DAW with decent built in Instruments

menamestom

I'm wanting to move away from Apple, but really like garageband.  I need a new computer and was looking at Macs but you get much more in the PC world.  Garageband on the ipad has most things I need but I dislike the fact it saves everything you do, so just need a similar package but with laptop functionality.

I had my heart set on GB/Logic but when speccing up an Apple Macbook pro it get's sily money for an older spec machine (compared to Dell, Lenovo etc)

So just wondering if there are any similar products for Windows machines, with good drums, keys (rhodes, piano, organ etc)
I have an older copy of cubase and some old VST's but want to move away from messing with settings and things not working, so an all under one roof solution is appealing.

thecolourbox

 I have Cubase 8 elements which has Groove Agent for loads of drums and I installed Native Instruments Kontakt 5 free library of instruments (I think there's also a midi instrument type vst included as well but ive not used that) and I think it is perfectly adequate for most purposes?

TTony

menamestom said:

So just wondering if there are any similar products for Windows machines, with good drums, keys (rhodes, piano, organ etc)

I'm looking around for suitable packages atm too.

I was intending/hoping to  follow the same path from GB/iPad through GB/MacBook to Logic/MacMini, but - for a whole load of "why Apple is bad" reasons - am going down the PC route instead.

In fact, Amazon have just delivered the 480Gb SSD (£130!!) that I'm going to use as my new boot/applications drive in a reborn PC.    

My concern for the DAW choice that I need to make is finding something equivalent to all the instruments/samples/loops that come for free with GB and Logic.  

shrinkwrap

Interesting.. I use Reaper on PC and while I found some great freebies it really seems the GarageBand selection - and it's drummer thing - can't be beaten.
My mate, who had a big falling out with the Apple /Logic way but is locked in too deep, keeps trying to persuade me to get a Mac just for the instruments, and it looks tempting from here. Bad idea?

Danny1969

Protools comes with Xpand which contains shedloads of great drums, synths, basses and pianos. Some people use Protools for nothing else other than running Xpand 

menamestom

shrinkwrap said:

Interesting.. I use Reaper on PC and while I found some great freebies it really seems the GarageBand selection - and it's drummer thing - can't be beaten.
My mate, who had a big falling out with the Apple /Logic way but is locked in too deep, keeps trying to persuade me to get a Mac just for the instruments, and it looks tempting from here. Bad idea?

Not really. I'm not totally against Apple, their software environment looks great and garageband/imovie Logic/final cut look great.  And I know their machines do perform well given slightly lower specs.  For me it's more that their hardware is getting quite behind, (mainly looking at laptops here).  Lack of ports, older generation processors, £1250 for a Macbook pro with 128gb RAM.  If you look at competitors machines (for example the Lenovo Yoga 920) you get a 4k touchscreed, double the amount of storage and 8th Gen processor.

Apple have always come at a premium, but the gap has got too big, reviews whilst still good have fallen below the competition, unless you spend several thousands of pounds.

TTony said:

menamestom said:

So just wondering if there are any similar products for Windows machines, with good drums, keys (rhodes, piano, organ etc)

My concern for the DAW choice that I need to make is finding something equivalent to all the instruments/samples/loops that come for free with GB and Logic.  

Glad it's not just me then!  Mixcraft 8 seems to have some stuff included, but not had chance to try it yet.

Danny1969 said:

Protools comes with Xpand which contains shedloads of great drums, synths, basses and pianos. Some people use Protools for nothing else other than running Xpand 

The only problem is the price, seems quite an expensive product aimed at pro studios, and the cut down version is too cut down.

LeeCassidy

Cubase comes with some great VST instruments. The drum VST is particularly good, as are as the synths. I'll grab the names of them later, so you can check demos on YouTube. 

Another bonus of Windows is the amount of good yet free VSTs available for it is greater than that for Mac. 

digitalscream

OK, for drums...these loops/MIDI files are apparently good:

https://groovemonkee.com/products/drum-freebie-pak-gm

...and this plugin/sample pack is free for Reaper users:

https://smmdrums.wordpress.com/for-reaper/

You might need to do a bit of tweaking to get it set up right, but it strikes me that "free" always involves a little extra work. The benefit, of course, is that figuring it out is a valuable learning experience.

Danny1969

menamestom said:

shrinkwrap said:

Interesting.. I use Reaper on PC and while I found some great freebies it really seems the GarageBand selection - and it's drummer thing - can't be beaten.
My mate, who had a big falling out with the Apple /Logic way but is locked in too deep, keeps trying to persuade me to get a Mac just for the instruments, and it looks tempting from here. Bad idea?

Not really. I'm not totally against Apple, their software environment looks great and garageband/imovie Logic/final cut look great.  And I know their machines do perform well given slightly lower specs.  For me it's more that their hardware is getting quite behind, (mainly looking at laptops here).  Lack of ports, older generation processors, £1250 for a Macbook pro with 128gb RAM.  If you look at competitors machines (for example the Lenovo Yoga 920) you get a 4k touchscreed, double the amount of storage and 8th Gen processor.

Apple have always come at a premium, but the gap has got too big, reviews whilst still good have fallen below the competition, unless you spend several thousands of pounds.

TTony said:

menamestom said:

So just wondering if there are any similar products for Windows machines, with good drums, keys (rhodes, piano, organ etc)

My concern for the DAW choice that I need to make is finding something equivalent to all the instruments/samples/loops that come for free with GB and Logic.  

Glad it's not just me then!  Mixcraft 8 seems to have some stuff included, but not had chance to try it yet.

Danny1969 said:

Protools comes with Xpand which contains shedloads of great drums, synths, basses and pianos. Some people use Protools for nothing else other than running Xpand 

The only problem is the price, seems quite an expensive product aimed at pro studios, and the cut down version is too cut down.

The last version of Protools LE came with Xpand and featured 32 audio tracks, unlimited midi tracks and some seriously good plugins. You can generally pickup something like an Mbox and PT8.4 for around £40

Fretwired

I use Cubase - the standard instruments are great as is Groove Agent and there are low cost add-on packs that are good. Since Yamaha bought the company there's been a steady flow of development, the product is stable and has an excellent workflow.

Cubase also has advanced features like a the Chord Track - you can pick chords/keys and build a basic backing in minutes.

Groove Agent




Chord track and instruments

wave100

Cubase and Ableton user here, both have loads of content but Ableton I find useful for getting quick ideas together, but I find finishing in Cubase easier. Bitwig is another one worth checking out.

Teetonetal

What instruments do you absolutely need? I've been using logic a lot recently, but  I'm not that fond of the included instruments at all. I actually think there is more mileage out of reaper and one or two select VSTs to get you what you need. the only big miss is the drummer, which I do find useful. I tried Jamstix, but it didn't work anything like as well.

Snap

have a look at Bandlab Cakewalk - its totally free and chock full of stuff. You could do a LOT worse than that tbh.

menamestom

Teetonetal said:

What instruments do you absolutely need? I've been using logic a lot recently, but  I'm not that fond of the included instruments at all. I actually think there is more mileage out of reaper and one or two select VSTs to get you what you need. the only big miss is the drummer, which I do find useful. I tried Jamstix, but it didn't work anything like as well.

Probably drums, Rhodes, a B4, Synths.  Possibly a bit of brass, acoustic piano.

I have a copy of Ez drummer one and also the Funkmasters pack, so could potentially re register that to a new PC, if it is still supported.  I could probably get by with free VST's, tbh, I just don't want to open a can-of-worms pissing around too much with loads of separate downloads if I can help it.

menamestom

Snap said:

have a look at Bandlab Cakewalk - its totally free and chock full of stuff. You could do a LOT worse than that tbh.

I'll check this out, seems to have quite a few VST's included

Fretwired

TTony said:

My concern for the DAW choice that I need to make is finding something equivalent to all the instruments/samples/loops that come for free with GB and Logic.  

Try Cubase then .. comes with a massive collection of loops, samples and instruments.

You can try Cubase for FREE with no limitations. Don't like it run the uninstaller and it's all gone.

Luminous

I would go for cakewalk....its free and spend the money you save on VSTs

shrinkwrap

There's very good free Hammond organ VSTs
I've used this http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?plugin=Euthymia_Electronic_Organ&id=1346
but sometimes it crashes so I now use
http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?plugin=S30&id=1440

U-he for synths : Zebralette and Tyrell N6 - both free - crazy good monophonics.
Piano VSTs need to be commercial products I think.
Yup it's a pain having to find everything separately.

shrinkwrap

dbl post

Danny1969

shrinkwrap said:

There's very good free Hammond organ VSTs
I've used this http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?plugin=Euthymia_Electronic_Organ&id=1346
but sometimes it crashes so I now use
http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?plugin=S30&id=1440

U-he for synths : Zebralette and Tyrell N6 - both free - crazy good monophonics.
Piano VSTs need to be commercial products I think.
Yup it's a pain having to find everything separately.

The free Mini Grand Piano that comes with Protools LE 8 onwards  \ 9 \ 10 etc is pretty darn good 



As is the free DB-33 organ 



And of course you get XPand which is chock full of great stuff 

TTony

menamestom said:

I'm wanting to move away from Apple, but really like garageband.  I need a new computer and was looking at Macs but you get much more in the PC world. 

I think I have a cunning plan.

Run OSX in a VM on a PC.


The cunning plan to be tested tomorrow to see if it actually works, but as I've just spoken to someone who's done precisely that, and demonstrated that the OSX VM can exercise full control over all the components in the host PC, I think it should work ...