Good Reasons To Switch Your DAW?

[voidhead23]

Open ended question. It seems every season i get the urge to change things up when my current program is pissing me off...but i feel like it's often just the 'grass is always greener' illusion and just an excuse to fret about workflow instead of actually making music.

Are there ever situations where it's a good idea to switch DAWs? What was your experience and reasons, for those that have made this switch?

[chk071]

No DAW is perfect in my eyes, they all have their flaws. With Studio One, i'm not even using the DAW with my preferred GUI, but, it simply has a workflow which is so damn quick. Isn't bloated with loads of features i don't need. Doesn't come with a 10 GB library pre-installed. And is just fine to use. I've been booting up Cubase Artist 9 every now and then, but... even though i do prefer the looks and feel of the GUI, it just takes 2 more mouse click for everything.

So, yep, i think switching DAW's is totally legit. I've tried out quite a lot of DAW's, to finally settle on one. Started with some free ones, Podium Free, LMMS, and Temper, among some others, then bought Reaper, which absolutely didn't work for me... then bought a mag with Cubase LE on it, which really clicked with me, also probably because i used Wavelab before that, and then upgraded to Elements and Artist. After a while, i tried Studio One 2 Producer then, and got friendly with the easy workflow, so, i always booted up the one or the other, and, after a while, only ended up booting up Studio One.

Just like with soft synths. I had to try loads of them, to finally find the ones which work for me. I guess it really depends on you whether that is the case for you as well or not. I'm sure some don't even mind workflow much, and, after all, DAW's are very similar. Except for Ableton. Still have to figure that one out.

[xbitz]

^^^ "after all, DAW's are very similar" only the traditionally DAWs have the same concept (PT, Cubase, S1, Reaper etc.) yepp all are very similar, but the creative ones which ones are count as/closer to an instrument like Live, Bitwig, FLStudio, Reason, Renoise etc. all are quite different, for ex. Reason uses cables
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhcSX6eMChU
for routing, FL has unique pattern based architecture etc. Bitwig has unique unified modular system etc. so all of them have unique workflow, should find which one is the closest to you

depend on the genre but IMO the needed tools are :

- some composer app, like RapidComposer the able to sketch your ideas quickly
- a creative DAW which can be used for sound designing like Bitwig
- a mixing/mastering DAW where u can finalize your song like Mixbus

[chk071]

True, Reason and FL Studio are pretty alien as well, as are trackers. More reasons to demo as many as possible, to find your favorite.

[risome]

Another excuse for not making better music with your current DAW.Spending a big chunk of time learning a new one .Thats not to say changing your work environment is bad it will just eat up your time, that could be better spent getting the best and more out of what you have.Keep pushing and learning and have fun.But changing DAW's will not immediately make your music better.

[W23]

I just bought Logic after using Ableton Live since 2004. I kind of managed to get myself into a rut with Live, where I can’t quite break out of the Session View, and I find working in the Arrangement View is akin to having my teeth pulled. Logic seems to be a cheap way to try something different, and the workflow and content is great so far. I don’t know if I’ll completely abandon Live but, I really needed a change

[SoundPorn]

I use like 5 diferent DAWS for different reasons. My main DAW is Reaper but I use Waveform9 too especially for sketching. I also use Ableton 10 Lite cuz I got it free and its perfectly synced with my Novation Launchkey. I also use StudioONe4 Prime because it was a free download and I like it's workflow and stock sampler. And lastly I still use Cakewalk because no other DAW has anything like it's ProChannell which is the best for mixing imo.

[voidhead23]

i appreciate the responses so far and for people humoring me.

i use one of the 'alien' ones, Live. The thing that usually has my gaze wandering is always CPU (i use pretty hungry amp sims every session and synths, and Live is the worst DAW i've tried as far as CPU goes) and the arrangement/audio editing features in other DAWs (my music isn't loop based, not EDM, and changes meters a lot so i'm barely ever using Session View, and i don't know if i'll ever play live again). Fooling around with audio options in Reaper or even Logic or Bitwig always leaves me a bit stunned...some of them just seem nice but others would be incredibly useful. Live's Arrangement View seems miles behind from a creative standpoint, not a mixing one.

But i know Live. Really well. i've made ambient in it, metal, electronic, pop, classical(ish), soundtracks, live performance and playback...i'm probably the only person who likes its built-in instruments and its GUI, and manipulating audio in a creative way in Live is just wonderful between its creative effects and built in samplers. Simpler is pretty much a core part of my guitar and vocal work. i like that (most) of its FX aren't trying to model hardware, they're just naked digital processing. And i like destroying audio through abusing Warp Modes. It always has me crawling back. In this case it's less workflow, and just the creative choices i get in it as opposed to a more functional DAW like Logic or Reaper.

[LawrenceF]

No DAW is perfect in my eyes, they all have their flaws.

Understatement of the year. Nothing created by humans is ever perfect and any expectation of perfection in complex software is a delusion, escpecially given the wide diversity of subjective opinions about what that would even mean.

Given that reality, if a person can't find one or two products that make them happy and productive enough from the huge range of affordable choices, the problem is not with the industry.

[DrGonzo]

I just bought Logic after using Ableton Live since 2004. I kind of managed to get myself into a rut with Live, where I can’t quite break out of the Session View, and I find working in the Arrangement View is akin to having my teeth pulled. Logic seems to be a cheap way to try something different, and the workflow and content is great so far. I don’t know if I’ll completely abandon Live but, I really needed a change

I feel the same about the Arrangement View. No matter how much I use it - I work with it as little as I have to. I really like Live - but I've been thinking of taking the jump to Logic as well, just for a change of environment. How long did it take you to learn the basics?

/C

[ruslan.st]

Open ended question. It seems every season i get the urge to change things up when my current program is pissing me off...but i feel like it's often just the 'grass is always greener' illusion and just an excuse to fret about workflow instead of actually making music.

Are there ever situations where it's a good idea to switch DAWs? What was your experience and reasons, for those that have made this switch?

Sometimes it is good to look around if there is something better. Also useful try other DAWs when you feel you become fanboy of your current one.

[pdxindy]

I used to use another DAW, but it was too crash prone... and multiple iterations didn't change that. So for me stability is the primary reason to switch DAW's. At that point I switched to Live. I enjoyed Live and used it for some years. However, over time, I felt like the development vision was not in alignment with my interests. For example, I was keen to get an MPE controller. Also, sometimes I don't want to work in a clip view but just want to play freeform (no metronome) and record into arrange and build from there. So at that point I purchased Logic and switched from Live to Bitwig (Bitwig is what I always wished Live would be).

Now Bitwig and Logic are my two DAW's and between the two of them cover all my needs and compliment each other well and are both MPE capable.

[tapper mike]

Yeah, I'm going to switch to Bitwig .... Native MPE support on all plugins not just a few. There are ways to work lack of mpe support in other hosts but it's rather demanding.

Pre Sony Acid - Gave me the most paid post production work and session guitarist work. They were good paying gigs believe it or not. Sony killed all the features by trying to dummy it down for what they thought was their market.

Samplitude used to have the best mastering (imho) but that went out the window fast.

Sonar and Cubase were always crashing on me.

Live was impossible for me to get a grip on at first. It took me years to adjust. Finally I did and still use it to this day. I always believed that all those timeshift features were simply added because it was too glitchy to record things right the first time. You can "trick" Live to accept MPE by setting up multiple channels with separate midi inputs all running cloned vst's but it's a pain.

Love Mixcraft for non mpe but trying to open up channel and sending multiple signals too but it's such a pain to setup. I like the Performance(Session) view in Mixcraft more than Live. It's easy to get down the basics in Mixcraft but it's also got a lot under the hood to grow with. It also doesn't require a bridge as the bridge is built in and every plugin I own runs seemlessly inside it. Personally I'm not a fan of premade loops I think most are crap. That being said the library is well stocked and you can easily download / install more inside the daw itself. Love all the plugins (freeware too), just wish I could use them with other daws.

No don't need audacity or reaper. Won't learn more about them they are simply not worth my time and effort.

[lfm]

For me using Sonar I felt that nothing was done about things needing attention - and more and more came close to hitting the ceiling.

No notation worth having(even Series 4.x-8.x was better).
Looked for all kinds of external notations software that would do midi over rewire - but found none.
They all focused on do all midi work in notation software.

Nothing was done about some Waves plugins like Tune to actually work properly.
Just prefer Tune to anything I tried.

Not following trends in industry - like getting proper VCA groups.
I'd like that headroom when I really need that.

So Cubase Pro fitted this and remedied everything I missed in Sonar.
Manual has become better in the last years - but still miss a proper context sensitive help though - to really be Pro.
Will probably upgrade until they drop Windows 7 support.

[THE INTRANCER]

"Good Reasons To Switch Your DAW ?"

For me, it came down to when I felt that my needs were far outweighing that of which the DAW I was using, was able to provide... and was going to provide for the foreseeable future, of which I wasn't prepared to wait years and years for. My goal was to produce film score music but with a program that provided more professional features and environment for that, which I felt was lacking in my current software. After 13 and a half long years and with no core changes to the program, I was very eager to switch and within 6 months I did, in Nov 2014. I've not looked back...I am conversely continually looking forward.. The requests I and others want fulfilled and aspects of things I design are being implemented in what I use, and will use in the future.

I didn't have any issue's in stability with my previous DAW really, so that wasn't a factor, I'd done extensive homework and testing of various software available around 2000 / 2001 time, before selecting it. I did pretty much the same before selecting what I did at the end of 2014, just over a shorter time span, due to the amount of knowledge I've gained over the years about the products.