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Best free daw is ardour. A little trickier though

I tried Ardour like 5 years ago and it was buggy as hell. I really wanted to make it work (I was already using Rosegarden/Hydrogen/FluidSynth) but I couldn't, so many crashes just made me gave up.

Sonar 8.5 Producers Edition. I find it very simple to use, but I've been using Cakewalk DAWs since the 90s.

Invisible Man wrote:^^^Preach! I have no problems with this. Used PT; wasn't for me. What iteration of Ableton do you folks recommend looking at for starters? Some pals of mine swear by it...

For starters it's hard to go wrong with their Intro package. I think it's like $85 or something, which is expensive in some ways but about the price of your average Boss pedal in others.

https://www.ableton.com/en/live/feature-comparison/[/quote]

Alright then. Things are slow at le job today (and every day...), so I guess I'll take a peek.

they also put a free live intro license in like every piece of gear u buy these days.

I use Renoise for any sort of sequencing stuff, but I'm starting to learn Reaper for recording. I can link Renoise with Reaper through ReWire too which is handy. Reaper seems really flexible and easy to use. Renoise is just a crazy intense tracker environment.

Add 1 to the "scorned PT ex-lover" list. I didn't hate it really, just needed a change.
I work in Digital Performer all day, every day, and I can't recall it ever giving me PT level frustration. I does somethings a little differently, but once you're used to it, it's a good time.

I use Reason for its incredible user-friendly workflow and its mixer. It's easily the best and happiest experience I've had with a DAW and it really does sound golden. Some of the functionality is laughably good (like comping takes). It loves you, which makes it easy to love it right back. BUT no 3rd party plugins is a huge turn-off for a lot of people and makes it very limited at times. Ableton Live is kind of the industry standard for a lot of a certain type of producers and I feel it would be the more natural move to go from Pro Tools to that, but I'd give Reaper a shot. They seem like a good bunch of people and seem to want to create something that will rival the very best.

I've used Tracktion for almost 10 years now - V4 is now free now.

It's solid, has never once crashed on me, and I like the features in that it doesn't inflict "this is standard mixing format" on me.

It's also quick and easy for me to stagger to the box, fire it up, and be recording within 30s. That's damn important in my poor health.

PT I never bothered with but it wasn't during my pro studio time (all still tape, whether ADAT or 1/2 - 1").

I like reaper a lot, especially for the price. I'll probably buy ableton at some point to try it out but right now I can't afford it and reaper does everything I need to do, and can do a hell of a lot more than I need with lots of plugins.

I don't have a ton of experience with many programs. I have used Pro Tools and Logic on a limited basis but have extensively used Cubase. I haven't found anything that seems like a dramatic upgrade, its been quite solid and I know how to use it.

I've been happy with Logic. €180 buys you the full version on the app store which lasts about 4 or 5 years before there's a new one. Garageband is pretty rad too if you're a Mac user and don't need everything Logic has to offer.

Non Mac users, I'd bet on Reaper. It's not exactly perfect, but it's cheap, it works and it has the features you should expect of a good modern DAW.

Yo! Thanks a bunch for the pointers all.

As I should have expected, I just got more confused for awhile...
BUT, seems like I'll be choosing between Reaper and Ableton.

Much appreciated

askashrub wrote:Yo! Thanks a bunch for the pointers all.

As I should have expected, I just got more confused for awhile...
BUT, seems like I'll be choosing between Reaper and Ableton.

Much appreciated

ANything to keep those gorgeous demos coming my man

+1 for Tracktion. Been using it since I got a free v2 license from Tape Op. It's not super fancy but it has the tools I need. I use it for pre-production, writing, even editing audio for video demos. Solid and runs well on less than stellar machines.