What's your main reason for choosing one software package over another?

[junplugged]

at first looks, they all look the same, show waves, tracks, record selectors, how far into each one do you go before you get any idea of any differences?

i've tried 3, cubase le, reaper, ntrack, and the only diff so far for me is that ntrack is easier to apply fx to an existing track on playback.

reaper and cubase had some other routing that i haven't read up on to figure out yet, ntrack i hit fx, picked them and was done.

no idea other differences yet and not sure how far down the road i want to waste time on when there's about 5 le editions included w/ emu 0404 and the 2 i downloaded and there's more demo/eval versions of probably 5 more.

[ssscientist]

Originally Posted by junplugged

i want to waste time on

If you consider learning software a waste of time you probably shouldn't be using a computer for music. Especially if it's your attitude that you don't want to read anything. You will need to read the fucking manual for every piece of software you buy or try if you want to get the best out of it.

FYI, it's just as easy to apply an effect to a Reaper track as an Ntrack track -- just click on the 'FX' button on each track and a list of all the Jesusonic, DX, DXi, VST and VSTi in your computer pop up ready to be patched into that track.


.

[Bulls Hit]

Also consider if the s/w can exploit multiple cpus, multi core cpus, or will do in the near future

If you have some experience with other software applications and not just DAWs, it shouldn't be too hard to find what you're looking for...considering most of them are designed around a standard that every software application has...menus, right-click context menus, help files, etc...

You can usually find what you're looking for just by right clicking the appropriate thing or just randomly clicking all over the place.

If that doesn't work then there's a context-sensitive help file in most programs that tell you how to do something without having to read the entire manual.

If that's too much work for you then I would suggest not recording using a computer.

With that said, I prefer Reaper because it's just as easy/easier to use than any other DAW I've had, and so far seems to be just as flexible.

It's also only $40.

[pipelineaudio]

Originally Posted by Bulls Hit

Also consider if the s/w can exploit multiple cpus, multi core cpus, or will do in the near future

Or farm out plugins to other computers on the network to use their CPU power

[ds21]

Ahh yes, wouldn't it be great if we all just "knew" how this stuff worked!
over this christmas break my brother-in-law(he's a programmer) and I(who has done this before) were editing some video in Vegas, talk about stubborn, we fumbled our way though adding trasitions and rolling credits but the opening with transprancies and whatnot we finally went to the "help" well with in 2 minutes of reading we where wizzes and could have cut down our time in half, infact after we rendered it we decided to start over and whized though it...

anyway,

I chose Sonar because I had been using cakewalk all along, and when I had tried cubase vst, and logic, they were so foreign to me I skipped them, If you ask me why I choose a mid-priced peice of software over something like pgmusic's PowerTrack Pro, which I actually did buy(hey it was only $20) in-between cakewalk and Sonar, it's because for me it's "more for the money" on the thing's I use in the program.

[crosstudio]

i've been using cakewalk stuff since it was running over DOS, but I don't stay for the learning curve, I stay because the functionality is easy to figure out without needing to go to 'help' for most of the features. Also the combination of midi and audio capabilities are solid. I recently bought Reason and the midi sequencer sucks ass.

[Chris Shaeffer]

Useabilty and function.

I started with n-track and its great but at the time it crashed frequently. I really had no complaints other than that it didn't work with the control surface I bought. Cakewalk was hard for me to get used to and Cubasis meshed perfectly with the control surface, so I shelled out for Cubase VST.

I was really happy with Cubase right up until I started needing to export tracks for final mixes at a Pro Tools studio. I also had a job opporunity at a facility with a PT rig so when the interview asked if I knew Pro Tools I said "yes"- then went out and bought a 002. It took me about 4 days of almost constant use to get comfortable with it

At this point I've used PT so long that it would take another shift of needed functionalty to pull me out of it. That looms larger everyday since I've moved into video production...

Lessee... I could spend $1300 for the DV Toolkit for Poor Tools and have fewer limitations... Or $2000 for Nuendo and have no more limitations. Its actually a tough choice given that I'm so efficient with Pro Tools, but I'd definitly save up and shell out for Nuendo.

[junplugged]

excellent. answers the question. it's a combination of things. and one of the big factors is how often to do you need to stop working, and refer to the help or manual or online to figure out how to do something, in other words, interface intuitiveness. good stuff.