What are the pros/cons of your DAW?

[Fade]

1. What DAW do you use?
2. What are the pros and cons?

Me:

Ableton and Sonar

Ableton:

Pros
Great built-in effects and incredible workflow.

Cons
It can be a real pain sometimes when trying to zoom in and out on a clip for some fine editing.

Sonar:

Pros
I'm so used to it and it has a solid old school feel to it. It's a traditional DAW which I love.

Cons
I don't like the way it handles third party plug-ins and it doesn't always recognize my keyboard controller.

 

[JorgeRamosBeats]

1. What DAW do you use?

FL studio (12 at the moment), only DAW I ever touched and will touch, very happy with it (but guess im sort of living in a bubble since I never really looked into other DAWs).

2. What are the pros and cons?

Well never tried other DAWs so the only things I can think of is the stuff I've read or heard about.

Pros:
Someone once told me FL Studio is best for loop making, and that other DAWs have the advantage over it when it comes to compositions with alot of variety.

Don't really need any hardware besides your computer, mouse, keyboard and headphones/speakers.
Basically if you have those things you can rock anything in FL Studio (not sure if that's the same with other DAWs).

Automating effects on a large scale can be a pain in the butt. I used to do that alot in my electro house projects (I have an i7-4820k with 8 CPUs and sometimes it would run in red, imagine that). Sometimes I would have 6/7 mixer tracks for just one sound, splitting signals for maximum control. Then I would have 6+ automations for different effects on the same sound. Although projects like that can become very chaotic and disorganised, I always thought FL Studio offered good tools to organize the project and make it transparent what I was doing (again, unsure about the capabilities of other DAWs in this area).

Cons:
I read that FL Studio is not so good with recording audio. Never done that though.

Like I said in the pros, FL Studio is not so good when it comes to compositions that have alot of variety. With that I imagine classical compositions and film music.


That's all I can think of really.
I don't see myself trying other DAWs in the future, I just want to spend my time making music and improving. I feel that FL Studio can offer me that just fine.

I'm eager to hear about other people's experiences with DAWs.

 

[Memento Beats]

DAW: FL Studio

Pros:

- It's very intuitive, user friendly.

- It allows for a very fast work flow even for a beginner.

- There's a mobile version of FL Studio for someone who can't live without making music (not good for me though because using it on the mobile device can be painful in my opinion. I mean when it comes to size of the mobile device it can be problematic at least for me but I counted it as a good side of it).

- Can be used to produce any kind of music that is based on using samples, libraries, vsts etc. I have seen a lot of people using it to produce orchestral music using Kontakt libraries and it worked very well. Not good when it comes to actual recording of let's call it "real instruments".

Cons:

- As mentioned above, it doesn't work well when it comes to recording audio. However, it does work well when it comes to recording MIDI. But not instruments like guitar or vocals etc.

- It still has a stigma that it can't be used to produce high quality music despite the fact that a lot of famous producers and DJs use it.

 

[Armani]

Nice idea fade!

1. What DAW do you use?
2. What are the pros and cons?

FL Studio

Pros
Really easy to work with & i can access Anything with one or two clicks
When a melody comes to my head, i can immediately write it in fl studio before i forget it
it Rarely crashes

Cons
Its not the best when it comes to mixing
the recorded audio doesn't sound good

 

[JodyKurtis]

Maschine
i just love the way it handles... i have FL but just never got into it but now im thinking i should cause it seems like thats the best way to go... or maybe not... i just love making music so it never matters to me as long as i can get a dope sound out... shitttt i use to make beats on the playstation back in the day with Music Generator and before that... looping the cassette tape lol but that was like late 80's lol so really im just glad time has change and now we have computers.... but what do ya'll think is best to use?????

 

[C4NTK33P5T1LL]

Tracktion 7
Pro's
The Only DAW I've Ever Taken To Bar Reason (Re-Wire) The Self Proclaimed One Screened Wonder Has Baby Walked Me From Scared Little Lamb To A Drooling Steam Snorting Beatmaker I Love How Everything I Need Is there Where It Should Be Helps Me Keep My Attention On Where It should Be As I'm Easily Distracted
Cons
Crashes When Deleteing Certain Plugins EG. Limiter 6 & Molot Also Occaisionally Resets To Default so I Have To Reload All My Plugins Again Other Than That It's a Fuckin Delight

Upon reading This I Am Eager To Try FL Studio It's Always Been A What If

 

[commonchild]

FL Studio and Studio One

I started with FL Studio when it was Fruity Loops, version 3. Started making beats in Studio One in January.

FL Pros:
- Easy to learn, easy to use
- Smooth piano roll
- Write patterns, and lay them out in tracks
- Quick and easy to establish a workflow
- FREE UPDATES FOR LIFE

FL Cons:
- Easy to get used to and stuck in a box
- Mac version doesn't support Rewire, can't use Reason when I'm mobile
- Can't set effects on Midi channels (that I'm aware of)

S1 Pros:
- Intuitive
- Drag and drop
- Nice mixing interface
- Slicing, chopping, and editing samples is the best I have ever used
- Can make my beats and record my vocals, then mix and master an entire project in one program
- New pattern mode has a few features missing from FL

S1 Cons:
- Piano roll not as smooth as FL
- Not as good to use without midi controls
- Pattern mode has a long way to go
- Reason is kind of a pain to set up instruments, but it works well with it