Originally Posted By: VideoTrack
Considering the number of DAWs available nowadays (including RealBand), I wonder which are the user's favorites (which could include RealBand).

Would users care to tell us about what product they use, and why?


Propellerhead Reason. It is a complete DAW, plus has the coolest interface imaginable, and is the baddest soft synth going. I say a lot about this below--probably more than most people want to read. If you are really interested in a different approach to what we do, you owe it to yourself to go to the company site to see what Propellerhead has to say about it.

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- Availability of VST's,


Reason does not support VSTs--which is kind of odd, considering they developed the Rewire protocol with Steinberg. Instead they use what are called Refills, which are proprietary sound libraries, and recently opened up what was a closed environment to outside developers with what are called Rack Extensions (REs). REs emulate instruments, effects, mixers, and other useful devices in software.

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- Price,


Currently on special for $399 USD with some attractive extras. I think it's usually $450, less as an upgrade.

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- Value for money,


Hard to gauge because there is so much bang for the buck, but for me a no-brainer. Essentially you get a DAW with a rack full of as many virtual sampled and synthesized instruments and effects as your PC will handle. It lets you sample your own stuff, too, quickly and easily.

[quote- Ease of Workflow, [/quote]

Reason is as simple or as complex as you want to make it. It's noob friendly, yet has more depth than I can describe, simply because I don't understand all of it myself. It's way deep. BUT, a beginner can get up and running more easily than with any other DAW I've tried, which includes several versions of Cakewalk, Cubase, Nuendo, Sonar, and others.

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- Capability, Features - etc etc


The interface is the biggest deal. It looks like the equipment you are emulating, right down to being able to see the back of the Rack and manually route virtual cables, then work knobs, sliders, and switches on the front panel.

Unlimited tracks. Unlimited virtual instruments. Unlimited effects. Microscopic editing capability. MIDI control (up to 4,096 channels with Rewire 2). A highly supportive community (though not as friendly as this one), great customer support, and a highly responsive development team. Think of Reason as the Mac of DAWs; there are rarely any bugs, even in major releases, and those get fixed almost instantly. It's very, very stable.

I recently bought a third-party Refill called Fairlight Platinum. It's the sound set of a Fairlight CMI as well as a couple of other classic 80s-era synths. The instruments would have cost well over $100,000; the Refill was less than $100. Not all deals are that good, but I don't know anyone who gives that kind of value in VSTs or any other format.

I could go on, but words fail. Even the website falls short. You really have to see it in action. An almost fully functional demo is available that lets you create and save complete productions; you have to pay to be able to recall them.

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Also, how much DAW work gets done in RealBand before moving to your 'other' favorite DAW, if any.


I've only ever poked a stick at RB. My workflow has been to sketch things out in BIAB, then port them over to Reason for revoicing and heavy augmentation. This predates Real Tracks/Drums, though. At the very least I will definitely be working on the drums in RB until I am ready to move a song into Reason. Also, when I started, Reason wasn't a DAW, only a soft synth, so I had to use three pieces of software--BIAB, Reason, and a Rewire-capable DAW. Now I can just use the two.

I could go on forever, but we all have other things to do. Thanks for asking.

R.

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Thanks for your input.

VideoTrack

Last edited by Ryszard; 01/24/14 11:17 AM.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."