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Thread: The D.A.W. List

  1. #1

    Exclamation The D.A.W. List

    If you want to setup your personal home studio, but don't know what D.A.W. you should pick this thread could be something for you.

    This will not be a "best of" or "What D.A.W. should I get" article but more a list of available D.A.W.'s (Digital Audio Workstation) and some information.

    I will make a new post for each D.A.W. and I'll try to keep the same format to make comparing easier.

    Now to make you choice a bit easer here are some thing you might want to consider before buying a D.A.W.

    1. What O/S do I want to use (or what O/S am I using).
    Some D.A.W. are only Available for Mac (Logic Pro for example) others are Windows Only (Sonar) so you need to know if the D.A.W. can actually run on your computer.

    2. Try a Demo/Trial version of the D.A.W.'s that you are interested in (most D.A.W. are expensive).

    3. What Audio Interface do I want/need and is it compatible with my O/S of choice. Also if you are interested in a specific D.A.W. (let's say Ableton Live for example) you can buy an interface (Focusred Scarlet) that comes pre-bundles with a D.A.W. (Focusred ships with Ableton Live Lite) so you don't need to buy the D.A.W.

    4. Do I need the Full featured version of the D.A.W. I want ?
    Most D.A.W.'s come in various versions where they have a cheap "entry level" D.A.W. and an expensive "Pro" version. If you only want to record your Bass and Play-Along tracks you don't need the Expert level Pro version of the D.A.W. and the lite version that comes with the Interface is enough.

    Learning a D.A.W. take some time since most have a lot of features so it will pay to choose the correct D.A.W. from the beginning since it will cost a lot of time and money if you wan't to switch later on.

    How will my D.A.W.-list look ? :

    - NAME of the D.A.W.
    - Publisher name
    - Website

    - Windows (Yes if it's supported)
    - Mac OS X
    - Linux

    - Copy Protection (Yes if it uses copy protection)
    - Copy Protection Type (License key, Activation, ...)
    - Dongle (do you need a USB-Dongle to be able to run the D.A.W. (YES/NO)

    - Notes (if there are interesting things to mention).

    Please do NOT reply to posts in this thread !
    I will try to make this as clear as possible so if you have questions about a D.A.W. please start a new thread here in the Home Recording section.

    P.S.
    The D.A.W. are not sorted in any way so they are not sorted by rating or anything like that.
    Fender 2012 American Standard Precision Bass (Left-handed)
    Fender '59 Bassman LTD.









  2. #2

    Default

    Mixbus / Mixbus 32C
    - Harrison Consoles
    - http://harrisonconsoles.com/site/mixbus.html

    - Windows YES
    - Mac OS YES
    - Linux YES

    - Copy Protection YES
    - Copy Protection Type : License File
    - Dongle NO

    - Notes :
    Harrison Consoles released a new product called Mixbus 32C yesterday (April 28th 2016).
    Mixbus is based on the Free (Open Source) D.A.W. Ardour.
    It's basically the Ardour D.A.W. with some proprietary additions (like their mixbusses)
    Mixbus is one of the few D.A.W. that doesn't use "
    cumbersome" Copy Protection. (Most D.A.W.'s use an Activation-based system or a Dongle, but Mixbus only requires a license-file to be present in your $HOME folder so it's one of the most "user friendly" D.A.W.'s in the list (but that's just my opinion).

    starting version 3.3 of Mixbus they allow the license files to be placed in other folders.
    X42 (a Mixbus developer at Harrison consoles) stated that the following places are scaned for license files (in this order by first come first served, so the first license found will be used).

    $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/harrisonconsoles/license_key_harrison_*.txt
    $HOME/.config/harrisonconsoles/license_key_harrison_*.txt
    $HOME/.license_key_harrison_*.txt
    $HOME/license_key_harrison_*.txt
    /usr/local/share/license_key_harrison_*.txt


    The new Mixbus 32C is modeled after their "iconic" 32C console (Harrison is a a big player when it comes to analog studio consoles). The price for the 32C version is higher than the "standard" mixbus.

    Harrison Consoles stated that from now on they will have 2 D.A.W.'s on sale.

    The cheap Harrison Mixbus and the more expensive Mixbus 32C.
    They will release frequent updates for both versions.

    Last edited by Patrick; 04-30-2016 at 03:26 AM.
    Fender 2012 American Standard Precision Bass (Left-handed)
    Fender '59 Bassman LTD.









  3. #3

    Default

    Ardour
    - The Ardour Project
    - https://ardour.org

    - Windows YES (unsupported "nightly builds")
    - Mac OS YES
    - Linux YES

    - Copy Protection : NO
    - Copy Protection Type : N/A
    - Dongle NO

    - Notes : Ardour is Open Source Software (Free Software) but the developers kindly as to pay a small fee to aid the development of the Software. I would recommend you pay/donate if you decide to use Ardour as your D.A.W. There is no Official Windows version but I think there is a windows version offered on another website (but since it's not official I will not post it here).

    Since Ardour 4 it moved from "
    Unofficial" to "Official" support for OS X, and there are so called unsupported "nightly-builds" available for Windows (So in the future we will likely see Ardour being officially supported on all 3 O/S's).
    Last edited by Patrick; 05-03-2016 at 10:37 AM.
    Fender 2012 American Standard Precision Bass (Left-handed)
    Fender '59 Bassman LTD.









  4. #4

    Default

    ProTools
    - AVID
    - http://www.avid.com/en/pro-tools

    - Windows YES
    - Mac OS YES
    - Linux YES

    - Copy Protection : NO
    - Copy Protection Type : iLOK
    - Dongle YES

    - Notes : ProTools required the Pace iLok USB dongle to work. The dongle can hold multiple licenses for other software and plugins. The down-side if these Dongles is that they take up 1 extra USB port.

    ProTools calls itself the "Industry standard" and many professional recording studio's use it. It's fairly expensive (they did make the standard version cheaper
    though).
    Fender 2012 American Standard Precision Bass (Left-handed)
    Fender '59 Bassman LTD.









  5. #5

    Default

    Cubase/Nuendo
    - Steinberg
    - http://www.steinberg.net/en/home.html

    - Windows YES
    - Mac OS YES
    - Linux YES

    - Copy Protection : YES
    - Copy Protection Type : eLicenses
    - Dongle YES They have their own Dongle called eLicenser. It can hold all Steinberg licenses

    - Notes : As with ProTools you need to have the USB Dongle plugged-in to use it so it takes 1 USB-port.
    Steinberg also claims to be the "Industry" standard.

    Cubase is available in various versions going for cheap to expensive.
    Nuendo (their Mastering Software) is expensive (more than $1000) and if you want some extras that come with Cubase you'll need to pay for the "Nuendo Expansion Kit" or NEK as they call it.

    I'm told that Cubase is the most popular in Europe while ProTools is the most popular in the USA but I'm not sure if this is actually true.
    Fender 2012 American Standard Precision Bass (Left-handed)
    Fender '59 Bassman LTD.









  6. #6

    Default

    Reason
    - Propellerheads
    - http://propellerheads.se

    - Windows YES
    - Mac OS YES
    - Linux YES

    - Copy Protection : YES
    - Copy Protection Type : Ignition Key (Codemeter)
    - Dongle YES They have their own Dongle called Ignition Key (or Codemeter)

    - Notes : Reason is a "virtual Rack" so intended for guitar players (mostly).
    They have a different licensing system.

    - Codemeter USB Stick
    - A Balance USB Interface with build-in Codemeter so it doesn't take 1 extra USB-Port
    - Online, if you don't have your Ignition Key of Balance plugged in, you can use Reason by logging-in but you'll need to be online the whole time.
    Fender 2012 American Standard Precision Bass (Left-handed)
    Fender '59 Bassman LTD.









  7. #7

    Default

    Bitwig (Bitwig studio)
    - Bitwig
    - http://www.bitwig.com/en/bitwig-studio.html

    - Windows YES
    - Mac OS YES
    - Linux YES

    - Copy Protection : YES
    - Copy Protection Type : Activation
    - Dongle NO

    - Notes : Bitwig has a diffrent style compared to most D.A.W.'s which might be welcome if you don't like most others.
    The bitwig studio is developed by former Ableton developers, so they do have experience in the D.A.W. market.
    It is fairly new so it might change in the future.
    Last edited by Patrick; 04-29-2016 at 01:43 PM.
    Fender 2012 American Standard Precision Bass (Left-handed)
    Fender '59 Bassman LTD.









  8. #8

    Default

    Thanks for this contribution, Patrick! Informative stuff!


    - low life -

  9. #9

    Default

    Sonar
    - Cakewalk (boss)
    - https://www.cakewalk.com/products/SONAR/

    - Windows YES
    - Mac OS NO
    - Linux NO

    - Copy Protection : YES
    - Copy Protection Type : Activation
    - Dongle NO

    - Notes : Sonar is one of the few D.A.W.'s that not available for both Windows and Mac.
    The older versions used no real copy protection, just a serial number.
    Since the current version they require to activate (I think they now use a separate program to manage the license activations).
    Fender 2012 American Standard Precision Bass (Left-handed)
    Fender '59 Bassman LTD.









  10. #10

    Default

    Tracktion
    - Tracktion Corporation
    - https://www.tracktion.com

    - Windows YES
    - Mac OS YES
    - Linux YES

    - Copy Protection : YES
    - Copy Protection Type : Activation
    - Dongle NO

    - Notes : One of the few that will run on Windows, Mac and Linux.
    It has it's own look (like Bitwig) and I think it runs on Java.
    Tracktion is an old D.A.W. but is was discontinued for several year and was recently restarted

    Fender 2012 American Standard Precision Bass (Left-handed)
    Fender '59 Bassman LTD.









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