DAWs GRRRRRRRRRR!

M

MrObjective

Banned
It seems that they all suck in different way.

I first tried Mixcraft and while it was easy to navigate it was unstable and the best I could get for latency was 21ms which is unacceptable. Mixcraft also crashes and the effects are Ok but nothing special.

Then I tried Energy.... HORRIBLE!

Then I tried Audacity. Not enough effects to mix and master on it.

Then I tried Reaper. It's bare bones and the effects are awful. To get it up to speed you have to spend $$$$$ for effects and VTSi and by the time you do that you could buy a full featured DAW.

The I tried Adobe Audition 3.0. An associate of mine has 2 downloads left but I could not register it as Adobe no longer supports that DAW. When I down loaded it I got this malware called NetSession that won't uninstall.

I am currently trying out Presonous Studio One. Effects are of professional quality and the functions work well but there are no decent tutorials and it is a very tough DAW to navigate. This is the case with most DAWS but Studio One is worse than average.

I can get Cubase for free with the purchase on a ZOOM multitracker BUT.... I was one the steinberg forum and everybody there is very angry about how bad Cubase 7 is and they are getting the same crap all the users do about bugs.... (It's your computer) The guys there are running fast processors and a ton of RAM and there are both Mac and PC Users there experiencing the same crashes.

I think that the reason the DAW vendors don't provide adequate instruction is because once you master a DAW by playing Sherlock Holmes you will sick with it because you know it and you know how time consuming it is learning another DAW.

I pretty much decided that I will be tracking on multitracker and mixing on the DAW. Since mostly what I will be doing are demos I may use the DAW for some virtual instruments and mastering.

I could get a Mac and get Final Edit or GB but at this point I don't think that Macs offer that many advantages over the PC running Win 7. I also won't deal with Apple because of their recent sleazy corporatism.

The question is... Which DAW are you using and why?
 
That's the problem.. There are tutorials all over the web and I have seen a lot of them and many wasted my time and others are just poorly done. Also, when Studio One is open the sound on the You Tube videos won't play.

Presonous and other DAW vendors should pony up and make professional quality training videos that play along side the DAW. This scavenger hunt scenario is BS. I don't want to have to hunt all over the f'n internet for instructions. DAW makers are an arrogant lot IMO.

Come on Presonous, serve your customers. It is just wrong that you WON'T include even and navigational tutorial with your software or a help menu that acutally helps. Stop being so corporate!
 
MrObjective said:
Then I tried Reaper. It's bare bones and the effects are awful. To get it up to speed you have to spend $$$$$ for effects and VTSi and by the time you do that you could buy a full featured DAW.
Click to expand...

Did 'ya read the manual? Reaper uses any of the billion free vst's out there (and the built-ins, while they don't look pretty, are actually pretty good sonically.)

Sequencers all do pretty much the same thing. It's up to you to find one that fits YOU.
But if you have problems with all of them, maybe its not all the software's fault....
 
MrObjective said:
Also, when Studio One is open the sound on the You Tube videos won't play.
Click to expand...
It's a long time since I used windows, but I don't expect this is abnormal.
The DAW wants exclusive access to the audio hardware.


MrObjective said:
Presonous and other DAW vendors should pony up and make professional quality training videos that play along side the DAW. This scavenger hunt scenario is BS. I don't want to have to hunt all over the f'n internet for instructions. DAW makers are an arrogant lot IMO.
Click to expand...

Why should they? Your education is not the responsibility of tool manufacturers.
Seriously, imagine a would-be joiner bitching because he bought all the tools and no one gave him a training video on how to hang a door...

User manual? Certainly. Professional quality training videos? I think you expect too much.

MrObjective said:
Come on Presonous, serve your customers. It is just wrong that you WON'T include even and navigational tutorial with your software or a help menu that acutally helps. Stop being so corporate!
Click to expand...

Have you directly asked them to?
I'm only asking because you've put intentional emphasis on won't.

MrObjective said:
I think that the reason the DAW vendors don't provide adequate instruction is because once you master a DAW by playing Sherlock Holmes you will sick with it because you know it and you know how time consuming it is learning another DAW.
Click to expand...

I don't think you're right. I jumped from Sony Vegas to ProTools with relative ease.
I could jump to Reaper tomorrow and know 90% of what I need by tomorrow night. A LOT of it is transferrable.
 
MrObjective said:
Also, when Studio One is open the sound on the You Tube videos won't play.
Click to expand...

That's down to your ASIO driver, not Studio One. ASIO doesn't like to share.

MrObjective said:
I think that the reason the DAW vendors don't provide adequate instruction is because once you master a DAW by playing Sherlock Holmes you will sick with it because you know it and you know how time consuming it is learning another DAW.

The question is... Which DAW are you using and why?
Click to expand...

I cannot agree with the above at all. There is more than adequate instructions in manuals if you care to read them, thoroughly. You can't expect to know everything from browsing through or even reading the lot just once. Learning a DAW is like anything else is life, time, effort, patience and acquiring knowledge is the only way to master them. Installing a program for 5 minutes, an hour, or a day, won't give you knowledge of it.

I was a long time Sonar user (after tape and digital multitrackers) until the day I installed Reaper, just to have look. I've never loaded Sonar since that day. The transition from one to the other was unexpected and way too easy. I only ever care for the manual if there is something specific I want to know or I go to the Reaper forum, which is a wealth of knowledge, like this place. Yes Reaper's Rea-Plugs are butt ugly to look at but they work and they work well. If you don't like them, find free ones you do like. There are millions out there to choose from and some bloody good ones too.

Why I use Reaper? I have a shitty old P4 2.56gHz PC with 4Gb RAM. Reaper is lite and works a treat for what I want and the price is fantastic. (I never had a problem with Sonar though) Reaper's workflow is perfect for me. I can do all I want to do and more if needed, should I need to or care to learn.

My advice would be pick one and stick with it. Read the manual and road test it. Put it through it's paces and see what you can achieve. At the end of the day it's only a tool in your arsenal and all of them have the same functions. Some are prettier than others and some are completely alien. Read and learn:

:thumbs up:
 
Steenamaroo said:
I could jump to Reaper tomorrow and know 90% of what I need by tomorrow night. A LOT of it is transferrable.
Click to expand...

Mate, you could install it now and in 10 minutes have it pretty much covered.

You could even slap a Pro Tools looking skin on it :thumbs up:
 
MrObjective said:
That's the problem.. There are tutorials all over the web and I have seen a lot of them and many wasted my time and others are just poorly done. Also, when Studio One is open the sound on the You Tube videos won't play.
Click to expand...

It's not their fault you don't know how to set up your audio.

I've got a Presonus Firestudio Project at my house that I route my audio to my monitors through. All I had to do to get it to play audio from YouTube and a DAW? Set it to the default device in my audio settings under Windows "Control Panel."

I've got a Focusrite Saffire 40 at the recording studio I work at. I went to the System Settings on the Mac, set the Focusrite as the default audio device, and guess what? Audio from the DAW and YouTube at the same time.

Don't blame other people because you don't know how to use your hardware. Google is your friend.
 
I haven't worked much with a DAW ( I use a mostly analog workpath) so take what I say with a grain of salt but, recording is recording .... when I have fooled with DAWS almost everything I did transferred just fine for working with a DAW. The only real differences is the need to use plugins rather than hardware and understanding things like sample rate and files sizes and such. Editing is WAY more versatile but really, none of this is hard at all as far as I can see.
 
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MrObjective said:
That's the problem.. There are tutorials all over the web and I have seen a lot of them and many wasted my time and others are just poorly done. Also, when Studio One is open the sound on the You Tube videos won't play.

Presonous and other DAW vendors should pony up and make professional quality training videos that play along side the DAW. This scavenger hunt scenario is BS. I don't want to have to hunt all over the f'n internet for instructions. DAW makers are an arrogant lot IMO.

Come on Presonous, serve your customers. It is just wrong that you WON'T include even and navigational tutorial with your software or a help menu that acutally helps. Stop being so corporate!
Click to expand...

And you are still here....:facepalm:

Your issues are directly related to your lack of finding the answers as to how to set up any DAW in the first place. They have that stuff in the manuals you know? Any opinion you have IMO, is not doing anyone any good.

I suggest you start either reading or asking yourself what it is you are doing wrong.

-hint- It not the software...
 
Mr Objective does nothing but diss everything - he has form, it's the sum content of all his posts on this board. Doesn't matter that we can all get good results using our DAW weapons of choice - because he apparently can't, he has these little rants every now and then.

Don't waste your time with him.
 
RTFM. Reaper works just fine. Granted the manual is 300 or so pages but it covers the usage of the program. When I began using it there was a learning curve but it is so similar to a real desk that it was easy for me to get a grip on. Yeah its Midi implementation is not the best/easy but I don't do a lot of that stuff. As far as plugs go, the Reaplugs function properly. Yes I am a Reaper fan *(check my posts) and have used many other DAWS and Reaper works for me. Modern DAW's are very similar but results are dependent on user skills. I can mix on any of them and get shitty or good results but that is the consequence of skills (or lack thereof). If you do not know how to use a compressor, eq, delay, limiter, gate etc. you will have a bad product. Spend more time learning the craft and less time blaming the tools. Be well all.
 
MrObjective said:
It seems that they all suck in different way.

I first tried Mixcraft and while it was easy to navigate it was unstable and the best I could get for latency was 21ms which is unacceptable. Mixcraft also crashes and the effects are Ok but nothing special.

Then I tried Energy.... HORRIBLE!

Then I tried Audacity. Not enough effects to mix and master on it.
Click to expand...

All of those are old and/or limited in features. Bad place to start if you want a full featured DAW.

MrObjective said:
Then I tried Reaper. It's bare bones and the effects are awful. To get it up to speed you have to spend $$$$$ for effects and VTSi and by the time you do that you could buy a full featured DAW.
Click to expand...

Reaper is one of the most powerful DAWs out there with features just as good as any commercial program. The effects are some of the best freeware around. If you can't make a good recording and subsequent mix with it, the problem is not the program, believe me. It's you.

MrObjective said:
The I tried Adobe Audition 3.0. An associate of mine has 2 downloads left but I could not register it as Adobe no longer supports that DAW. When I down loaded it I got this malware called NetSession that won't uninstall.
Click to expand...

Audition is clunky and old. Some find it useful but it all boils down to preference. See above what I said about Reaper.

MrObjective said:
I am currently trying out Presonous Studio One. Effects are of professional quality and the functions work well but there are no decent tutorials and it is a very tough DAW to navigate. This is the case with most DAWS but Studio One is worse than average.
Click to expand...

You know, for a handle like MrObjective, you're not very objective. All I'm reading is a bunch of complaining and slating. I am getting the feeling you don't have the experience and sensibility for this sort of thing to be objective. Studio One is a good DAW that can get the job done like any other. Once again, its not the tools...

MrObjective said:
I can get Cubase for free with the purchase on a ZOOM multitracker BUT.... I was one the steinberg forum and everybody there is very angry about how bad Cubase 7 is and they are getting the same crap all the users do about bugs.... (It's your computer) The guys there are running fast processors and a ton of RAM and there are both Mac and PC Users there experiencing the same crashes.
Click to expand...

All DAWs have bugs. There's no way around that when you're dealing with computers. Windows computers are more prone to crashing because they have a lot of third party hardware and software options. They are more open to tinkering and malware. However, managed properly they can be just as stable as any Mac. Modern Macs are getting closer to the PC paradigm and are, for want of a better description, PCs with specific software tailored to specific hardware. But they are not as proprietary as they used to be. In any case, Mac or PC, Cubase has been around since 1984 and is one of the most professional pieces of music creation software out there. Pros worldwide are successfully making hit records with it so once again, it's not the tools...

MrObjective said:
I think that the reason the DAW vendors don't provide adequate instruction is because once you master a DAW by playing Sherlock Holmes you will sick with it because you know it and you know how time consuming it is learning another DAW.
Click to expand...

People stick to their DAW of choice because it's a workflow issue. Once you learn your DAW of choice, which is a fairly complex piece of software, you're going to stick with it for the mere reason that you can get the work you're getting paid to do or get the song you're working on done quicker. The more you use the different DAWs available the more you will begin to see they all accomplish the same thing albeit slightly differently. What do you need? Inputs, outputs, tracks, inserts, routing, a mixer, editing functions, etc. Once again, it's not the tools...

MrObjective said:
I pretty much decided that I will be tracking on multitracker and mixing on the DAW. Since mostly what I will be doing are demos I may use the DAW for some virtual instruments and mastering.

I could get a Mac and get Final Edit or GB but at this point I don't think that Macs offer that many advantages over the PC running Win 7. I also won't deal with Apple because of their recent sleazy corporatism.
Click to expand...

A multitracker? Like a multitrack tape machine? That's fine too. It's about whatever workflow suits you. If that's what you need to get a recording done, then by all means. Just know you'll have to dump it into the DAW at some point if you want to edit, mix, or master. Seems convoluted to me.

MrObjective said:
The question is... Which DAW are you using and why?
Click to expand...

I have used Cubase for the last 15 years. I have all of the major DAWs (Logic, Pro Tools, Reaper, Harrison Mixbus, etc) but I stick to Cubase because, like I said before, it's what I know and it suits my workflow. I understand how the developers think. I can get the same job done 10 times faster in Cubase than any other DAW and that benefits my clients and I, not to mention increases my productivity. It's not about the summing engine or the effects or how many studios worldwide use it. It's about me and how I prefer to work. The reason why I keep all the other DAWs around is just to accommodate clients working on those platforms.

Cheers :)
 
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