Home Studio: What is best/most ubiquitous DAW for Windows?

NoEcho

NoEcho

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Pretty much the title. I'm looking to buy some studio/production software for a windows-based machine. Right now it looks like it's a runoff between Image Line FL Studio 12, Ableton Live 9, Cakewalk Sonar, Cubase 8....

I'm thinking about getting a ZxR but I also have dedicated home studio hardware already.
 
I don't think it's the best, but Pro Tools is still an industry standard... every studio of note has some kind of setup with it and I regularly get passed PT source files. Beyond that, my experience is that it comes down to personal preferences. If you're not planning on passing files back and forth with collaborators, I'd just go for the package that best implements the features you need. My home studio was originally built on top of Cubase, and then Nuendo, and I'm most comfortable in that environment. The huge number of VST/VSTi plugins and instruments is why I went with Steinberg in the first place. I love Reason as well, and if I were looking for an all-in-one, I'd be fine using that exclusively. My friend still uses Logic for his dance music, and another buddy who records and mixes his band uses Sonar. Ableton is hugely popular... I see it constantly in pro environments as well as home studios, for all kinds of applications. I'd also look at Reaper... no experience with it, but it made some noise being fully featured at a ridiculously low price. General feature sets are very similar across all these packages, and they'll all get you from point A to point B, so it'll come down to implementation of very specific features... convenience? particular instruments or effects? live recording? multi-takes? DJ friendly? Best of luck.
 
mizer357 said:
I don't think it's the best, but Pro Tools is still an industry standard... every studio of note has some kind of setup with it and I regularly get passed PT source files. Beyond that, my experience is that it comes down to personal preferences. If you're not planning on passing files back and forth with collaborators, I'd just go for the package that best implements the features you need. My home studio was originally built on top of Cubase, and then Nuendo, and I'm most comfortable in that environment. The huge number of VST/VSTi plugins and instruments is why I went with Steinberg in the first place. I love Reason as well, and if I were looking for an all-in-one, I'd be fine using that exclusively. My friend still uses Logic for his dance music, and another buddy who records and mixes his band uses Sonar. Ableton is hugely popular... I see it constantly in pro environments as well as home studios, for all kinds of applications. I'd also look at Reaper... no experience with it, but it made some noise being fully featured at a ridiculously low price. General feature sets are very similar across all these packages, and they'll all get you from point A to point B, so it'll come down to implementation of very specific features... convenience? particular instruments or effects? live recording? multi-takes? DJ friendly? Best of luck.
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Thanks Mike.

Lots of good info in that post. I actually have the student version of ProTools sitting in a box, came with the Rights USB stick (whatever that's called). Problem is that it insists on the name of your music school during installation and other than occasional guitar lessons - (and the school that runs those guitar lessons has no clue what sort of code ProTools is talking about... so I'm pretty sure they lack it) I'm not IN a music school. But if its' the standard and I have it sitting in a box... anyone ever dealt with student code issues on DAW software?

Reaper looks cool too. Seems awful deep for DAW. Pearl scripting?
 
For my money it is Cakewalk Sonar. That's the one I like the workflow of best and thus the one I own. Studio One was nice when I tried it, but not enough to convince me off Sonar, Cubase I didn't care for that much and Pro Tools I hate. Just my opinions, of course.
 
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