pouët.net

I meant the plugins, not the DAW. Cubase rules!

Yeah . . . I got Lite for free because it was this month, thinking about upgrading to full for some of the reasons Gloom gave, as well as how the software is growing on me. I thought I'd get started properly making music with Schism and then scale up to a DAW, but Schism made me so annoyed between the UI and my shit Mac keyboard that I wasn't willing to spend time with it.

But I have to decide before the end of the month what platform to get Ableton for if I do because the sale ends, and after my current laptop dies (and I know it is headed that way, and replacing a harddrive in a Mac laptop is stupid given the cost) I don't know what I'm going to do, computerwise. Not another Mac, that's sure.

I admit, I've heard a multitude of people talking about why Reaper is awesome . . . why is Reaper awesome? All I know is that 4klang talks with it happily.

also h0ffman gets credit for the dddave ddd dddave, it was early I was tired and I still am

metoikos: I can only say why it's awesome _for me_, in fact -- I have. Granted, that post is two years old now and Reaper got a shiny new major revision since then (which I love even more), but to boil it down:

- It doesn't crash
- It does exactly what it says on the tin
- It has a remarkable number of rendering options and is very easy and fast to work with
- It's insanely expandable, even without adding more plugins
- Monitoring, routing, smart small features (like seeing individual VU-settings in complex folder-track setups)
- Tracks are anything: MIDI, audio, control data, or a combination -- fantastic
- Everything can be automated, right out of the box
- Tiny awesome thing: there is a search-field in the settings-menu, which allows me to find settings scary fast

Reaper suxx

why, or are you trolling

Not that I'm doing much music anymore, but +1 for Reaper, for all the reasons Gloom stated here and in his blog post. Of course people are scared out at the beginning because there's no "make music out of the box" button that's so prevalent in prosumer/semipro audio software today but as soon as you start worknig with it seriously you'll really like it.

Also, you can trust Reaper to do an unattended 16 track recording for hours on a freaking netbook. I wouldn't try that with any other software. :)

I'd sure like to hear what a psy-trance song with 5000 stem tracks sounds, maybe see the project file too.

kb: hmm, so Reaper isn't as resource-hungry as Ableton, given the same approximate task complexity?

Because I was dreaming of an Asus netbook (vs getting a Thinkpad of some kind) but then a person in the know said Ableton tends to overwhelm netbooks.

Me is interested. The "make music out of the box" things in Ableton I've seen so far make me a little tetchy, but I can ignore them. Honestly the only thing I care about as a beginner is a GUI that doesn't suck as much as The Gimp (Schism had that in its favor, minus the irritating switching between views mechanic). And well, I only sort of want to destroy the one in Ableton sometimes, but maybe I'll stop wanting to do so if I find some magic way to pop out the arrangement view window (oh wait, I don't think there is one, even in the full version : P ) I don't want to marry my brain to bloatware, and if Ableton's benefits are outweighed by its flaws, I'll have to treat it as a stepping stone and stick with the free Lite version . . .

oh and that think elbee said above

Nah I was trolling. I love Reaper with a passion. Once you get a library of vst's that you can use and know well, it does exactly what a DAW should do, and that's provide you with necessary glue and tools and get the fuck out of the way.

impulse tracker sucks

why?

because interface

Impulse tracker does suck. However, I'm now thinking of trying Reaper.

On a related note, (middle C), has anyone here tried Studio One?

yay for middle C.

Down several octaves, want to hear answer to h0ffmans question but also curious if anyone has used both ableton and reaper and can help me decide that ableton is a piece of bloatware not to buy the full version of and instead learn reaper after I get a windoze machine.

Reaper is really lightweight, but it's probably a bad idea to make overarching assumptions. As I said initially: my reasons for choosing Reaper are my own, and I know plenty of people who swear by Ableton Live. It's simply a preference on UI and workflow that guides the decision as to what to use. In your case (not having a lot of experience and just starting out) I would offer this piece of advice: try more than one DAW, and see which one you like the best. :)

H0ffman: give it a try, and ping me if you get stuck somewhere. I can't believe you actually USE Cubase :)

my thoughts exactly, although other programms got a mention, too, and not all negative.

@wysiswtf: ^

Gloom: I'll give her a shot, thing is I was taught Cubase when I did sound engineering at college so I know it like the back of my hand.

yeah ableton live is a resource hog. On my Q6600 it maxes out CPU being at ~75%, while cubase can go to over 90%

and the clip thingy is totally unusable and crap.

having a shitty computer and not knowing how to use an application != application is crap

that is just you failing

Not exactly DAW specific, but I was into tracking back then and I remember it stopped me from doing some stuff with protracker or octamed.

This was on amiga, in the days before HDDs became common and everything was loaded from df0:. We always called it 'dfo' when talking, and for some reason I started typing dfo: too... and thought my computer was fucked because it couldn't access the drive. What a fucking stupid mistake, and it took a few months to realise the error :(

One point on Albeton.. You have to remember that it isn't really a DAW, it's just turned into one over time.

The clue is in the File menu.

"Open Live Set.."

My 2 cents, which actually was more than that when I bought it, goes to ProTools, which has proven to be my favorite DAW. I tried Live, Cubase, Nuendo, Logic and DigitalPerformer (omfg not Reaper!!!) and both workflow and performance are amazing. And yes, I trust it to record multitracks for hours.

I guess the most stupid thing I've done was not learning the keyboard shortcuts sooner. It's a time saver and your ideas won't fly away while you search for the mouse in a multi screen environment. Integration with other programs is awesome, btw, and there's no way I'm changing DAW. Plus, my session is compatible with every studio I go for extra recording, mixing or mastering.

jeenio: trying desperately not to turn this into a "OMG MY DAW IS BETTER THAN YOUR DAW!!111", but seriously..? ProTools? It is perhaps the most bloated, fragile, illogical piece of floating poo out there. Ever tried upgrading OSX? Oops, can't do that -- will have to wait for half a year until DigiDesign verifies the new OS patch. Upgrading drivers? Don't even DREAM about doing that. Working on a removable drive? Forget about it.. I stopped using ProTools because I was tired of fighting with the piece of software that was supposed to help me be creative. Ask Flipside or Kaktusen what they think of ProTools too :)

Upside: it's an industry standard, so you'll be able to share project files with pretty much anyone (though, don't even DARE doing it without having the exact same plugin setup -- mayhem ensues..)