Did you ever switch your DAW? Why?

When talking about DAWs, most people are very loyal to the software they choose. Once you decided, which DAW to take for your music, you need months and years to learn it inside out.

Im curious when and why people change their DAW and take the effort of learning a complete new system.

For me, i worked with Ableton for years, then Bitwig came along and while I made some experiments here and there with it, I didnt change completely. Now Studio One 5 is coming up, offering some nice features like mixer scenes that just seem to be brilliant and Id miss a lot from Live. Im really tempted.

So when and why did you divorce with your first DAW to marry a new one? And what happened, when honeymoon was over? Or are you working with 2 different DAWs?

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I started with Logic on Atari and used it until 2000 on PC. When Emagic was sold to Apple and Logic was discontinued I switched to Cubase which I used until 2009. In 2006 I got Ableton and used it only for playing live, for recording music I still used Cubase. Between 2006 and 2009 I worked with Ableton more than with Cubase and since 2009 I don´t work with it at all.

I miss a few Cubase features and every time they release a new version I try the 30-days demo until I decide to stick to Ableton.

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Startet with Cubase end of the 90s. But after years I switched to Ableton and Mac mainly because of the Dongle. But recently I try to switch to Logic because Ableton always starts the fans on my macbook blowing way to quick. Pretty annoying. Logic is smooth and fast.

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I’ve been working on Reaper for the past maybe 10 years but the problems it has with Overbridge and the new and shiny version of Logic Pro are really tempting me to make a switch to Logic at the moment.

When my other gear changes. I’ve just switched to Bitwig because recording into clips is perfect everytime, plus the modulators are just ridiculous and the time line isn’t an eye sore. Plus more cool bits here and there.

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Yes Logic is also on my mac, effects and instruments are superb, but the new version still has a lot of bugs and the user interface is not very consistent. so I hesitated to do larger projects with it until now. but its on my watchlist :slight_smile:

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I switched from Logic to Ableton. For the way my music brain works, Ableton just seemed more logical, if you excuse the pun… I enjoy the way Ableton uses clips, whilst at the time Logic was more of a linear workflow.

Nowadays, I’m mostly using Ableton as a glorified recorder for my hardware, so to be honest, Logic would be perfectly adequate for this.

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Yes, switched from Logic to Ableton in 2001 and re-bought Logic Pro in 2014.
Using mostly Ableton, as it’s faster for editing, but Logic has a few complementary features that I use regularly, such as time & pitch flex editing, special EQs, amp simulators, live drumer…

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I’ve only ever used Ableton. But if someone can tell me if this is the best for electronic music i don’t know?

Started out with hardware sequencers during which time I flirted with an Atari running Cubase. I carried on using hardware sequencers but by that time I was also using Protools LE as the band were using it at rehearsals and for recording.

Years later I was introduced to Renoise which I used for a number of years but I got to the point that I really needed to go back to a linear recording workflow. I got the light version of S1 with a Faderport I bought and was suitably impressed. When I decided to upgrade my interface I went down the StudioLive route, the bonus being the full version of S1 bundled with it. I. Still use Renoise for some stuff esp midi sequencing in the box. I still use hardware sequencers too (I couldn’t be without an Elektron box of some description).

Started life with Sonar in the early 00’s. Fell out of love with music for a period in my 20’s until I fairly randomly took a punt on Maschine which, fairly naturally, lead me to Ableton for all the bells and whistles. Been with Ableton for the past 7 years or so I think.

I came incredibly close to getting Logic a month or two back but too many bugs to convince me. I prefer Logic’s stock instruments but, to tell the truth, I’ve never really learned Operator/Wavetable/etc. Anyway, I find Push to be pretty untouchable when it comes to DAW integration and would find it hard not to have something like that in Logic.

With how iPads are developing and Apples 10.5 Logic update I can see a scenario where the iPad controller functionality really expands. If that happens, Logic is going to be hard to resist (again!).

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ableton ist great if you use the live suite. there you get the max4live-addons for controlling your gear that no other DAW offers. If your not using the suite, Bitwig is a strong competitor with all the built in modulators and the Grid, which is really cool.

but ableton is lacking in the mixer: only 12 returns, no audition channel, where you can plugin in room correction software without the fear to forget to turn it off when rendering. Only stereo channels, so its very hard to do 3D stuff with it, no ara-interface for melodyne, no comping, you can only open one project at once, no editing of metadata when you export mp3s, no arrangement track for changing chords, no external online-colaboration like cubase offers, no mixer scenes …

Well, I get my tracks done with it, but Studio One, Cubase (Nuendo) and even Reaper offer so much more when it comes to mixing, arranging and mastering. But those on the other hand cant compete with live when it comes to sample mangling and audio-warping. and live has a very clean consistent user interface, where as cubase and logic are cluttered – making the switch quite hard. So my candidate at the moment is Studio One which seems to have a very clean and consistent UI.

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I’ve used FL studio for 10 years. I really loved the mixer and piano roll, but was very dissatisfied with the built-in plugins, chaotic floating windows and sample manipulation features.

I tried switching to Ableton Live 10. Really like the clean interface and the built-in FX, but the piano roll alone was a big turn off. I struggled to jot simple melodies down with it. Ended up being a dealbreaker.

Ended up going with Bitwig 3. The grid is what got my interested at first, but the modulators for each plugin are what sold me on it. Felt at home really quickly with it and its been a huge boon for my productivity.

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Just switching to Studio One from using Logic for many years (Cubase before that). I don’t really see me going anywhere else - especially with the cross-platform collaboration possibilities and its really modern workflow.

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I used Logic from 2008-2012 but switched to Ableton.
I made sampled based hip hop mainly back then, and in Ableton was just sooo much easier handling audio (still is today imo). Logic didn’t even have their flex modes yet. In ableton you could timestretch your samples easily, warp it on the grid and slice it to midi.
Soon after I became addicted in learning how to do ever evolving glitch/idm beats and there I discovered the real potential of ableton. There were many innovative videos on youtube already and my mind exploded, exploring follow actions, fx racks, dummy clips, midi fx, max for live and all the goodness. It’s just not your typical recording, mixing environment, but feels like a creative instrument to me.
I use logic from time to time , cause my brother uses it and we’re sharing some projects. It’s great for mixing and probably for midi editing. The piano role and midi stuff is superior, but I don’t need most of these options. I think it feels just not immediate and laborious to me. Probably cause I’m used to ableton, but on the other hand this was the main reason for switching in the first place

I’ve been around the block… My first real DAW after using Hammerhead and some free midi sequencers was Fruity Loops. I hates arranging in it so I picked up Sonic Foundry’s Acid, where I arranged and mangled loops made with FL.

Eventually I picked up a Mac for school, and after puttering around I got into Digital Performer, which I used for a number of years from like 2001-2015 or so (though not much music-making was happening after 2008).

During that time I tried Ableton Live but I just never liked it. I also tried Pro Tools at a studio I interned at and also didn’t like it.

I got back into producing again maybe two or three years ago and decided to start with Logic, and I’ve really liked it a lot. The stock plugins are really good, it does what I need, and it’s easy on the eyes.

I recently tried a free version of Bitwig, and if it wasn’t for the price tag I think I’d jump on it. It has some of the features of Ableton Live, but the modulation features are nuts and worth looking into alone, and the Grid looks pretty fun too, but its similarities to Live kind of put me off from anything more than puttering around. I don’t think I could make a full track the way I want to with it, but it’s definitely different and interesting.

I use Ableton but I, think of selling the push2 and switching more to Logic. Reason is my Fantom has built in logic support and my studiolive works well there.

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Bitwig since first release, replaced maschine.
Didn’t want to go to the ableton road since I don’t like crowded roads…
Using reaper in parrallel for scoring purposes.
Happy with them, I don’t consider anything else…

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The last time I switched DAW was from Buzz because I was getting increasingly frustrated with the ocassional crashes and wanting to try some of those fancy new VST instruments. So I jumped aboard the good ship Ableton with Live5 in 2004ish I think… it also helped that it wasn’t so beholden to the timeline like Cubase and the likes were. Fun fact - I still name most of my clips in a Live set 00, 01, 02 etc as a hangover from Buzz patterns.

It’s hard to see me jumping ship from Live any time as I’ve invested so much into it…whether it’s M4L devices but probably more so the comfort of using it, being at one with so many shortcuts…

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Cubase —> various Linux DAWs —> Harrison Mixbus.
why: native Linux version.

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