, 2022)

Sycraft said:


> While the Realtek chips that get used in computers are actually extremely solid and can do low latency, a lot of pro software gets shirty with them.


Nice to see a balanced view of the Realtek hardware CODEC. "Common wisdom," which holds onboard sound chips in contempt, was formed 20 years ago when onboard sound just wasn't happening.

To expand on your post:

With the rise of gaming driving high-end PC development, onboard audio became much more important, and Realtek and the mobo mfrs. have stepped up, touting such things as "audiophile" caps. I actually bothered to read the specs and app notes for the newer Realtek CODEC's, and you can play back (and record) at 96K/32 (and beyond). They are paying attention to jitter and things like that. Jitter can really mess with audio quality.

Where Realtek has dropped the ball is in the matter of coming up with a usable ASIO driver. They have one, if you can find it, but it just doesn't work well. My (joke) suspicion is that the external interface manufacturers either pay Realtek to stay away from ASIO, or that they planted a mole at Realtek to sabotage ASIO support. Kidding, but if it were the case, it would be working splendidly.

Microsoft came up with WASAPI (Shared and Exclusive), which allows for much better fidelity and latency. Unfortunately, not all DAW's support it

The issue(s) come in when one is installing multiple DAW's on one system, as the OP has done. Anything from Magix installs a version of ASIO4ALL, which is a wrapper for the native Realtek Windows driver to allow it to appear as ASIO for programs that don't do WASAPI (which, unbelievably, includes Ableton Live).

I've yet to encounter a DAW where WASAPI Exclusive, if available, was not preferable to ASIO4ALL.


srodrigo said:


> Cubase was using the Generic Low Latency ASIO driver. I'll see if ASIO4ALL works better.


They're both just wrappers for the Windows WDM driver. An extra layer of software complexity. Any audio program that can use WASAPI, one is usually better off using it instead of one of the wrappers.


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## Sycraft (Sep 7, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Thank you so much for the detailed explanation! I'm quite happy with Reaper so far, so I might stick to it. But I still want to do a fair comparison, specially with Cubase. I read about ASIO4ALL but didn't get to try it out, I'll have a look. Cubase was using the Generic Low Latency ASIO driver. I'll see if ASIO4ALL works better.


It may help with other DAWs as well. I've discovered that many DAWs are happy with ASIO4ALL on a given consumer soundcard than with other driver modes, even thought hey theoretically should work better. Cakewalk is an example, I tried to get it to work with an nVidia HDMI output to go to a receiver. Should work well with WASAPI2, but didn't, however ASIO4ALL worked great with Cakewalk and that HDMI connection.

Basically, if a DAW is being trouble, I'd try installing ASIO4ALL and using ASIO through it. In my experience, it often will work when it doesn't otherwise.



Superabbit said:


> Where Realtek has dropped the ball is in the matter of coming up with a usable ASIO driver. They have one, if you can find it, but it just doesn't work well. My (joke) suspicion is that the external interface manufacturers either pay Realtek to stay away from ASIO, or that they planted a mole at Realtek to sabotage ASIO support. Kidding, but if it were the case, it would be working splendidly.


I think it is just that Realtek doesn't care much. Also there *may* be hardware differences that allow for good ASIO drivers that are not present in the Realtek chips. Either way, they don't do well for ASIO and probably aren't going to. Annoying, but is what it is.



Superabbit said:


> The issue(s) come in when one is installing multiple DAW's on one system, as the OP has done. Anything from Magix installs a version of ASIO4ALL, which is a wrapper for the native Realtek Windows driver to allow it to appear as ASIO for programs that don't do WASAPI (which, unbelievably, includes Ableton Live).


Not a surprise, sadly. Abelton is kinda Apple-centric so they don't do as good a job with supporting PC standards as you might hope.



Superabbit said:


> I've yet to encounter a DAW where WASAPI Exclusive, if available, was not preferable to ASIO4ALL.


I have, I think it is a combination of both how properly the DAW supports it, and how well implemented it is in the soundcard driver. It seems like it is possible to implement a driver that does well for shared mode, but not for exclusive. As I mentioned in this post, Cakewalk/nVidia was one such combo.

I agree that if the program supports WASAPI Exclusive properly, and your soundcard is happy with it, it is a good choice. It can lead to extremely low latencies in some cases. However not all do.

Personally that's why I always evangelize people get a good interface with good ASIO drivers (and preferably good WASAPI drivers) hence I am an RME fanboy.


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## Superabbit (Sep 7, 2022)

Sycraft said:


> Personally that's why I always evangelize people get a good interface with good ASIO drivers (and preferably good WASAPI drivers) hence I am an RME fanboy.


This. $100 spent on a Presonus Studio 2|4 or $150 for a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 is cheap compared to DAW-hopping and time spent tweaking the OS.

And as far as driver support, I use an "obsoleted" Focusrite interface that replaced an even further obsoleted Presonus Firepod. Drivers for both have never stopped working in Windows 10.

Those RME's have an impeccable rep for driver support. I would imagine they sound fantastic as well.

My holy grail interface would be the Burl B16 Mothership. In the comparison tests I've listened to on YouTube (which is an audio-compromised platform) the Burl just killed everything else. I don't know about their driver support, but for the money, they better do a decent job of ASIO, WASAPI, and Core Audio!


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## Sycraft (Sep 7, 2022)

Superabbit said:


> Those RME's have an impeccable rep for driver support. I would imagine they sound fantastic as well.


It's not just the driver component, though that is part of it, but the hardware. They do their own USB implementation on their FPGA and it shows. Helps with both stability and latency. Back in the day they got latency numbers out of USB that some others couldn't get out of PCI.

I can't find it right now but there is a good site with low latency stress tests of DAWs and interfaces and consistently RME just leads the pack. Their PCIe stuff is a little better than their USB stuff and is the top of the chart, but their USB is still way up there. This has gotten more narrow in recent years, the commodity USB interface chips have gotten better and as such other audio interfaces have gotten much better, but they still have an edge.

They also tend to have been on stuff for a lot longer than many others, which may give them a stability edge. Like their Totalmix internal mixing/routing. That really isn't that special these days, a lot of pro audio interfaces have a very solid internal mixer you can control, often FX as well. But RME was doing it decades ago. It was like 2001 when they introduced it.

They also have lots of little quality of life features that don't matter, right up until they do. For example you can tell it how many Windows audio devices you want it to present. Nothing you need, the primary device supports multi-channel sound... right up until you are dealing with multiple pieces of software that are an issue, and then suddenly having each talk to its own "soundcard" makes things much easier. Or the ability to vary clock rate: You can choose the base sample rate, but then vary it up or down by 5%. So Have a 42,000Hz rate instead of 44,100Hz. Absolutely no reason to do that these days... until there is because something happened to be made using a crystal that didn't clock quite right.

I've never actually needed either of those abilities, but the fact that they include them are just along the lines of why I like their stuff. They make it to just work, to do the thing even if the thing is kinda suboptimal.

They totally won me as a convert when I tried them out.


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## Superabbit (Sep 7, 2022)

Sycraft said:


> They do their own USB implementation on their FPGA and it shows. Helps with both stability and latency.


Now that is awesome and interesting. I still run Firewire on my main system because of old geek grumpiness around doing bi-directional audio via a serial interface technology that was designed for flatbed scanners, mice, and keyboards. I'm planning on bypassing USB completely and going with Thunderbolt or whatever the next interface technology settles down to.

But an interface that is internally optimized to squeeze every last bit of performance out of USB 2.0 ....that intrigues me. I wonder how much they engineered it to take the inherent CPU load off. Just designing your own USB interface rather than getting an off-the-shelf chip deserves kudos.

Okay, well, maybe when USB becomes the trailing edge tech, I can pick up a second hand RME from someone who's upgraded to whatever-bolt is the current trend. 😄


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## Sycraft (Sep 7, 2022)

Superabbit said:


> Now that is awesome and interesting. I still run Firewire on my main system because of old geek grumpiness around doing bi-directional audio via a serial interface technology that was designed for flatbed scanners, mice, and keyboards. I'm planning on bypassing USB completely and going with Thunderbolt or whatever the next interface technology settles down to.
> 
> But an interface that is internally optimized to squeeze every last bit of performance out of USB 2.0 ....that intrigues me. I wonder how much they engineered it to take the inherent CPU load off. Just designing your own USB interface rather than getting an off-the-shelf chip deserves kudos.
> 
> Okay, well, maybe when USB becomes the trailing edge tech, I can pick up a second hand RME from someone who's upgraded to whatever-bolt is the current trend. 😄


Doesn't seem to have CPU load issues at all. Seriously these guys know what they are doing when it comes to audio interfaces. There's a reason even their new stuff that isn't high channel count is just USB: It doesn't need to be anything else.

That said you are able to squeeze a little more low stuff on a low latency buffer with the PCIe or the thunderbolt stuff, but it is surprisingly little. If you want both options, the UFX+ has Thunderbolt and USB3 (also works with 2).

I'd bet you a dollar though that one of their modern USB interfaces would probably do better than an older firewire one. They used to do firewire, that's where their "Fireface" name for that product line came from but they don't bother anymore as they claim it isn't needed. 

For some companies, I'd say "Ya sure," but they really seem to know what they are doing. Likewise USB has actually changed over time, I don't just mean the new standards, I mean how USB2 is implemented on motherboards.

I was interested in them, but never bought them for years because they are SO much more expensive. I mean the UCX II I have was $1,500. That one of their small-ish ones. About comparable to a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8, not 100% feature parity, the UCX II does more, but same general level of IO. You can have one of those for $420, or an 18i20, which has more IO for sure, for $550. Made it a hard sell. But I decided I wanted to try one and I love it.

I certainly won't tell people they are the One True Way(tm) and all other soundcards suck, but I will say I see why they can get away with charging what they do. They also have a good analogue side to back up all their neat tech.

Plus another thing, for me, is that they properly show themselves as a surround speaker to Windows. Many pro cards don't, meaning you can't use them for surround sound in consumer programs like games. I love games, and I love surround sound, they are one of the few pro interfaces that will do that well. Now I don't have to have a separate pro and consumer interface, or mess with ASIO4ALL, or what have you. The RME will do it all.


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## srodrigo (Sep 10, 2022)

I tried ASIO4ALL, but I still had my dear friend Cubase hang 1 out of 2 times when I was trying to close it. I still think it's unrelated. I can't figure out how to do certain things that are obvious everywhere else. Where is the Rewind/Go to the beginning button??? Maybe I'm blind, but I can't see it. I couldn't reopen the EQ either after I closed its window. Maybe I dumb, but I find Cubase very unintuitive, apart from unstable for me. Shame because MIDI edition is cool.

Reaper just (finally) added retroactive MIDI recording 3 days ago on the latest version. That's the last piece of the puzzle. I've signed up. I just tried my workflow once more today to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Recorded a quick piano solo, EQ'ed and all that, and exported it as a video. Easy and no hassles for me. I'm sure I'll have a bit of work to do to create a template for mixing, another one for mastering, etc., but the deal is sealed. The stock plugins look like my Mandelbrot exercise on Linux in the university laboratory, but they do the job, so who cares. Maybe I'll get a third-party reverb one though later on, I'm sure there are better ones.

If Studio One ever adds proper video support and doesn't go south after the purchase by Fender, and I have any headaches with Reaper, I'll reconsider, as it was the closest, easiest thing to use to Reaper. Similar, but with better aesthetics.

Thanks everyone for your help! It was incredibly useful


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## Sycraft (Sep 10, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Thanks everyone for your help! It was incredibly useful


Glad you found a DAW you like. Always nice when it happens to be a cheap option as well . I wanted to like Reaper, in part because it is cheap. Hope it works out well for you. I could help you with the Cubase issues you are having, but if you've found that Reaper is working well for you there's not really a compelling reason to try to switch to Cubase.


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## Superabbit (Sep 11, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Maybe I'll get a third-party reverb one though later on


Another tip: do a trial of iZotope Exponential Phoenix. If you like it, wait for it (or Nimbus, which sounds similar) to go on sale for $10. Pluginboutique has put them on sale for $10 each a few times a year for the past few years.


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## srodrigo (Sep 11, 2022)

Sycraft said:


> Glad you found a DAW you like. Always nice when it happens to be a cheap option as well . I wanted to like Reaper, in part because it is cheap. Hope it works out well for you. I could help you with the Cubase issues you are having, but if you've found that Reaper is working well for you there's not really a compelling reason to try to switch to Cubase.


Appreciate your offer! But you are right that maybe it's time to stop searching given I got something I like enough, and start making music. I think Cubase would work if I learned its way, as any other thing. But I can feel friction coming as its way doesn't gel with my way haha.


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## srodrigo (Sep 11, 2022)

Superabbit said:


> Another tip: do a trial of iZotope Exponential Phoenix. If you like it, wait for it (or Nimbus, which sounds similar) to go on sale for $10. Pluginboutique has put them on sale for $10 each a few times a year for the past few years.


Cool! I'll have a look. I was looking into Valhalla reverbs, probably because they tend to be popular. So any alternatives on a budget are welcome 

I don't hate ReaVerb though, it's just that you need to find IRs, which is fine but I'd rather get something a bit more out of the box, specially for people like me who don't know what they are doing  I managed to use it though and it wasn't too bad.


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## antanasb (Sep 11, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Cool! I'll have a look. I was looking into Valhalla reverbs, probably because they tend to be popular. So any alternatives on a budget are welcome
> 
> I don't hate ReaVerb though, it's just that you need to find IRs, which is fine but I'd rather get something a bit more out of the box, specially for people like me who don't know what they are doing  I managed to use it though and it wasn't too bad.


Well, that is exactly one of the reasons to get a package like Cubase..

I think the "you get what you pay for" is quite valid here, despite Reaper being increadibly powerful DAW. 🙂


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## Sycraft (Sep 11, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Cool! I'll have a look. I was looking into Valhalla reverbs, probably because they tend to be popular. So any alternatives on a budget are welcome
> 
> I don't hate ReaVerb though, it's just that you need to find IRs, which is fine but I'd rather get something a bit more out of the box, specially for people like me who don't know what they are doing  I managed to use it though and it wasn't too bad.


So I'm not at all good with reverbs, I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to setting options, I'm trying to learn but as of yet I'm very much a "give me something good out of the box" guy. For that, I have to say that EastWest Spaces is amazing. I am not really a fan of the company, and it isn't getting updated to VST3 so I'm switching to other things BUT I have to say it has been great for "Just load a preset and it sounds awesome."

If you want to get it Spaces II is the current product and only get it on sale. They do sales all the time. It'll still be expensive, more than Reaper.

Superrabbit's recommendation on the Exponential Audio ones is good too. I have Stratus and Symphony, so I can't speak directly to Phoenix or Nimbus, but they sound really good. They are pretty overwhelming with presets though, unlike Spaces.

Another thing to look at is these impulses from a Bricasti M7. The M7 is a hardware reverb unit that a lot of people really like, and these are impulses responses captured of some of the presets. Could be a good place to start.


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## srodrigo (Sep 12, 2022)

antanasb said:


> Well, that is exactly one of the reasons to get a package like Cubase..
> 
> I think the "you get what you pay for" is quite valid here, despite Reaper being increadibly powerful DAW. 🙂


Cubase and similar come with some content. But at the end of the day, people seem to buy third party plugins and VSTs anyway. Some even go for Reaper because they don't want to pay for the extra stuff they won't pay, and already have their own set of plugins.
It would have been useful for me though as a starter  But I can live without it.


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## srodrigo (Sep 12, 2022)

Sycraft said:


> So I'm not at all good with reverbs, I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to setting options, I'm trying to learn but as of yet I'm very much a "give me something good out of the box" guy. For that, I have to say that EastWest Spaces is amazing. I am not really a fan of the company, and it isn't getting updated to VST3 so I'm switching to other things BUT I have to say it has been great for "Just load a preset and it sounds awesome."
> 
> If you want to get it Spaces II is the current product and only get it on sale. They do sales all the time. It'll still be expensive, more than Reaper.
> 
> ...


Cool! Thanks for the freebies and the recommendations  I'm making a list of reverbs to try out, specially the ones with a free trial, before I set or not for one of them and try to get it on sale. There are so many quality reverbs that it feels overwhelming.

I was looking into FabFilter Pro-R (if that ever goes on sale...) for transparent reverbs, and Blackhole for fancier ones. But that's probably for later. I'll see if what you folks recommended go on sale soon, or can live with Reaverb for a while.


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## srodrigo (Sep 12, 2022)

Actually, it turns out I already had the Bricasti M7 IRs :D got them from here https://samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impulse-response-files/


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## Sycraft (Sep 12, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Cubase and similar come with some content. But at the end of the day, people seem to buy third party plugins and VSTs anyway. Some even go for Reaper because they don't want to pay for the extra stuff they won't pay, and already have their own set of plugins.
> It would have been useful for me though as a starter  But I can live without it.


It is one of those things I feel back and forth about. On the one hand, I own an entirely unreasonable amount of plugins, particularly for someone who only does this as a hobby. On the other hand there is something to be said for good stuff included with a DAW and I do find I use some of Steinberg's plugins. On the other other hand, DAWs always tend to lock their plugins to themselves, so you can't take them to another DAW even if you own both.



srodrigo said:


> Actually, it turns out I already had the Bricasti M7 IRs :D got them from here https://samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impulse-response-files/


Those are a good starting point. Boston Hall I like a lot, since I like halls. You can't adjust them like you can with a real unit, of course, but the defaults are defaults for a reason. If you decide you like the Bricasti and don't want to spend like $5k on the actual hardware (seriously the thing is stupidly expensive) Liquid Sonics makes a good sampled version where you can change the settings, Seventh Heaven Pro.

One other thing to keep in mind when reverb shopping is if you think you want to do surround or not. While you can use multiple copies of a two channel reverb to do surround reverb, it is rather a pain and not necessarily going to give you the result you want. Some reverbs scale up and work on surround busses natively, Stratus and Symphony can (the normal versions up to 7.1, and 3D up to 22.2), Cinematic Rooms can, but Pro-R cannot, Vallhalla cannot, etc.

If you don't want to do surround it makes no difference, but it can be worth thinking about if you do.


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## antanasb (Sep 12, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> Cubase and similar come with some content. But at the end of the day, people seem to buy third party plugins and VSTs anyway. Some even go for Reaper because they don't want to pay for the extra stuff they won't pay, and already have their own set of plugins.
> It would have been useful for me though as a starter  But I can live without it.


Yes, content, plugins and functions. The reverbs for starters, multiband imaging/compression/distortion, VariPitch, etc.

Instead of buying out the PRO version (I have Artist which is INCREADIBLE deal for what it offers) of Cubase, I have tried to supplement the plugins using third party ones, like waves tune which is now just collecting virtual dust. I the end, I still do not have the PRO version but I have paid that amount already for the plugins like dynamic EQs and so on...

Now, I am not sure whether Reaper has, for example, a dynamic eq, but from my trials with it I do not remember it having it or other things mentioned.

Despite that, however much I liked the idea (and price), I just have an allergy to Reaper. All of the time needed to set it up properly and the clunky interface... Not my cup of tea as I do not have the time to learn how to script and customise it -- prefer spending time actually writing music, but hats off to the probably best DAW engine engineers... It is still the best DAW for testing and benchmarking for me. 🙂


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## srodrigo (Sep 12, 2022)

Sycraft said:


> It is one of those things I feel back and forth about. On the one hand, I own an entirely unreasonable amount of plugins, particularly for someone who only does this as a hobby. On the other hand there is something to be said for good stuff included with a DAW and I do find I use some of Steinberg's plugins. On the other other hand, DAWs always tend to lock their plugins to themselves, so you can't take them to another DAW even if you own both.
> 
> 
> Those are a good starting point. Boston Hall I like a lot, since I like halls. You can't adjust them like you can with a real unit, of course, but the defaults are defaults for a reason. If you decide you like the Bricasti and don't want to spend like $5k on the actual hardware (seriously the thing is stupidly expensive) Liquid Sonics makes a good sampled version where you can change the settings, Seventh Heaven Pro.
> ...


This is very interesting, I had no idea about surround/non-surround reverbs. Worth keeping in mind. So far, I need just some room reverb probably. Even the Pianoteq ones would work, to be honest, but I wanted something more "external" as I read Pianoteq reverb is not to good. If I ever get into more cinematic music, I might something more specific.



antanasb said:


> Yes, content, plugins and functions. The reverbs for starters, multiband imaging/compression/distortion, VariPitch, etc.
> 
> Instead of buying out the PRO version (I have Artist which is INCREADIBLE deal for what it offers) of Cubase, I have tried to supplement the plugins using third party ones, like waves tune which is now just collecting virtual dust. I the end, I still do not have the PRO version but I have paid that amount already for the plugins like dynamic EQs and so on...
> 
> ...


Reaper has dynamic EQ (AFAIK, ReaEQ can be used as so), convolutional reverb (needs adding better IRs though), algorithmic reverb, compressor, limiter, pitch correction, and others I can't remember as I haven't used most of them anyway. They look like a scientific application from the 90s, but they do the job. So it comes with the basics, excluding VIs. I'm okay with that because usually the stock VIs aren't suitable for production anyway, just for sketching. And I already got my piano VI, so I'm sorted for a while.

I agree about Reaper needing a bit more time to customise it, and there's little you can do to improve the popups anyway. But you don't really have to spend time on that, at least for basic things. Most third-party scripts are ready to be used as well. As per spending time actually writing music, I only achieved this out of the box with S1 and Reaper with 0 customisation. Cubase and Cakewalk got in my way too much. But everyone has a different experience  I still plan to invest a bit of time on menus and toolbars, as this doesn't really take time (I can add them as I notice I use some actions more frequently), and it's a cool thing to have.

I also don't like Cubase charging so much for updates, you end up paying for half of the product or getting stuck with an older version. I don't know what every pro out there does exactly, but reading forums it feels like they all buy third party plugins on top of something like Cubase Pro, at which point I wonder what's the point (apart from the workflow, which should be the main reason to buy a DAW anyway). Still cool to have Cubase if one likes it though, why not  I'm not advocating for bare Reaper + third-party stuff for everyone, just that I think it's right for me so far, specially given I don't need that many plugins/VIs for now. But these things change and people tend to move to other DAWs if things (or DAWs themselves) change, so no marriage.


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## srodrigo (Sep 12, 2022)

I just found the list of stock plugins here https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/

I've got way more though, I can't remember whether they came from SWS or ReaPack (I didn't install anything else and I've barely looked into these yet). The JS 1175 compressor, for example.


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## antanasb (Sep 12, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> This is very interesting, I had no idea about surround/non-surround reverbs. Worth keeping in mind. So far, I need just some room reverb probably. Even the Pianoteq ones would work, to be honest, but I wanted something more "external" as I read Pianoteq reverb is not to good. If I ever get into more cinematic music, I might something more specific.
> 
> 
> Reaper has dynamic EQ (AFAIK, ReaEQ can be used as so), convolutional reverb (needs adding better IRs though), algorithmic reverb, compressor, limiter, pitch correction, and others I can't remember as I haven't used most of them anyway. They look like a scientific application from the 90s, but they do the job. So it comes with the basics, excluding VIs. I'm okay with that because usually the stock VIs aren't suitable for production anyway, just for sketching. And I already got my piano VI, so I'm sorted for a while.
> ...


I am quite sure that it is indeed possible to make the reaeq a dynamic eq, but it is interesting to me how many clicks/actions that requires?

As like adding a basic midi/instrument track -- it is very easy to do in Cubase, and it automatically binds the midi inputs.

To do the same it takes many more clicks in Reaper. Though again -- I am sure you could write your own macro or something to make it work the same.. But that is not for me with my limited time.. 🙂


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## dsy (Sep 12, 2022)

antanasb said:


> As like adding a basic midi track -- it is very easy to do in Cubase, and it automatically binds the midi inputs.
> To do the same it takes many more clicks in Reaper. Though again -- I am sure you could write your own macro or something to make it work the same.. But that is not for me with my limited time.. 🙂


In REAPER: type _Ctrl+Shift+T_ then you choose the VSTi in the list. 
Or right-click on the tracks header and choose _Insert Virtual Instrument in New Track._
These are the default settings but if you don't like this shorcut, you change it as you want.

FYI, REAPER has no track type. A track gets any data content. You don't need to ask "what is my track? audio, VSTi, MIDI, etc". 

All MIDI inputs/channels are armed by default. I don't remember if it is the default setting.
In my setup I like to auto-arm the selected track (MPC like) but it is just a matter of taste.

I dislike REAPER menus: huge, not logical, audio oriented. This is the only thing I waste time to customize.


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## antanasb (Sep 12, 2022)

dsy said:


> In REAPER: type _Ctrl+Shift+T_ then you choose the VSTi in the list.
> Or right-click on the tracks header and choose _Insert Virtual Instrument in New Track._
> These are the default settings but if you don't like this shorcut, you change it as you want.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the tips!

Well, it does not automatically map all of the inputs for me, only the first input from my babyface. Then you need to right-click the record enable button, choose midi, then arturia keylab and only then the midi channel.. Quite annoying..

I will try to attack it once more!


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## srodrigo (Sep 12, 2022)

antanasb said:


> I am quite sure that it is indeed possible to make the reaeq a dynamic eq, but it is interesting to me how many clicks/actions that requires?
> 
> As like adding a basic midi/instrument track -- it is very easy to do in Cubase, and it automatically binds the midi inputs.
> 
> To do the same it takes many more clicks in Reaper. Though again -- I am sure you could write your own macro or something to make it work the same.. But that is not for me with my limited time.. 🙂


Yep, ReqEQ requires quite a bit of setup to achieve that. Here are a couple of videos doing the same. The second one suggests using a free EQ that does dynamic EQ in an easier way. I agree with him.


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## srodrigo (Sep 12, 2022)

BTW - now that we are talking about stock plugins, does anyone know how do Cubase/Logic/etc. stock VIs compare to free ones from Kontakt, Spitfire, or BBC (or any others I'm not aware of)?


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## tack (Sep 12, 2022)

antanasb said:


> Well, it does not automatically map all of the inputs for me, only the first input from my babyface. Then you need to right-click the record enable button, choose midi, then arturia keylab and only then the midi channel.. Quite annoying..


You can set this as your track default. In REAPER Preferences under Project / Track/Send Defaults, the "Record config" dropdown menu is where you do this. And in that same menu you can also set automatic record arm when track is selected. Then, any new track created from that point will inherit this configuration.


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## antanasb (Sep 12, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> BTW - now that we are talking about stock plugins, does anyone know how do Cubase/Logic/etc. stock VIs compare to free ones from Kontakt, Spitfire, or BBC (or any others I'm not aware of)?


No comparison -- day and night. BBCSO costs similarly to Cubase or Logic alone. You get what you pay for... 🙂

EDIT: missed the free part! All freebies from Spitfire, OT, etc. are very good! Especially LABS!


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## antanasb (Sep 12, 2022)

tack said:


> You can set this as your track default. In REAPER Preferences under Project / Track/Send Defaults, the "Record config" dropdown menu is where you do this. And in that same menu you can also set automatic record arm when track is selected. Then, any new track created from that point will inherit this configuration.


Would it be possible to have two types of tracks created, one with audio -- the other with midi set as the default input? Or is it not possible due to the "one channel" thing?


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## tack (Sep 12, 2022)

antanasb said:


> Would it be possible to have two types of tracks created, one with audio -- the other with midi set as the default input?


Track templates are the best solution for that. Then you'd right-click in the track control panel (gutter area) and Insert Track From Template. (The SWS extension adds a bunch of additional actions around track templates to improve ergonomics with keyboard shortcuts or control surfaces but SWS isn't needed for what I described.)


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## antanasb (Sep 12, 2022)

tack said:


> Track templates are the best solution for that. Then you'd right-click in the track control panel (gutter area) and Insert Track From Template. (The SWS extension adds a bunch of additional actions around track templates to improve ergonomics with keyboard shortcuts or control surfaces but SWS isn't needed for what I described.)


Will try this sometime later, but I suspect it will still be more cumbersome than it is in Cubase -- key combination to open "add instrument track" window, click on instrument field and type the instrument name, press enter and done?



dsy said:


> In REAPER: type _Ctrl+Shift+T_ then you choose the VSTi in the list.
> Or right-click on the tracks header and choose _Insert Virtual Instrument in New Track._
> These are the default settings but if you don't like this shorcut, you change it as you want.
> 
> ...


ctrl+shift+t did not work.

There is ctrl+t, which just adds a regular track with regular default settings..




To record Midi, I need to go to the Input: Midi, then select appropriate device, then either all or a particular midi channel...


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## srodrigo (Sep 12, 2022)

antanasb said:


> Will try this sometime later, but I suspect it will still be more cumbersome than it is in Cubase -- key combination to open "add instrument track" window, click on instrument field and type the instrument name, press enter and done?
> 
> 
> ctrl+shift+t did not work.
> ...


I gave tack's trick a try. It saved for me the track as template, and then just inserted it by selecting it on the menu. It kept the piano VST and the midi input (although I didn't have my DP plugged in). The Record button was on as well.


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## antanasb (Sep 12, 2022)

srodrigo said:


> I gave tack's trick a try. It saved for me the track as template, and then just inserted it by selecting it on the menu. It kept the piano VST and the midi input (although I didn't have my DP plugged in). The Record button was on as well.


Cool! I will try that, looks pretty promissing!


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## tack (Sep 12, 2022)

antanasb said:


> but I suspect it will still be more cumbersome than it is in Cubase -- key combination to open "add instrument track" window, click on instrument field and type the instrument name, press enter and done?


Similar in REAPER, I think? Default key bindings would be ctrl-T (to create a new track, assuming your default track settings are for MIDI), shift-F to open the FX browser, type instrument name, select it and done.

However if your default track settings _aren't_ tailored for MIDI and you want an equivalent key binding for "add instrument track" that uses a track template instead, then you'll need the SWS extension that offers actions to create a new track from a specific template (because REAPER's native capability is just to select the template from a menu).

Thanks to the extra stuff in SWS, I have buttons on my Stream Deck to create new tracks initialized with the instruments/players I use the most, so for me it's just down to one button.


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## dsy (Sep 12, 2022)

> ctrl+shift+t did not work.


Sorry this is a custom shortcut. I forgot I created it in the _Action List_.


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## greggybud (Sep 14, 2022)

Superabbit said:


> Another tip: do a trial of iZotope Exponential Phoenix. If you like it, wait for it (or Nimbus, which sounds similar) to go on sale for $10. Pluginboutique has put them on sale for $10 each a few times a year for the past few years.


All of those sound exceptional and high quality. As a matter of fact, Michael Carnes, who wrote the software for Lexicon later worked for Exponential. So why so cheap the last couple years? Be aware that Exponential Audio was purchased by iZotope and these will become abandonware.

My personal favorite reverb tools in no order are:
UAD Capital Chambers
UAD EMT 140
UAD Ocean Way (an emulation of a great studio with a good mic selection and mic/room positioning)
UAD Lexicon 224 and the 480
UAD AMS RMX 16 (for mostly gates and 80s sounds)
Valhalla (to my knowledge he will never do any sale. It's always $50 which is quite refreshing)
Lexicon PCM Native Reverb Bundle

I'll use cheap reverb hardware like a Roland or Alesis Midiverb but only for immediate gratification when using an older synth that has mono outputs.

Currently people are talking up the Quantum 2772 Evolution. But I think to myself, what does this tool bring to my reverb arsenal that will make my productions sound better, or more easy? Lots of reverbs can sound exceptional on a solo piano. But how will it sound when it's worked into a project with many elements? That is often a completely different scenario. 

Regarding DAW stock plugs vs. 3rd party, I think part of this goes back over 20 years ago with DAWs when they outsourced cheap coders so they could market their DAW as a "1 box does it all" thing for newbies. For many years, 3rd parties were often better, more flexible, and powerful. Look at the Native Instruments product line in their 1st decade.

However today this is not necessarily true. I would strongly suggest _really learning _the stock DAW tools. By really learning I mean knowing every parameter, knowing when to use what for any sonic objective, and even knowing the expected sound in your head before you turn the knob. It's experience and it takes years. Once you know exactly what you got in your DAW, then look to 3rd party developers to fill the gaps your DAW doesn't cover. Those gaps depend greatly on your objectives. A few common examples left out of any DAW might be Vocal and Bass Riders, hardware emulation of high end EQ or compression, TrackSpacer, and maybe a good sample manager like ADSR, Cosmos, or XO.

The opposite of this is buying too many plugs, and never really learning any of them, relying on presets and wasting too much time especially if you have deadlines. 

Know your tools.


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