Like Rob, "DAW" for me is a bit of a misnomer in some ways because it's to do with the machine as well as the software ~ if there is any.
My main machine is an Akai DPS12i. It's a now ancient piece of kit. I think they came out in 2000 or 2001. They haven't made them probably since George W. Bush was president and Tony Blair was in his first term as Prime Minister ! Prior to going digital, I used an 8 track cassette portastudio, a Tascam 488, which I bought in 1992. When I decided to go digital, I didn't particularly want to go the computer route but in the course of my research at the end of 2003/start of 2004, I discovered that there were standalone DAWs and the main reason I went for them was because in my mind, they were close enough in familiarity with what I had been used to for the previous 11~12 years, yet they carried the advantages of digital. I've long viewed the digital standalone as the perfect halfway house for those that like the portastudio workflow but want to get a bit more daring without having to risk cutting tape and stuff like that.
I also wanted a few more tracks to hand without having to utilize a reel to reel because I had neither the money, the time to re~learn nor the space, either for the machine or the stacks of tape I'd inevitably acquire.
Part of my research about digital recording brought me into contact with the concept of virtual instruments/samples, which was almost as good as a voice from Heaven to me. The idea that I could have all the instruments I'd ever dreamed of using to supplement my use of bass, drums, percussion, mandolin, guitar, keyboards and voices and others was such a bang on the head. I thought one could just buy the software, put it in the computer and use it, literally plug'n'play, but it wasn't quite like that. Going digital coincided with me starting to use computers {I was a late bloomer} and it was quite a learning curve. I needed a DAW in which to house my VSTIs. My idea was to play the instruments in real time ~ MIDI never interested me. So I had to learn about computer DAWS, controller keyboards etc. I bought Cubase SE as a host, primarily because that was what the shop I was in had at the time. I have never actually recorded onto it as a DAW but I've been using it since late 2004. Well, I switched to Cubase elements in 2009 but in my mind, it's all Cubase. I still just use it to call up the instruments.
I was under the impression initially that all standalone DAWs were more or less the same but that's not so. The first one I bought was the Zoom MRS1266 and I really liked it but it had some drawbacks. There was no varispeed, which is essential to my way of making music. Also, when bouncing {also crucial to my way of doing things}, you couldn't hear the other tracks as you were bouncing tracks together. I also didn't like the fixed stereo tracks. If I want to have them, let me determine where and which they should be. But that aside, it gave me the taste for what a DAW could do so I went looking for that DAW that had all the features I wanted and it came down to the Akai or the Fostex VF160. The Akai was available first so I trundled down to South London to get it and just made it to the shop as it was about to close. It was a couple of years before I got down to using it as I still had lots of stuff on the Tascam to finish off but by the time I got around to using it, I was acquainted with the workflow in using Cubase as the housing for the VSTis so it just became a case of learning how to record with the Akai. Once I started doing that, it was bombs away ! I spent many years trying to find a way to transfer my Tascam tracks to the Akai and once I did that I was in dream land.
The other major factor in going digital was mixing. Many of my earlier songs were lengthy pieces, anything from 2 to 35 minutes. Mixing on the Tascam was freaking hard work because if I made one error, I had to start all over again. When I was reading up on digital recording, I thought "automation" meant that one could mix in sections and I was somewhat miffed to find that this wasn't the case. But when I bought a second unit {I saw it in the window of an instrument exchange in Hammersmith}, I reasoned that I could mix from one machine to the other ~ and gloriously, could do so in sections then just use the "Cut - Move" function to join the two pieces together. So I could take small sections at a time and mix them to my heart's satisfaction and then move onto the next part and do likewise.
It has made mixing fun, rather than a psychologically loaded gun !
The only thing that the Akai doesn't do, but which the Zoom did, is reverse the data. When using tape, I used to like running the tape backwards and then recording a solo or whatever, then turning the tape back the right way. However, some years back, I bought a Zoom MRS8 {an 8 track version of the 1266} for this very purpose.
I made a decision late last year that I would be sticking with the Akai so I've bought a couple of extra back-up units so should the operational units go, I'm not hamstrung. I don't want bells and whistles. I want a few basic effects, I want the basic editing facilities and I want a workflow that was as close to the cassette portastudio days as possible.
The Akai gives me all of that. Maybe I could use the 16 or 24 track versions in the future. We'll see.
