Cool, thanks Patrick. No hurry or anything. I anxiously await your next installment with great patience. ; )
Cool, thanks Patrick. No hurry or anything. I anxiously await your next installment with great patience. ; )
Good idea Basslad. Maybe TR members could review their favorite DAW for the benefit of all.
I use a PC ghsky1. I will look into Audacity. I read somewhere that Mixmaster 6 is a good substitute on the PC for Garageband. I am also checking out Reaper. Both Mixmaster and Reaper appear to have lots of features and reasonable pricing. I just don't want to invest much in the way of time and money only to find out later that I made the wrong choice.
Well Audacity is not really a D.A.W. (if that's what you seek) it's more an audio editor.
As for D.A.W.'s for PC (Windows here are a few that I know) :
1. Reaper (www.reaper.fm). A nice cheap D.A.W.
They have a great philosophy when it comes to licensing their software. Unlike most other developers they only have 1 version of Reaper but 2 license types. A "standard" license for home and professional users who don't make more than $20,000 (Yearly gross income) the price is $60 and if you make more the software costs $225. You can find more information on their site.
2. Cubase/Nuendo/Nuendo Live (steinberg)
Cubase is my personal favorite D.A.W. for Windows. Depending on what version you want it can be pretty expensive especially when you want to go even more pro with Nuendo they top-of-the-line product with Video Support.
- Cubase is targetting the serious home user
- Nuendo is targetting the Post Production marker
- Nuendo Live is a newer product for Live recordings (they can be edited in newer versions of Cubase and Nuendo)
For some reason Cubase seems to be one of the most popular in Europe while Pro Tools is more popular in the U.S.
3. Pro Tools : I didn't try this one (I don't have an iLOK)
4. Ableton Live (suite) : Ableton Live seems to be targeting a different market than the Home Recording crowd (more Live DJ) so IMHO not good for our use
5. Reason : (Reason is now working on version 8) Reason can be seen more as a "Virtual Rack" which is a nice idea, you basically build your amp-rack and record. More targeting the Guitar players. One of the downsides is that you can only use their "Rack Extensions" and not the popular VST/VSTi plugins (but they claim this makes Reason more stable).
6. Cakewalk Sonar X3 : Looks nice and seems to work pretty well, but it needs a high-resolution to fully use it to it's full potential (I think 1920x1080 is minimum). They have a nice additional feature which is build-in Gobbler support (Gobbler can be used to Backup and share your Projects (not only from Sonar but also Cubase, Protools, ...) so you don't need to leave Sonar to do this) and they also have build-in Melodyne support)
7. Image-Line - FL Studio : I don't like this one :-D
8. Studio One 2 (by Presonus) : Looks like a nice program
9. Sony ACID Pro 7 : From what I can find ACID Pro is no longer being developed by Sony Creative Software (the last update was in 2011) but the less professional version ACID Music Studio 10 is still being worked on, but it lacks some features of ACID Pro (maybe they'll be added later).
10. RiffWorks by Sonoma Wire Works : Good for Riffs and Guitar Players Less for "home studio" recording IMHO
11. BitWig-Studio : One of the new kids on the block. It's claimed to be revolutionary by independent reviews and they have a version for Windows, Mac and Linux (Ubuntu package). It's looks nice but that's all I can say.
12. Tracktion : Tracktion is an older product but it was discontinued some years ago, now development has been restarted and they are now at version 5. They also have a Linux version but that's in Beta. It's also claimed to be revolutionary by it's user interface but for some reason I don't like working with it (not that it's bad).
13. Harrison Mixbus 2.5 by Harrison Consoles (http://harrisonconsoles.com/site/index.html) Harrison is a big brand in the High-end Console market but like most of you I've never heard of them before. There software/hardware seems to be used by big film studio's.
Anyway, this is basically a Windows version of Ardour with their proprietary mixer added to it (and some graphical tweaks and minor additions like the possibility to use templates which is a small thing but I like that).
They are 2 purchase options (kinda like Reaper) :
- Purchase Mixbus : $149 (discount from $219)
- Subscription : $49 + $9/month
from their site :
_________________________________________
Mixbus 2 Subscription: The Mixbus Subscription Plan offers Mixbus in a low-cost package with continuing benefits while you remain subscribed. This plan includes FREE updates to all future versions of Mixbus while you remain subscribed, and 50% off (or more) new Harrison plug-ins as they release!
_________________________________________
Ardour : (Mac and Linux Only) : Ardour has a similar payment system but it's cheaper.
- Purchase Ardour (you decide what you pay with a minimum of $1)
- Subscription : $1 or $4 or $10/month
- source Code (build it yourself) : $0 (optional donation)
If you run Linux it's possible that Ardour is also available through your package management system
Well that's all D.A.W. I can think of at the moment (but I guess there are more).
I do know there is also EnergyXT and MuTools MuLab but I have no testing experience with those.
Hope this helps.
Thanks again for the great info Patrick. I do not have enough knowledge at this point to know what to ask. I am still investigating various DAW and sound editing packages. I bought a Behringer USB interface which came with Audacity, but also offered a free version of Tracktion 4. I also read somewhere that Mixcraft 6 was a very user friendly, inexpensive, and Garageband-like DAW. Audacity may do all I need at this point, but I would prefer to at least understand the DAW process. Much more to learn before I can even formulate appropriate questions. Thanks again for all your efforts Patrick.
I knew there was something odd about Audacity and couldn't remember exactly what that was. I got lucky and received a deep discount on Presonus Studio One 2 Professional after taking a recording class presented by Berklee on Coursera. It is way over my head and there is more their than I will ever need. My interface is an old M-Audio FastTrack.
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Yes, I forgot to mention Mixcraft, It was mentioned in an Article here on TR a while ago. I personally don't like it but I guess others do.
There is also n-track studio that I forgot to mention.
And some more I guess, I have no experience with Mac software like Garageband so I cannot say anything about those D.A.W.
As for Audacity I would advise to start using a D.A.W. now.
Depending on the D.A.W. you choose (and the O/S incase of Garageband or Ardour) it can be a steep learning curve so you might want to take your time learning or you might to "unlearn" some stuff in the future.
But that's just my vision.
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