What do you think of the DAW market right now and for 2020?

[beatmangler443]

So what's everyone's take on the DAW market? You thought about switching DAW's for another one? See any companies coming with a DAW next year?

Presonus-Studio One, Steinberg Cubase, Avid Pro Tools, Apple Logic X, Proellerhead Reason, Serato Studio, MOTU DP etc. Just any thoughts....

Could Izotope or Spectrasonics jump in the sequencer market in the future? What effects with Microsoft and Apple have on the market? Discuss...

[reggie1979]

No, they could not. It would be an undertaking of biblical proportions............

What I'd personally like to see is Reason taking on workflow issues and becoming indispensable in that arena. But it's a long-shot and I'm not "unhappy" with the way it is. It's just me.

[mtelesha]

Personally love where we are now. I have several DAWs I use and the do wondrous things. Just wish the Chord Track wasn't just an add on. Chords are what organizes every song. I think Waveform 10 has gone in a great direction with its MIDI generator and that Studio One missed it by turning it into a sampler tool first.

[Aloysius]

It's like awesome man. Far out.

[robotmonkey]

I'm not satisfied until Reaper is the only DAW left.

[chk071]

It's like awesome man. Far out.

I wanted to reply exactly the same.

[AdvancedFollower]

Still happy with Studio One v4 so no reason to switch at the moment. However I'm keeping an eye on the development of free DAWs. When SO v5 comes out as a paid upgrade, it will be a good time to take a look at Cakewalk and any other free DAWs that might have become available, and see how they compare.

I think it would be extremely hard for any new company to become relevant in the market in only one year. Most of the major DAWs used today have been in development for at least 10-15 years, some 30+.

[chk071]

Still happy with Studio One v4 so no reason to switch at the moment. However I'm keeping an eye on the development of free DAWs. When SO v5 comes out as a paid upgrade, it will be a good time to take a look at Cakewalk and any other free DAWs that might have become available, and see how they compare.

Or wait for a sale. After 1 - 1 1/2 years, there's often a 50% sale on the upgrades.

I really don't feel the need to upgrade immediately when a new version comes out.

[antic604]

It's a weird market, to be sure.

And very segmented, as if the market participants "agreed" they'd slice the cake in certain way and don't want to eat up into others' piece. What I mean? For example why won't Cubase add something like a clip launcher? Or more advanced modulation features? Or devices making it easier to generate or process stuff in parallel. All this is sort of possible, but often very cumbersome and limited, whereas is a breeze in Live or Bitwig. Or why won't those two add audio comping, more advanced MIDI editing, pitch correction? Their users have been begging for this for years already. It's kinda as if they've agreed "we'll take the bands & film composers, whereas you take the bedroom producers".

I guess what I'm saying is I'd gladly welcome more competition in the field, which would only benefit the users. Currently many have to use 2-3 DAWs to complete a project (for example Reason for sound design and song sketching, Cubase for mix & master, Live for live performance) and that's probably not ideal.

[telecode]

It seems like its a very crowded market space and pretty much all DAWs are chalk loaded with features --- more than you will ever use or discover before you switch to another deal. I think a corp would be insane to try to get into the DAW market with a new one. There are rumors NI might do it. But no one knows for sure.

I use Cubase and recently jumped on the Pro deal. But i am seriously thinking about moving to Ableton based on some personal research and experiments. Max and some other features are pretty cool and it seems like its a very well packaged all in one solution.

[AdvancedFollower]

Still happy with Studio One v4 so no reason to switch at the moment. However I'm keeping an eye on the development of free DAWs. When SO v5 comes out as a paid upgrade, it will be a good time to take a look at Cakewalk and any other free DAWs that might have become available, and see how they compare.

Or wait for a sale. After 1 - 1 1/2 years, there's often a 50% sale on the upgrades.

I really don't feel the need to upgrade immediately when a new version comes out.

I don't mind paying for an update upfront if it brings noticeable and useful new features and improvements. However it seems Cakewalk is getting a lot of big updates too, and completely free. So before making the decision to spend €150 on an update, it makes sense to look at the market to make sure it's really worth it. Especially if more companies jump on the "freemium" bandwagon. I think whenever a paid update comes out is the right time to re-evaluate your current DAW and the direction it's taking.

[kevvvvv]

antic

good points

[chk071]

Still happy with Studio One v4 so no reason to switch at the moment. However I'm keeping an eye on the development of free DAWs. When SO v5 comes out as a paid upgrade, it will be a good time to take a look at Cakewalk and any other free DAWs that might have become available, and see how they compare.

Or wait for a sale. After 1 - 1 1/2 years, there's often a 50% sale on the upgrades.

I really don't feel the need to upgrade immediately when a new version comes out.

I don't mind paying for an update upfront if it brings noticeable and useful new features and improvements. However it seems Cakewalk is getting a lot of big updates too, and completely free. So before making the decision to spend €150 on an update, it makes sense to look at the market to make sure it's really worth it. Especially if more companies jump on the "freemium" bandwagon. I think whenever a paid update comes out is the right time to re-evaluate your current DAW and the direction it's taking.

I tried Sonar out with the X1 version. Didn't like it much. It all seemed a bit thrown together, and there was really antique stuff in there... like the DX plugins. It also crashed frequently doing very simple and basic things. Maybe it's better now, i don't know. I don't mind paying for a good product. S1's usual upgrade price is too high though. 80-100 € would be fine, but, 150 € is just too high. I'll wait for a sale when version 5 comes out.

Even though i'd also argue that noone needs to upgrade. If you take a look at some production vids of some of the pros, they're still on Cubase 6 often.

[PeterP_swe]

It's a weird market, to be sure.

And very segmented, as if the market participants "agreed" they'd slice the cake in certain way and don't want to eat up into others' piece. What I mean? For example why won't Cubase add something like a clip launcher? Or more advanced modulation features? Or devices making it easier to generate or process stuff in parallel. All this is sort of possible, but often very cumbersome and limited, whereas is a breeze in Live or Bitwig. Or why won't those two add audio comping, more advanced MIDI editing, pitch correction? Their users have been begging for this for years already. It's kinda as if they've agreed "we'll take the bands & film composers, whereas you take the bedroom producers".

I guess what I'm saying is I'd gladly welcome more competition in the field, which would only benefit the users. Currently many have to use 2-3 DAWs to complete a project (for example Reason for sound design and song sketching, Cubase for mix & master, Live for live performance) and that's probably not ideal.

Well put. I feel the same way.

I've been hoping that someone would take "feature plugin" approach to building a DAW for a long time. Let's say you want to "plug in" Abletons Session View, FL Studios Piano roll, Cubase's audio comping and Reasons Rack for sound design.

A pipedream, I know...

[Forgotten]

It's already an overcrowded market, so I can't see any new companies thinking it's a good idea to launch their own.