Best DAW for me?

Milk

Im starting to look into the world of virtual amps on my laptop. i have narrowed it down to reaper and ableton.

I will be using plugins for effects, using amp sims, looping and also recording. also do i need a audio interface for it to work or in theory could i buy a cable which is guitar cable to usb which ive seen from thomann?

Im not very computer advanced so if this is simple i have a excuse.

octatonic

Reaper.

AbletonLive is more focussed towards electronic music and sound design.
It is also £539 for the full suite.
Reaper is nagware, or about $60 if you don't want to be nagged.

You want a decent interface.
You will need to hear what you are inputting into the guitar, either with headphones or speakers/monitors.

Milk

I will be using a mixture of Headphones and moniters depending how i feel and what time of the day it is. iam up through the night so dont want to keep people up.

From what i understand Mobius is needed for me to use for looping guitar. So the audio interface allows me to hear what im playing? Im looking on thomann this moment looking at interfaces now. any recomendation for affordable ones what are ok?

sxard

Reaper for the reasons given above, unless you plan to do a lot of loop-based stuff. While Reaper can do this to a decent extent using the Playtime plugin, I found it to be a lot less straightforward for looping than Ableton. 

octatonic

Milk said:

I will be using a mixture of Headphones and moniters depending how i feel and what time of the day it is. iam up through the night so dont want to keep people up.

From what i understand Mobius is needed for me to use for looping guitar. So the audio interface allows me to hear what im playing? Im looking on thomann this moment looking at interfaces now. any recomendation for affordable ones what are ok?

OK, I didn't know you were going to be using Mobius and doing looping.
Do you mean this? http://www.circularlabs.com

This is what I do- I use Mobius in Logic and Ableton Live's own Looper equally, as well as a bunch of hardware loopers.
Ableton's looper is actually fantastic and you can control pitch over 3 octaves, which is pretty unusual.

What do you plan on using to control Mobius?

Check out Focusrite or Audient for affordable audio interfaces.

Milk

I will be doing a lot of looping but to be honest its simple looping. i usually loop may 4 or 5 different things at once. i think i will try reaper out forst and see if i get on with it as i have it purchased as of last night and because its a lot cheaper. im still trying to get my head around how it works and plugins ect so ableton might be to much  for my brain.

Milk

That is the thing i have downloaded. i pressume i can load it up via my reaper. as for controlling i pressume i can program a MIDI foot switch to work with it or worse come to worse i hope i can program certain keys on the keyboard to control it.

Also is it a specific model from them brands or all they all good quality with other just having more features?

octatonic

Yes you can instantiate Mobius as a plugin in Reaper.

Do you have a Mac?
Because it works better in MainStage, well not better, but it is simpler if you want to build a computer based looping rig.

octatonic

Also, what are you going to use to control Mobius- some sort of foot controller?
I've just purchased Looptimus, which is pretty much made for Ableton and Logic.

https://loopcommunity.com/en-us/looptimus

Milk

no unfortunatly its a win10 laptop at the moment

Milk

I wass hoping to control mobias with a foot controller in the meantime il see if i can assign keys on the keyboard to function. if i decide to go the ableton route if i dont get on with reaper i will definatly check out Looptimus.

Snap

Cakewalk by BandLab is totally free and is probably the most fully loaded DAW you can get for no money. It certainly is studio grade and easy to use.

Branshen

If you want a DAW that's deisgned for live looping, definitely look at Ableton. It is a little bit complicated, but all DAWs are. A traditional DAW is more focused at recording things in a linear fashion, whereas DAWs like Ableton and Bitwig are focused on recording 'clips' which loop and allow you to develop ideas. Ableton Live Lite which is bundled with audio interfaces alot allows you to do up to 8 tracks of midi or audio.

If you're dead set on mobius looper, I guess it doesn't really matter which DAW you're using as you'll be working inside the looper VST (as long as the DAW is able to run the VST!).

Here's a live loop video using ableton:



here's a video on looping inside ableton using 'clips'. This explains it pretty well. 

Milk

thankyou branshen.  i watched the first video already. but any help with DAWS and computer related things is appreciated. i have no clue what im doing haha

octatonic

Milk said:

thankyou branshen.  i watched the first video already. but any help with DAWS and computer related things is appreciated. i have no clue what im doing haha

You are going to struggle then.

Why not just buy a pedal looper to begin with?
You are making a rod for your own back if you aren't computer savvy and want to make a computer based looping rig.
It WILL go wrong when you don't want it to and you'll be tearing your hair out.

m_c

If you want an audio interface and to try Ableton, if you buy an interface from Focusrite, it'll normally include a Ableton Lite license, which once you register, you'll likely get offers to upgrade occasionally.

If you want to do looping, I'd also recommend you get a control surface (and if you happen to get one from Akai, it'll also likely come with an Ableton Lite license..)

I personally prefer Ableton, as I didn't really get on with the Reaper work flow, however regardless of what option you choose, it'll likely involve quite a steep learning curve. Set a side a few hours for everything you try, and make sure to follow some good guides/tutorials.

Branshen

octatonic said:

Milk said:

thankyou branshen.  i watched the first video already. but any help with DAWS and computer related things is appreciated. i have no clue what im doing haha

You are going to struggle then.

Why not just buy a pedal looper to begin with?
You are making a rod for your own back if you aren't computer savvy and want to make a computer based looping rig.
It WILL go wrong when you don't want it to and you'll be tearing your hair out.

agree with Octatonic here. Learning to use and loop in a DAW requires many hours of trial and error if you are learning to do it yourself. You have to be fairly tech savvy and very determined. A loop pedal is alot simpler and may get you the results you want.

You have no clue now, but you can learn. How tech savvy are you? 

Milk

i need to downsize my gear and i have always been interested in the computer side of things. in terms of computer skills. i am ok at computers and have a undertsanding  but as far as amp sims go its all new and the only DAW expiereince i have is Fruityloops years ago.

Interestingly in a turn of events i will soon be getting my brothers laptop as i traded my acoustic and he decided to get himself a fancy new macbook pro. so this laptop has  12gb of ram. 256gb ssd and a i5 processer but most importantly it has ableton live suite on.

In regard to the audio interface ive just ordered a cheap once for now for getitng my head around the whole thing then when i get the hang of it il put money in a decent one. and i happen so have found in a old box of crap a Boss footswitch which i will attempt to use in ableton to make things easier for me.

I think i will spend a few nights just on ableton exploring the menus and watching youtube videos to try prepare myself.

Branshen

Awesome. You're well on your way then. There are two ways to "loop" inside ableton live suite. One is to use the 'looper' device which functions like a guitar loop pedal. The second method is to use clips in the session view.

Session view is the method explained in underbelly's video which I linked above. It is powerful and all I ever use for creating loops. You can create different sections in songs and trigger them with as much or as little instrumentation as you want. A grid controller makes try things alot easier but a mouse and keyboard works decently too.

A boss footswitch can be used with ableton live but you need to connect it to a midi controller that takes it, which u may not have, so that it can send midi signals to your computer. You'll want to reroute it to the record button.

Branshen

If you get stuck at any point, just post about your issue here or drop me a private message. Lots of knowledgeable people here and I'd be glad to help where I can. 

Milk

so i now have a laptop with ableton live suite on, ive ordered a audio interface from thomann with a few other goodies. i will update on another thread whaty i got. im familiar with using it. now i need a amp sim program. for now i will use a free one to go with my budget audio interface and if i like it i will invest in better audio interface and better amp sim. the 2 ive seen are guitar rig and amplitube. which has a more natural tone?