Are you using the DAW included free with your interface?

[spantini]

I've only used two different interfaces. I have not used any of the recording software that came with them, nor any of the included software which needed to be downloaded. When I got into this digital home recording, all I knew was I needed an interface and a DAW, I had no idea DAWs were included with many new interfaces - so I got Reaper and never checked out anything that was included with the interface.

 

[TalismanRich]

I started with Pro Tools Free MANY years ago. I did one recording with it. When I got my AW16G, it came with a version of Cubase SE. It's still on one of my old laptops, and it was ok. I did a song or 2 with it, but I did better just working in the AW. I got a newer version when I bought upgraded to the AW1600 and got my R24, but never installed them. I discovered Reaper, tried it for a month or so, and registered it. I think it was mid V4.

I think I have the CDs for Cubase SE 5.something in the desk drawer.

The Tascam 16x08 didn't come with any software, which is just fine with me.

 

[markmann]

I do look at other DAWs out of curiosity but I've been content with Reaper for a long time.

 

[Dave Matthews]

I started with Deluxe Music Construction Set on an Amiga...
When I moved to Windows there were still stores selling boxed versions of software/CDs.
I chose an app from Magix (Music Maker I think)...
I migrated to other newer Magix versions including Samplitude, but at this point Reaper has taken precedent.
I've dabbled in DAWs that came with interfaces, but none of them stuck.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

The bundled versions are often out of date.
The pucka entry versions are pretty cheap.

 

[rob aylestone]

I have used them on secondary computers - so every computer has cubase 12 on it. 2 have pro, but the cut down versions are on old laptops - this has always worked for me.

 

[samsare]

The Zoom R8 came with a license for Cubase LE 12 (June 2023) which is installed but hasn't been used... yet.

I ended up with lots of bits and pieces during the pandemic (so many discounts during that time). Which has resulted in various experimental projects scattered in different programs (Reaper, MPC Desktop software, Kushview Element & GigPerformer etc.). At the moment I'm happy to simply record clean electric guitar ideas straight into the R8.

Edit: To be historically accurate I guess the first would be the module designed for the Yamaha CX5M which I connected to an Toshiba MSX computer with a homemade ribbon cable and connectors.

 

[ecc83]

We, son and I started with desktops and internal sound cards and so had no 'freebie'. I found a CD of "MAGIX Home Studio Generation 6" at W.H.Smiths and it at least got us going. We could not afford the likes of Cubase.

A year or two later Computer Music Magazine gave a free version of Samplitude SE8 and that was our standard DAW for quite some time.

Many years later Samplitude ProX 3 suite became available at a very good price and so both my son and I bought a copy. He was by then in France. He still uses Sam for audio work but had migrated to Reaper and Cakewalk for MIDI stuff.

Dave.

 

[spantini]

I started with Deluxe Music Construction Set on an Amiga...
When I moved to Windows there were still stores selling boxed versions of software/CDs.
I chose an app from Magix (Music Maker I think)...
I migrated to other newer Magix versions including Samplitude, but at this point Reaper has taken precedent.
I've dabbled in DAWs that came with interfaces, but none of them stuck.

I had an Amiga 2000HD when I first started with MIDI and recording. What a headache. Then, when I got my Kawai K3 Synth, I found some software at an Amiga retail store - I can't recall what it was, but it recorded performances in sheet music staff format as well as MIDI notes. Nothing like today's DAWs. If I had Reaper in 1989, I could'a been dangerous, I tell ya. Dangerous. I could'a been a contender.

 

[Ujn Hunter]

So... I voted Another DAW, because that is true. I use Reaper 100%. However, many, many years ago when I had come back into recording music on my PC (I had taken a 3-5 year break somewhere in between high school and college), I did use the Cubase LE (?) that came with my Lexicon Omega (POS that died within a year or two) audio interface, but it crashed constantly... so sometime after I purchased a NEW interface, I had found Reaper. Thank the lard!

 

[gecko zzed]

I started in the digital world with an Emagic interface that5 came with Logic. That interface only had line level inputs so entually I switched from that to a Presaonus Firepod, still using Logic. Around 2010 I embarked on a collaborative project. It wasn't long before that that Logic was supported only on Mac, so that collaboration was the trigger to switch to Reaper, which I have been using ever since. I still hvae Logic on an old laptop, because from time to time I have occasion to go back to it to revivie old songs and so on.

 

[grimtraveller]

Back in 2004, when I first bought Garritan Personal Orchestra, it came bundled with Cubasis. In those days I was so new to any kind of digital recording that I didn't even know if Cubasis would do what I wanted it to do. At that time, I really wanted a DAW to house the virtual instruments I was buying. I wanted to use the VSTis as standalones to play in real-time {which is what I've always done}. Because I didn't know my digital arse from my analog elbow, I didn't know what I was doing and no one ever explained the gig to me in a way that an ignorant such as I could understand. So I just bought Cubase SE and that did the job until 2009 when I got Cubase Essentials, which I'm still using now. Screw upgrades !
I did try to get my head around Cubase SE to actually record on, but my heart wasn't in it because I wanted to record {finish off loads of stuff} on my Tascam 488 and after that, on my Akai DPS12i {my ironically current set-up}. Subsequently, if any software has ever come bundled with anything I've bought, I haven't even bothered to look at it. I'm a simple creature of simple means.