Can't decide on DAW (cubase or other)

[mrswiffy]

Hello HR forum. I was looking for some opinions. I recently have been trying different daws and am having a hard time picking one. I mainly do dance music. So I have used FL Studio in the past. Now I use Maschine with Studio One. But then I tried Steinberg's Cubase 7.5 and like it better than studio one somewhat. I love the halionsonic 2, padshop pro etc. I recently just bought a pc that is an i7, windows 8.1, and plan to max the ram to 32 gb. Then max my ram to 16 on my laptop. I have an old native instruments audio kontrol interface and focusrite interface.

I'm trying to figure out what direction I wanna go-with the cubase set-up or stick with what I have. Maschine is not a daw, so I need to pick one. I'm in an apartment, so I was thinking about trying to record small guitar parts etc. That's what turned me on to steinberg vst connect pro. So far I have the absolute collection. I wanted to get groove agent 4. Not sure where to go from here. I think maybe just do all the ram upgrades and maintenance for my new desktop/laptop. Then I guess when I can go from there? In the long run I want to switch to mac. I Love apple. Can't afford now. My laptop and desktop should last me all of next year. So if I go mac logic or cubase? See I am all over the place lol.

Thanks

 

[miroslav]

Around here the Reaper gets recommended by a lot of people. It's cheap and does the job.

If you're looking to spend some bucks on something other.....there's a lot of choices, so it's down to your budget for the most part.
I use Samplitude ProX....and while certainly can recommend it, it's a substantial program and may be too more than some folks want to dive into.

If you like Cubase....why not just stick with that...?

 

[ecc83]

Around here the Reaper gets recommended by a lot of people. It's cheap and does the job.

If you're looking to spend some bucks on something other.....there's a lot of choices, so it's down to your budget for the most part.
I use Samplitude ProX....and while certainly can recommend it, it's a substantial program and may be too more than some folks want to dive into.

If you like Cubase....why not just stick with that...?

Did not know you were a Sam person Mir'! My son has been using Samplitude SE8 as his main DAW for some years now (freebie off Computer Music mag!) but we also have Cubase LE6 and Sonar ESS X1 which he has used for special purposes*. If he came home to stay and wanted it I would certainly buy Sam ProX!

OP: Reaper is so cheap you might as well get it. You could also try "Rewire" into Cubase? I would think that PC has the grunt!
If you do anything with MIDI, Cubase is the dog's whatsits.

*He found only Cubase +a 2496 soundcard gave him low enough latency in certain situations.

Dave.

 

[miroslav]

Did not know you were a Sam person...

Yeah, I've been using Samplitude for a good dozen years now. There's alot of good DAW apps, and I've tried others, but once I got use to Samplitude, nothing else felt as good. The "Object" level editing is one-of-a-kind, and makes Samplitude hard to beat.
It's a pro-level app all around. There's guys on the Samplitude forum who came over from Pro Tools and can get over how much better it is.

 

[jimmys69]

Hello HR forum. I was looking for some opinions. I recently have been trying different daws and am having a hard time picking one. I mainly do dance music. So I have used FL Studio in the past. Now I use Maschine with Studio One. But then I tried Steinberg's Cubase 7.5 and like it better than studio one somewhat. I love the halionsonic 2, padshop pro etc. I recently just bought a pc that is an i7, windows 8.1, and plan to max the ram to 32 gb. Then max my ram to 16 on my laptop. I have an old native instruments audio kontrol interface and focusrite interface.

I'm trying to figure out what direction I wanna go-with the cubase set-up or stick with what I have. Maschine is not a daw, so I need to pick one. I'm in an apartment, so I was thinking about trying to record small guitar parts etc. That's what turned me on to steinberg vst connect pro. So far I have the absolute collection. I wanted to get groove agent 4. Not sure where to go from here. I think maybe just do all the ram upgrades and maintenance for my new desktop/laptop. Then I guess when I can go from there? In the long run I want to switch to mac. I Love apple. Can't afford now. My laptop and desktop should last me all of next year. So if I go mac logic or cubase? See I am all over the place lol.

Thanks

Go with what you feel comfortable with man. Forget about the price of any of them. If it works for you and your creativity, then don't 'settle' for less.

PC is actually best to run Cubase. Not sure why you 'love' Apple. That sounds like you listened to someone you trusted as a kid that said something about the OS. lol.

An i7 Windows PC can do all you need with less than 16Gb ram. You will want to have separate drives for samples, audio, and OS/program though. Same if you had a mac, just spend much more for it. A simple procedure for setting up a PC for recording performance is all that is necessary to getting things running smoothly.

Do the steps HERE before you do anything.

 

[ecc83]

Yeah, I've been using Samplitude for a good dozen years now. There's alot of good DAW apps, and I've tried others, but once I got use to Samplitude, nothing else felt as good. The "Object" level editing is one-of-a-kind, and makes Samplitude hard to beat.
It's a pro-level app all around. There's guys on the Samplitude forum who came over from Pro Tools and can get over how much better it is.

I actually found Magix Music Studio Generation 6 in WHSmiths of all places for £9.99 years ago. We found this fairly easy to get along with except we never had much luck with the MIDI side of things. It was not until a few years later that we found out that Magix had not upgraded the MIDI software to run on XP!

Then I found the freebie (I was pretty skint at the time) of Sam 8SE in CM mag and there was no stopping us!

I have since downloaded all the varieties of Samplitude demos and like them all. My biggest beef with Magix is that they do not sell a "lite" version of Sam to compete with the likes of Cubase LE7 and Sonar Essentials. If they could market a version at £50-£80 I would buy two in a trice and send one to son in France!
Samplitude ProX is great but it is a lot of money when there is no one here to use it!

Dave.