PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows New Poll. What's your choice of DAW?Really looking for that one that just makes workflow easy.

I have to say that really most of them will work. I mentioned above what I use I didn’t mention why. To me I have noticed that sometime people migrate through a couple DAWs and have trouble and settle on one cause “it works” I believe that many times that is because the learn how things work along the way and work out issues their system have andnthe next DAW up benefits from that knowledge and experience. Another issue is what they want to do some things fit their needs.

When I started many years ago. I had an old cassette tape based 4 track unit from Clarion. And I needed to creat3d tracks to load I to it to play things like drums and such I didn’t play or have. I bought a floppy disk version of Cakewalk, and used it to make midi piano, drum and bass tracks to play guitar over.

Next I bought at the guitar center a early version of ACID when sonic foundry made it. Upgraded a time or two then got tired of Loop based tracks as they were ok but not totally real sounding to me and a butt load of work. I picked up Cakewalk music creator 2, then 3, then 5 then bought demoed and bought a program named N Track studios it was cool but buggy as heck. Along the way I bought BiaB I believe 2006 was my first and found it helpful to make basic tracks to mix else where. I also bought Powertracks but found it didn’t do anything Music creator could do. A forum member here many remember “Mac” suggested a program called Multitrackstudios I demoed and ended up buying it. I found it to be the most stable program ever rock solid you can’t make it crash. I used that to record several projects with friends. Somewhere along the way I also upgraded Cakewalk to Sonar for its “new comping feature. And did a project in it. I tried Reaper about that time and I found it to be super flexible and almost as stable as MTS. My only issue was I spent most of my time setting it up and fiddling with the program rather than recording stuff. Then I upgraded my MAudio sound card for a new Presonus AudioBox, and it came with studio one. I found that out of the box I got more done than any program since MTS. Along the way I kept upgrading BiaB and as well RB. At one point I used Arab exclusively but it began to drag and skip on my system on playback it would record fine. So rather than drop into RB I started dropping into studio one. About that time I got busy starting a new business, and eventually move across country and took a almost two year hiatus from music. Now I’m back and on my system I have the latest Reaper, Bandlab, and Studio one with 2019 BiaB. I am testing to see which will handle my work flow. So far Studio one it the easiest to use, and most intuitive.

I might reach back and buy the latest Multitrackstudios version cause nothing mixes down like it does. Just for grins. What it does that not other system does equally is that it tests audio and midi the same you drag to a track and it outputs through the same effect both types of tracks.

In the end it is really about what you get comfortable with and allows you to be productive. I am really hopeful for the new BiaB VSTi to pan out as it fits my needs well. One thing for sure find a DAW you like and learn it deeply. Don’t jump around like I did. While it might teach you a lot about many different ways to do things you only get surface knowledge. Figure out what you like to do and how. If your a midi beast, or a audio guy, or both. Do you play three or four instruments, or one or none. Colaborate with others. Record alone or with friends. All this plays into it.