Too many DAWs

[majewsky]

Hello everyone,


I've recently bought Scarlett 2i4 and started my home studio journey, but I've got confused with all of this available software. I've got the Ableton Live Lite and Pro Tools. On the other hand many people mention Reaper as a great piece of software. Which one do you recommend?

I mainly bought the interface with Helix Native in mind, so I would like the DAW that works best with Native. Any suggestions?
:thanks:

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: Too many DAWs

Helix Native will work with pretty much any DAW.

It's all about what you want to do, what your most common tasks are going to be, and what your going to be most comfortable with.

 

[majewsky]

Re: Too many DAWs

Mostly I'll use Helix Native, because I've sold all of my regular rig and was left with only my acoustic and electric guitar and I want to go all digital.

Right now I use free verision of Peavey Revalver and it's not so bad, but I can't seem to be able to put it in Ableton.

In the near future I also want to buy vocal microphone and start recording.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Too many DAWs

Yeah, Helix native works with anything I've tried. Currently, I am using Waveform/Tracktion. This is on a PC.

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: Too many DAWs

But what about the rest of your recording needs? Just going to be doing basic rock format type stuff?

Really any DAW will work, pick it up and stick with it. Comfort is the biggest thing here.

 

[Progbusters]

Re: Too many DAWs

i use garageband haha

 

[majewsky]

Re: Too many DAWs

ok, thanks a lot guys!

 

[Mincer]

Re: Too many DAWs

i use garageband haha

Nothing wrong with that. I've heard really great stuff recorded on GarageBand.

 

[GilmourD]

Re: Too many DAWs

Nothing wrong with that. I've heard really great stuff recorded on GarageBand.

GarageBand is literally a light version of Logic, so I wouldn't expect anything bad. It's just limited in track quantity and certain other features.

I use Reaper on the PC. I just find it to be intuitive and easy to work with. Also, it's fairly inexpensive if you do decide to purchase a license.

 

[DankStar]

Re: Too many DAWs

The one's I've tried have a been pretty similar. Reaper's cool given the price and all the tutorial videos out there.

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Too many DAWs

I like a lot of the recommendations, but circling back to what you already have, all Daws do something better than others and you have access to 2 classics that you can learn along the way-

Ableton is a monster for building songs- great for live, for looping and building entirely new songs- one cool thing to do is to record your band multitrack and then you can trigger parts live and play against them, ie one man band.

Pro tools is the king of studios- If you learn any DAW you can always interpolate workflow, but understanding protools is crucial if you're studio bound (in budget studios, I've helped the engineer move along at times when they didn't have much PT experience to reduce our tracking costs

 

[Mo80sMetal]

Re: Too many DAWs

GarageBand is literally a light version of Logic, so I wouldn't expect anything bad. It's just limited in track quantity and certain other features.

I use Reaper on the PC. I just find it to be intuitive and easy to work with. Also, it's fairly inexpensive if you do decide to purchase a license.

I was researching on DAWs and specifically the differences among them when it comes to value and price. Reaper definitely tops the list while pro tools is just the industry standard with the license being super expensive. Honestly, really depends on what you are comfortable with. I personally use Reaper.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

 

[LesStrat]

Re: Too many DAWs

Native requires 64-bit processing.

:yeah:, I found out the hard way that my software is incompatible.

 

[Rich_S]

Re: Too many DAWs

I've been using Reaper on a 64-bit Windows 10 laptop with a Scarlett 2i2 (and a 2i4 until I gave it to my daughter). Reaper has not given me a single problem. I used it to remix an old 4-track cassette demo from the '80s. A guy I met online bounced the original 4-track to .WAV files for me, and I imported them into Reaper. I used EQ, compressors, delays, and reverb, all VST plugins that came with Reaper. The workflow was pretty easy to figure out for a 50-something whose last recording experience was 30 years ago, and all-analog.

My daughter is getting into composing so I set her up with a copy of Reaper, simply because I already knew it and could provide some small amount of tech support. Her interests are more orchestral, so we found some free orchestral instrument VSTis online. One of them (one she really wanted to use) kept locking Reaper up. So now we're looking to either buy her some commercially-made instrument plugins, or maybe just buy her a whole DAW package including instruments, probably Cubase Elements. We figure by buying the whole thing together, it's more likely to work without problems. The downside is, I'd have no experience with it to help her along.

So, I'm a big fan of Reaper, but my experience hasn't been totally problem-free. Reaper is NOT shareware, you're supposed to pay for it, although the demo is the same as the "full" version, just with an annoying reminder pop-up. However, Reaper is developed very much in the shareware mold; a lot of people work on it and provide new plugins and features. If you like that sort of "community" feeling around a piece of software, then I recommend it. Check out the Reaper forum, and see if anybody has experience combining it with Helix Native.