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That’s where I hit a road block, to be able to ‘upgrade’ and use other plug-ins would cost me around £150. So I jumped ship & started with Reaper after recommendations on here. I haven’t looked back, I find it really good, very customisable, excellent value & stable (rarely crashes).
Once in a while I still mess around on Studio One if I’m just practising guitar, but now tbh I’m much speedier using Reaper, that I have no need to. Part of the reason I think is just out of curiosity to see if it still works!
A lot of the 'professional' capabilities & workflows are not needed so why spend more than you need to?
I need to know a large number of DAW's so consequently I've used Pro Tools HDX, Logic, Samplitude, Sequoia, Ableton Live, Cubase, Digital Performer, Acid Pro, FL Studio, Reaper and now Luna.
Mostly I use Pro Tools and Logic.
Logic for arrangement and midi, Pro Tools for audio editing and finishing projects.
What do you want to do?
Record yourself playing along to midi drums?
Track bands?
Make EDM?
All the DAW's have different strengths and weaknesses.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Reaper is very popular.
https://www.studiowear.co.uk/ -
https://twitter.com/spark240
Facebook - m.me/studiowear.co.uk
Reddit r/newmusicreview
Part of what I say in the article is we never really make an informed decision about which DAW to start with.
It is either bundled with our interface, or a friend uses it, or what you learn at school.
In my case I started with Logic because I worked in a music shop that sold it.
I had to become an expert and then start selling it myself.
That is 90% of the the reason why I prefer Logic to any other DAW, because I know it better than any other DAW.
That is the case for most people- they prefer X DAW because that is the one they learned to use the best.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
It will happen but it really is a first release.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
@octatonic - thanks for your comments and insight. Initially, i just want to try getting some basic songs down with guitar, bass, drums (loops) to create some backing tracks . Maybe vocals and keys (virtual instruments) too and to try to get a feel for mixing. I'm not into hip-hop or dance, I'm much more traditional rock and pop styles.
I think I've ruled out Studio One due to no VST plugin support with the basic version so I'm down to Reaper or Cubase Elements I think.
At $60, it isn't much of a financial commitment if you choose to abandon it for something else at a later date.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
I have used Sonar /Cakewalk for about 10 years and been more than happy with it.
Sometimes l think l should change to another DAW, but don't think the time and energy l would spend learning another DAW would offer me any great benefits.....
I say, pick wisely, take time to learn it properly and you will probably stay with it forever.
It's cost effective. Comes with loads of VSTs. Great support - type a query in Google and you are pointed to loads of places with th correct answer. Kenny Gioia tutorials on YouTube are a godsend.
Feedback
It's the only DAW I've used as it did what I needed, so I can't compare it to other DAWs because I haven't tried any.
I got started with Magix musicmaker a few years back, and then made the jump to Logic when it became affordable.
This suited me fine until I had to learn ProTools, for Uni, and with this background I eventually realised that Reaper was the best DAW for me, infinitely customisation, and cross platform compatibility is a strength that not many others offer.
I occasionally dip back into Logic, for its Drummer feature, but find the interface very hard to use-after Reaper, and similarly I dip back into PT, usually to just get a project stemmed out for working in Reaper, PT is not made for the mass market really and is more an industry standard due to the hardware integration in studios, a bit of a dinosaur these days really.
The modern version of Magix would be Ableton, which is the tool of choice for dance and synth / loop based production and is also heavily aimed towards the DJ, with its hardware integration. I envy the people at PointBlank when they do their deconstructions with the Live controller, it looks so simple, but is another investment I don't want to make.
The Reaper community is what you need to help grow your skills, and the ability of the software continues to surprise me-considering the size of the initial download, it is a no brainer to purchase the license, although you have plenty of time to decide without any limitations.
Time is your enemy here, I wish somebody could have shown me the options back when I started out, but the field was far more limited then, these days their is a larger choice, at a similar price point, in this field- Reaper stands above all others, I give it 100% recomendation.
If you're looking to record ideas, make demos and have some creative fun I'd say the current version is excellent. No it's not on a PC, but you can do much, much more with it than you'd think. Early results come quickly. It's easily portable, too. I used to write drum parts and play keyboards when sitting in a hotel room by myself when staying away on business.
I changed from PC to Mac in 2015. Never used Reaper but I did buy a copy of Logic and put some effort into it before reverting back to GB for iPadOS. The effort required to learn enough about it to understand what I did need to know for my needs and what I could ignore started to swamp me. I wasn't getting any recording done - I was just learning Logic (IYSWIM).
The problem with asking for opinions on a forum is you'll get everyones personal experiences and they'll be coming at it from a perspective of what they wanted to do and how well it worked for them.