Mike02392,

Interesting questions.

I think you'll find that for most people choosing a DAW is a very personal choice that essentially boils down to people tend to suggest the DAW they are most familiar with and most comfortable using. Your question stressed you are not terribly restrained by cost so I'll leave that consideration out of my comments. However I should point out that for many forum users cost is a strong restraint so the responses you receive will be influenced by cost.

The Windows DAWs I believe are most mentioned in this forum include +++ Reaper +++, +++ Cakewalk by Bandlab +++, +++ Cubase +++, +++ PreSonus Studio One +++, +++ ProTools +++ and +++ MultiTrack Studio +++.

For the sake of those that use a Mac, GarageBand is the entry level product while +++ Logic Pro +++ is the commercial DAW.

Wikipedia has some information and comparison charts worth looking at +++ HERE +++ and +++ HERE +++.

In any case the ones I mentioned are either free, have a free edition or a trial period. Visit the links I provided, read the wiki articles and narrow your choice down to two or three DAWs. Think about a few tasks you want to do such as import or export an audio file, cut copy and move audio, create a track from a loop, edit midi, and so on. Download the two or three DAWs that interest you the most and see what tasks you can easily do without using the manual. That's the one you want because it works the way you think.

Sound library. In my opinion there are multiple competing sound library formats but the one with the most support from third party vendors is Native Instrument's +++ Kontakt +++. When I was just starting to understand music production tools, one of the most confusing things for me to get my head around is that Kontakt can be used as a sound engine to playback musical instrument sounds, more commonly known as patches, from a sound library or as an instrument in it's own right. A great website that sells a wide variety of instruments and sound libraries is +++ Big Fish Audio +++

Jim Fogle - 2024 BiaB (1111) RB (5) Ultra+ PAK
DAWs: Cakewalk by BandLab (CbB) - Standalone: Zoom MRS-8
Laptop: i3 Win 10, 8GB ram 500GB HDD
Desktop: i7 Win 11, 12GB ram 256GB SSD, 4 TB HDD
Music at: https://fogle622.wix.com/fogle622-audio-home