For me it’s Ableton. My first exposure was Ableton 10(?) in 2019 when I bought a launch pad 3rd hand (ended up barely using the thing, clips never clicked with me). I did watch a single tutorial and only google how to use VSTs and export a project. Everything just… clicked? If I think something should be there or do this or that, it works just like I thought it would. If I think I can drag this down to do this, I can! Tutorials only came in much later when I wanted to min max my work flow and although I was doing quite a few things the hard way… I still managed to make a few songs just through intuition alone. My previous and only DAW before that was Maschine 2. What are your thoughts for the most intuitive DAW?
For electronic music, Ableton was very intuitive for me as well. I think the layout, and the way you have your racks at the bottom when you select a track just kind of clicked with me. The midi tracks worked how I thought they would work in my mind too. And one the best parts about Ableton when I first learned it was how easy it was to midi map things.
For singer/songwriter stuff, I gravitated to GarageBand early on. Starting from 4 track tape machines and then digital multitrack recorders, GarageBand was the most intuitive evolution of that for me. I felt like nothing was getting my way when I used it.
The most intuitive DAW is the one you know. The least intuitive DAW is the one you don’t.
I love the idea of Bitwig but I do find when I want to just get stuff done I go back to Live or Logic.
I also say Live, even after moving on and using Bitwig for a couple of years now, not just for electronic music () but any type sans stereotype.
…but this is 100% the correct answer. So, common people! Learn your tools!!!
Ableton Live and Logic work for me.
garageband
I’ve used just about every major DAW, and they all do certain things better than others. I’m more of a Logic person these days, but GarageBand is probably the most approachable one out there.
Bitwig for me, but Logic is fine as well.
They’re all pretty intuitive and a lot of it comes down to user preference. They all also have many IKEA moments where you think “oh wow I didn’t know I needed/wanted that.”
Deadmau5 once described Ableton as a cartoon DAW, which I laughed at, at the time. But there is an element of truth to it. Remember Ableton themselves don’t call it a DAW, but instead say it’s an instrument. I think for that reason it’s very intuitive to start with. For me it felt close to using something like photoshop but for music.
That said I got logic on a punt and it flips round when it comes to mixing. The ability to see a full mix across all channels and to copy/paste adjust sends and effects in bulk is the sort of thing that takes an age in Ableton. So for mixing, Logic is just…. better.
On the synths, it’s a mixed bag. For example I think Alchemy is amazing but can be a bit tricky to learn even compared to layering some Ableton synths. Yet Retro synth is a lot easier (to me) to manipulate than either drift or Analog.
In the end they all have their strengths.
UADs Luna with the SP1200 was a dream
Luna is zero latency thanks to the Apollo.
Also the best sounding DAW…It was like using a mixing desk.
Luna is intuitive in the sense that it feels like a proper recording studio as the DAW is designed more like a mixing desk. Im not sure whats intuitive about Ableton other than your peers might use it.
For me, Reason and its Rack and Mixer tabs. It’s a shame that when introducing VSTs these had to become pop-ups but it still works ok.
For me its Hapax , because its intuitive / hands on, and ofc Abelton Live. I tried reason stuff, and started with Cubase, never looked back. Mostly because Steinberg had to many variants and did cut essential functions from their basic software. (Yes is did also run Cubase on Atari ST back in the day - still hate it, allthough it was better than the followup versions on Windows.)
Bitwig seems like a intresting DAW, but i dont want a rent to own solution.
I’ve never felt Ableton is intuitive, by which I would understand a meaning of ‘clicks in some way with the way your brain works’. But I recognise this is a personal matter. I always find loop-based music making to be an abstraction, where a linear format makes sense to my mind - ‘music is sounds over time’.
For that reason, the split in Ableton between session and arrangement views, which is fundamental to how the software works, and which creates strange hurdles, has never felt right. It’s like they would rather have a loop based system, but recognised they couldn’t get away with not having an arrangement view, but linear always feels like a second class citizen within ableton - whether it’s working in arrangement, mixing, or even just bringing audio in without manipulating it.
Bitwig does much better at resolving this contradiction imo, and has a lot more immediacy in the sense of ‘hm I want to try this - ok good I can!’ Rather than Ableton’s ‘ok I can but first I need to…’
Logic makes intuitive sense to me in mixing and audio, but a lot of it is super clunky too.
There is actually no contradiction - if you start to work in arrangement view, and then consolidate to scene. But there are many ways to go about it. For the hands on aspect they created the push concept. (Which i personally dont like after trying push1.) But it works for many people. But lets not derail the thread.
Intuitive is subjective - other people like a more structured approach - and that is also fine. I.e. if i see guys mastering they default mostly to other DAW - and that is maybe because it enforces a more structured workflow - which is good to polish things - and that aspect is probably the price of the freedom Abelton Live gives and takes.
In which way is the Arrangement in Live a second class citizen? And how is Bitwig more immediate than Live in this regard?
Neither Ableton nor Bitwig are that much intuitive. Bitwig arranger does not speak to me
If you are doing some basic things both are ok, but when it comes to anything more complex than 4 lanes of loops - it requires watching some tutorials.
I found Reaper the most intuitive - very rarely look into the documentation. But’s it’s less a composition tool
Sorry I’m talking intuition and feelings here, so I don’t have a rounded logical response to offer you. The ‘strict’ split between arrangement and session views, and ways of working between them, has never felt intuitive to me, and I’m not sure why one would arrive at this split unless one had started first with session.
Re ‘second class citizen’, training materials always start with Session, and emphasise it, Push is very much tailored for Session’s ‘paradigm’, and the lateness with which Arrangement-mode tools are added (we only just got proper mixer bars in Arrangement in 12) show it’s a Session-first world. Session is ofc abletons standout feature, so I get why they’d prioritise it, but it just doesn’t gel with me.
Bitwig I have less experience with, but it’s clear they’ve thought about the above, and made efforts to make a more fluid balance between the two. For instance, loops/session view isavailable at the same time as linear/arrangement.
As has been pointed out, this may be a lack of familiarity on my part, but we’re talking ‘intuitive’
Exactly my feeling after learning and using both. It’s clear that Bitwig came from the minds of developers that left Ableton since many concepts are very much the same on Live but they have streamlined so many little things that are a bit of a pain in the ass on Live, stuff like MIDI routing, the modulation system, having access to the session clips in the arrangement view.
When I moved to Bitwig I felt it was a more polished version of the experience I’d expect from Live, the overall design feels more intuitive while Live has some artefacts from its evolution fossilised in its quirks.
…plus 100 for bitwig…all ableton knowhow built in, just a decade younger/fresher/smarter…
but end of the day as @JES says…the most intuitive daw is always that one, u know the most inside out…
but if u don’t know any one yet, if ur totally fresh to the whole daw thing, bitwig get’s u going the fastest, straight forward and selfexplaining, anywhere u want, while never ever hitting any dead end roads…
This is the only answer I want to know more about. How are you running it?