What's a good DAW to switch to from Cakewalk?

[MattmaN]

I'm a Midi guy. I moved to Cubase from Sonar last Christmas.

I honestly never used Cubase, or Pro tools for that matter, but I've demo'd pretty much everything else under the sun, and Cakewalk is at or near the top in most features you could possibly want.
Some time needs spent with it to configure it to your previous way of working, but it is very configurable.
I'm actually using it for Sample based music in a mpc type workflow, and even that is possible with some adjustments, and the right vst sampler ( I use Shortcircuit, and it works great due to native 32 bit bridging).
Sample base hiphop is pretty simple from a sequencing standpoint. You just have to tell Cakewalk to be simple lol. Setting up sound on sound, and loop recording, quantize etc. so you can have that idea catching workflow.

[dellboy]

Cakewalk didn't do too well and I've been using it for a long time lol.

Are you referring to the AdmiralBumbleBee site ?

If so its just one persons opinion.

Also he didn't review Cakewalk as its windows only and he doesn't like windows per a comment he made a few months back.....

Someone asked him to add Cakewalk and he replied.....

"I won't be adding Cakewalk, since it's windows only."

And then........

"What kind of guy? I greatly dislike windows, so I simply won't be able to spend enough time using Cakewalk to give it a fair rating."

So it seems a pretty unbiased site

[Obsolete236871]

Reaper is horrible from a user experience point of view, at least if you want to make music. It's like a DAW that is made for hackers who like to have infinite ways of customizing and hacking their DAW to do some freaky stuff that no musician / composer / producer ever finds useful. It does not offer an efficient way of composing music, but bloats the whole process.

Cubase (alongside with Logic on the Mac) it the classical, comprehensive, professional DAW. Cubase Artist offers everything you will ever need (Cubase Pro has some additional features for Hans Zimmer kind of guys, who record in 5.1 surround and stuff).

Studio One is quite similar to Cubase (former Cubase employee's), but not as comprehensive yet. But it's a good alternative to Cubase (and Logic if you are on the Mac).

[dellboy]

Reaper is horrible from a user experience point of view, at least if you want to make music. It's like a DAW that is made for hackers who like to have infinite ways of customizing and hacking their DAW to do some freaky stuff that no musician / composer / producer ever finds useful. It does not offer an efficient way of composing music, but bloats the whole process.

Have to agree.

I downloaded it an hour ago to give it a try. Something that is super easy to do in Studio One\Cubase\Waveform or even freebee Sonar is super hard to do in Reaper. All I wanted to do was set up a 2 bar loop and have it record loop fashion. No way. At each loop I could not hear what I had just recorded. It went into a new take. Googled for half an hour to find a way to disable takes and gave up.

[Azura]

Reaper is horrible from a user experience point of view, at least if you want to make music. It's like a DAW that is made for hackers who like to have infinite ways of customizing and hacking their DAW to do some freaky stuff that no musician / composer / producer ever finds useful. It does not offer an efficient way of composing music, but bloats the whole process.

Cubase (alongside with Logic on the Mac) it the classical, comprehensive, professional DAW. Cubase Artist offers everything you will ever need (Cubase Pro has some additional features for Hans Zimmer kind of guys, who record in 5.1 surround and stuff).

Studio One is quite similar to Cubase (former Cubase employee's), but not as comprehensive yet. But it's a good alternative to Cubase (and Logic if you are on the Mac).

I'm always a bit perplexed when I see these posts, me being a former user of Sonar before switching to Reaper. And the transition was nice and smooth. I watched some videos, looked at the user manual for some specific things and I was up and running, making music. I've never felt that I was a hacker. I feel like I'm a composer/musician using a very efficient tool.

Cheers,
Marc

[Zombie Queen]

Ah, a good question. I really, really wanted to like Reaper, but I just keep going back to Sonar. I will need to demo other DAWs, but don't quite have the time... Quick question: do Cubase or Studio One allow multiple clip lanes in a track and automation curves + effects per clip? That was something very handy in Sonar, which was cut from newer versions, which I find a major drawback. I'm looking to replicate this workflow elsewhere... (please don't tell me I can do it in Reaper, at this point I'm not quite interested).

[Obsolete236871]

Have to agree.

I downloaded it an hour ago to give it a try. Something that is super easy to do in Studio One\Cubase\Waveform or even freebee Sonar is super hard to do in Reaper. All I wanted to do was set up a 2 bar loop and have it record loop fashion. No way. At each loop I could not hear what I had just recorded. It went into a new take. Googled for half an hour to find a way to disable takes and gave up.

Yes, Reaper makes simple stuff super complicated. My guess is that the developers have not taken users needs into consideration when they started to design their product or they might have had another user base in mind. There are those guys who never make music, but who just like to fiddle around and setup custom sidechains, where the reverb tail on channel one gets gated depending on the velocity of the midi input on another channel and other nonsense. That might be interesting for experimental purposes, but not when creating music.

I'm always a bit perplexed when I see these posts, me being a former user of Sonar before switching to Reaper. And the transition was nice and smooth. I watched some videos, looked at the user manual for some specific things and I was up and running, making music. I've never felt that I was a hacker. I feel like I'm a composer/musician using a very efficient tool.

Cheers,
Marc

Glad that it works for you, I was not trying to over-generalize my statement and obviously user needs are different. Are you working a lot with MIDI / plugin instruments? I had these discussion a lot of times and people who hailed Reaper where often those who mainly used it for tracking / recording external audio sources (eg instruments, vocalists). Reaper might be sufficient for that purpose.

But for MIDI / plugin based sequencing it's really a pain in the ass. Every other DAW I know is better in that discipline (better = offers a more straightforward, efficient and consistent way of doing it).

Could you point me to a video (or if you have: your own video) of someone doing MIDI - based instrumental compositions (eg a Beat, an electronic music song etcetera) in Reaper that doesn't sound absurdly unprofessional and amateurish?

I'm frequently searching for such a video, but the only ones I can find are videos of people dragging prerecorded audio samples around in Reaper, trying to create an arrangement that way (eg one channel with bass drum audio filed being put on each hit 1/4th, 3/4th and another snare audio sample on the next channel playin 2/4th, 4/4th, then maybe a synth that plays MIDI notes which were drawn by mouse etcetera).

My guess is that it's just not possible to use Reaper as an efficient tool for compositions that evolve around recording virtual instruments from a Midi Controller, the way it's done 9 times out of 10 when modern music (electronic, hiphop, trap, house, neo soul etcetera) is produced today.

[Azura]

You raise a very important point here Izak. And I agree with you that Reaper isn't the most appropriate tool for pattern based electronic music. I would say that it is at the opposite spectrum compared to Reason or Live. So we must consider the kind of music to be produced when choosing a DAW. As for your question, I record vocal and physical instruments (guitars, bass, percussions) and VSTi. Generally, 50% each in a typical project. I record the MIDI parts using a keyboard controller. I edit the MIDI parts quite a lot because I'm not a very good keyboard player, but I try to keep a "human feel". So, personally, I find that the MIDI capabilities of Reaper, FOR MY NEEDS, are more than sufficient. You can have a look at the links in my signature to hear what kind of music I do (I'm in the 1/10 of the people you mention!)

Marc

[Obsolete236871]

Thanks Marc.

I was not specifically referring to pattern-based composition tools by the way, even though the music genres I mentioned can be considered as "pattern-based" styles, since they typically evolve around a repetitive basic loop.

Still, producers / composers often use linear composition tools like Logic and Cubase to create music in these styles. So, it's not necessarily only pattern-based DAWs like Ableton, FL Studio or Reason that outperform Reaper in that regard, but also most linear sequences, that simply handle MIDI and plugin instruments.

I'm aware that Reaper does do MIDI, but it just doesn't do it in an effiient manner. See, with most DAWs (regardless of pattern or linear sequencing style) you can feel that the creators did take into consideration how your typical composer / musician would like to work. In Reaper it can all be done, but often takes 10x times the amount of clicks and settings to get it done. Or you memorize a whole range of very unusual shortcuts, but even then it will still take more mouse / keyboard actions then in other DAWs. Reaper is very capable, but also very poorly designed!

[Hewitt Huntwork]

+1 Studio One.

I was a Cakewalk user for two decades (predating audio recording!) and even worked for them briefly. When I got tired of the instability I did a lot of research and moved to Studio One. Best decision ever!

[xbitz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htfYSqL ... on&index=5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxsnxwO ... on&index=4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjqsenh ... on&index=3

respect anyway

[chk071]

And another Youtube user embarrassing himself with Team AiR registered plugins.

[Boone777]

Thanks Marc.

I was not specifically referring to pattern-based composition tools by the way, even though the music genres I mentioned can be considered as "pattern-based" styles, since they typically evolve around a repetitive basic loop.

Still, producers / composers often use linear composition tools like Logic and Cubase to create music in these styles. So, it's not necessarily only pattern-based DAWs like Ableton, FL Studio or Reason that outperform Reaper in that regard, but also most linear sequences, that simply handle MIDI and plugin instruments.

I'm aware that Reaper does do MIDI, but it just doesn't do it in an effiient manner. See, with most DAWs (regardless of pattern or linear sequencing style) you can feel that the creators did take into consideration how your typical composer / musician would like to work. In Reaper it can all be done, but often takes 10x times the amount of clicks and settings to get it done. Or you memorize a whole range of very unusual shortcuts, but even then it will still take more mouse / keyboard actions then in other DAWs. Reaper is very capable, but also very poorly designed!

The reason it seems to take that much clicks is because you need to set it up the way you want it to work. I understand it can be a put off at first but once you set it up IMO nothing comes close in terms of workflow since you made it so it works the way you want it. Not for everybody, you have to like customizing or Reaper will probably anoy you to death.

[3ptguitarist]

Reaper is horrible from a user experience point of view, at least if you want to make music. It's like a DAW that is made for hackers who like to have infinite ways of customizing and hacking their DAW to do some freaky stuff that no musician / composer / producer ever finds useful. It does not offer an efficient way of composing music, but bloats the whole process.

Cubase (alongside with Logic on the Mac) it the classical, comprehensive, professional DAW. Cubase Artist offers everything you will ever need (Cubase Pro has some additional features for Hans Zimmer kind of guys, who record in 5.1 surround and stuff).

Studio One is quite similar to Cubase (former Cubase employee's), but not as comprehensive yet. But it's a good alternative to Cubase (and Logic if you are on the Mac).

I love your descriptions. "Hackers", "freaky stuff" "Hans Zimmer" haha.

I may give reaper a try. If I get Cubase it may be the pro version so that I can have the extra instruments and sounds even though I probably don't need them as I have NI Komplete 11 and some older cakewalk stuff. I tend to want bells and whistles with my purchases haha.

[WotEva]

I currently have Cakewalk and ableton live lite 10. I'm a little interested in switching DAWs to something that has more of a userbase and is updated regularly such as Cubase 10 pro.

I'm into metal, electronic, hiphop beats, and piano all through software except guitar. I'm not a serious musician. I'm just doing this for fun right now.

I've used cakewalk for a long time and I wonder if I should just stick with cakewalk for my musical needs. But I feel like the userbase and interest with cakewalk has gone downhill. Seems like pro audio manufacturers don't support cakewalk anymore when they tall about daw support. For example, arturia's keylab mk2. So this kinda makes me want to get a new daw.

What do you guys think?

Considering Cakewalk by Bandlab is free, I would think that the user base is likely to explode in numbers. Remember they haven't officially started advertising it yet. It's just there in the Bandlab assistant for anyone who pokes around, or knew about it coming from the old Sonar. Also I would expect once Bandlab start officially promoting Cakewalk and start selling the vst's and sample libraries, that support from 3rd party manufacturers will likely follow. As it would be the easiest DAW to test with on Windows because you don't have to pay for it.