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DAW for music production
  • This topic is about verious DAW opinions and comparisons.
    Focused on music production for your film.

  • 35 Replies sorted by
  • Sequoia, Samplitude and Pyramix for the best audio with video capabilities; keep a copy of ProTools handy for those all too frequent occurrences where people think it is somehow better. From the audio point of view, Samplitude is a very good deal because of the Spectral NR, which is similar to the really expensive ones. NR is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. It also comes with sophisticated Impulse Reverb built in. However, it lacks 4 point crossfades, which is the big difference between high end DAW and midlevel DAW. For live recording on a budget, consider Reaper, which is very, very hard to crash, and when it does crash it leaves the audio on the disk. Personally, I will not edit without 4 point CF, because there is such a big difference in the quality of the end product and the time it takes to get there. But you can get there on a budget with Samplitude, and remove the cell phones as well.

  • Bit of an irrational selection for comparison imo. Logic Pro should be compared against Sonar X1, Cubase and such. I'll second the comments on Samplitude, an incredible package for the price really, I've been using it since the early SeK'D version on the Amiga.

  • Sadly 99.99% of the world do use Pro Tools for TV production with the occasional Fairlight and doorstop erm I mean Audiofile thrown in for nostalgia lol In the end audio goes in one end comes out the other - AVID are merging Pro Tools with media composer after version 10 so that might change a few minds in the audio community.

    +1 for Cubase - rebooted mine after years on Logic and had fun with it last week - very easy to use.

    Only seen Pyramix used recently as a film dubber to record stems to, and by a few chums who use it to record live (with MADI for the easy input runs) but it's a very comprehensive and nice DAW with good hardware.

  • Steinberg nuendo is excellent

  • Ohm Studio is the first real-time collaborative digital audio workstation. Start a project, invite musicians and make music together. It's as simple as that.

    http://www.ohmstudio.com/

  • I like REAPER. Bitwig also sounds interesting, except it hasn't been released yet.

  • Ohm Studio is the first real-time collaborative digital audio workstation.

    Only it’s not.
    1994 called and said hello: http://www.jamwith.us/about_us/rocket_history.shtml

  • @Mr_Moore

    Sorry? On your link I don't see similar software.
    All I see is some community oriented MIDI thing that is long ceased to exist, or I am wrong?

  • Bitwig = vaporware, not even a Beta (or even a bad Beta).

  • Very happy with Sonar X1 here (the updates were critical)

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    Seriously? You’ve never heard of Rocket Network before? It was part of a few DAWs back in the day. It was introduced in Logic Audio at around version 4.6 or so (end of the 90s, I think).

    It was a neat idea, way ahead of its time, but it was hardly suited for dial-up.

  • Used Logic for many years, since the Atari days right thru...great app and awesome for composing, but I also have to say I like Reaper these days, love the flexibility and customization of that app, you can basically refine it as you go along via all the actions, and custom actions etc, set it up as a composing or digital audio editing app...whatever. Great CPU use too...compared to many other DAW's that I have used.

  • I used Cubase for many years because it's the program I was the most familiar with. I love its drum editor and midi sheet. It was also pretty stable for me and all my VST's seemed to work well with it. I soon got fed up with their support, the dongle, bloatware, and just not listening to user feature requests, so I switched to Reaper which has excellent support and costs way less. It also acts like Vegas in terms of interface which is great for people used to working with Vegas (me). Their demo is unrestricted and has unlimited use. They just ask that you buy it after a certain period. The price is nearly a gift for people who don't use it professionally.

  • M-Audio Ignite by AIR

  • One thing to consider is the timing of the microphones. If you are decent at math, you can make these calculations and plug them into the delay box in Sequoia/Samplitude. Only Pyramix will do this for you automatically, and adjust for stereo timing multiple delays across the soundfield. This is one of the most common problems in mixing.

  • Waves make a time align plugin, among others, as do Sound Radix

    http://www.soundradix.com

  • I use Pro Tools for only one reason - I never have to qualify myself and my gear when taking a sound mixing gig, and anything I do can be taken to any pro house in town with zero issues.

  • @test1 some of these newer plugins to a pretty decent job with timing and phase, but because they run as plugins, they introduce another set of latencies. Pyramix uses Pannoir. These plugins will get better over time. Edit I tested some of these plugins and on my system they were not accurate, so I would say if you are going to use them you will have to go through a calibration routine of some sort.

    @shian I can see the argument for using ProTools, it is sort of a standard, I just don't think it sounds as good. So for me it is the difference between sound and hassles. But another thing to consider is if the ppl you are taking it to aren't qualified on Pyramix, then maybe they aren't really qualified to run ProTools.

    There always is a problem taking audio anywhere, since these places use a margin system for profit. They take your project, charge you the $60 per hour or whatever, then hand it off to someone literally making minimum wage, then pocket the difference.

  • If you are interested in microphone timing, this video explains it pretty well, just skip the scary hype in the first half minute, and it shows all the problems and how they arise.

  • Ohm Studio 1.0 released

    It is real-time collaborative digital audio workstation software.

    https://www.ohmstudio.com/shop

  • Cubase 7.5 will be available from December 4

  • +1 for Reaper. you need to generate a proxy video, but it is cheap and working great!

    • 1 for Reaper. Started with FL studio, then Reason, Pro tools here and there, tried Cubase. Found Reaper in 2009. Never looked back. For me, Reaper operated midi like reason and recorded audio like pro tools. But of course Pro tools is the standard and most used in all professional studios.
  • Reaper here too. I sub out the stems and bring them into Vegas for the render.