Frank Edwards


Hey Linear,


What's wrong with Ableton?

Nothing is, "wrong with Ableton."  Its all opinion..   Back in 2009, I set out to record a band that was kinda like, "A Florida Modest Mouse," at the time I had Ableton, and Renoise, and was pretty happy with, "my music setup."


Renoise is a tracker, and not suitable for many recording projects.  Although, I love my Renoise software, and use it religiously to this day.


During this recording project, I noticed several things about the way Ableton Records.  Unfortunately to my dismay, I found multi-track recording and editing in Ableton to be far less than the Cubase I had learned to produce on.   Keep in mind, I learned Cubase many years ago, when I was living and experiencing music in London, UK. 

When I returned to the states, I simply, "could not afford Cubase."  I like to own my software...  I went Mackie Traktion, which very soon became abandoned...  I went Ableton Live..   Ableton worked for a while, till my unhappiness with its midi, and its overall workflow brought me to Renoise...   Renoise works for me to this day, but during the, "Florida Modest Mouse," recording project I purchased Reaper, in the hope of subsidizing what I thought Ableton was lacking in its audio editing and recording ability.  Reaper turned out to be, "a total fail for me," because of its ultra complex, and straight up wacky workflow.

My productions fell deeper, and deeper into the world of Renoise.  In the back of my mind, I still considered, "one of these days, I am just going to have to save up and purchase Cubase."  

Enter 2012..   A brand new Microsoft Windows HP PC ( I used to use Mac ), an Ableton Live 7 ( I hadn't upgraded yet ), some extra cash on hand last June, and a major sale at Cakewalk...  

Instead of upgrading to Live 8, I purchased Sonar X1 Studio and got a First Class Upgrade to Producer.  I'm happy!  

When I purchased Rapture Full Version back in 2007, I had been producing for about 14 months.  I had, "heard of Cakewalk before," but I had no idea that it was, "one of the best and most important music software companies."  Before I started producing, and specifically the reason why I started producing was because I play guitar, and consider myself to be a follower of Jazz.

Soon after I purchased Rapture I went Mac OS X, thus I never, ever got to check out Sonar...  Having used Sonar since June 2012 now, I think its safe to say, "I am no longer concerned with saving up money for Cubase."  I also think, "I lucked out."  Had I had the money when I got back from London, I probably would have just, "bought Cubase, and Native Instruments Komplete."  Today, my entire software setup, is completely different from the tools I learned on.  I have managed to carve out, "my own idea of a professional kit," finding my way around the music software choices; staying committed to owning the software I use, in this strange economy.

Yeah..  I'm enjoying myself...  I am happy where my music is at.  It keeps getting better....  I am surprised how long it takes to get good at music producing though...  When I first saw Cubase in East London my thought was, "this is music producing?  what I joke, I shall have this licked in three months flat."  Boy was I wrong....

Ps..  I am sorry, but I do not have the patience and go through feature by feature, making a huge comparison as to why I think Sonar is better than Ableton.   There is definitely, "more audio editing, more sound shaping, and more function," in Sonar.  Although, Sonar does not include, "Max/Msp."  That said..  I'm not a Max/Msp person...  Some love it, not fer me...


Cheers





Edit = some spelling, grammar, and mixed up 2011, changed to 2012....

Thanks for filling us in with your experience and findings to date Linear - very interesting.


Cheers!

Linear Phase


I think I have been having the hardest time, trying to sell my licenses to Ableton and Reaper...   Although..  Recently I have found a use for Reaper...  Its called, "lame_enc64.dll"

Other than that...   FLstudio is great.  I don't own it, I don't need it, but its a niche.  Its got a huge following.  ImageLine have managed, unlike Prop Heads, to stay true to what, "FLstudio was supposed to be."   Reason has gone off on some weird tangent...  I liked Reason better when it was, "a quirky, cool, and unique synth rack."

Logic is a joke..  That DAW will cost about $39 come next Christmas.  Its Apples, "pro audio loss leader," and I do not expect it to be updated much..  if ever.  Apple bought some Italian Company.. I could see Apple abandoning Logic, and releasing something entirely different.  Pfft, they want to sell iPads and phones!  Nobody is going to buy a Mac Book Pro when you totally can do the same thing with a $500 laptop..  Its not that economy anymore....

Its great Sonar made it to the top five...  What can do?  Win a popularity contest?  Meh..  Not a scientific poll imo

From what I understand, Redmatica would provide Apple / Logic with more robust sampler capabilities.  I don't see Logic going away.

LOL! What a joke FL Studio no 1... Live no 2...Reason? haha...its not a DAW. 
 
 
 
It should be SONAR X1, Cubase, Logic, Samplitude and Studio One in the TOP 5 and then Reaper, DP. Last Pro tools and FL Studio and LIVE.
 

mattox82


Seeing its also free updates for life you can't really go wrong with it.

They say that everything that you get for free is worth every penny. 

I think I need to sit down with an extra strong cup of tea, with two! no three! slices of lemon. You see something rather strange has just happened.
 
I agree with everyone! 

well, given that the list is a popularity poll and has nothing to do with the qualities or use/value of the daw itself... i am stunned that
a) cubase isnt on that list, and
b) sonar is


Does this mean that sonar is no longer the hip cool unknown daw that nobody else uses? sigh

I'd say that it's probably not a coincidence that the list probably also represents the top 5 most easily pirated DAWs.

@cryophonic LOL

Like said earlier, this "poll" is from 2011, and firmly dated. Also - I think this "poll" has more to say about what audience is visiting (and reading) MusicRadar, and far less about the popularity of the DAW's themselves in general.

For me? Well my main DAW is Sonar X1 pro expanded, but I also use Cubase 6.5 (just upgraded from Artist to the full version for a upgrade offer of €149,-), Ableton Live 8 and good old Project 5 (v2.5). I am planning to update to X2 as soon if I get my hands on €99,-.

While it might look a bit of overkill, the DAW's each have their specific usability, and represent for me the full spectrum of needs..

bit wig should make an interesting new product, since it's from some staff that left ableton... I can't believe how bad abletons customer care was, had to wait 4 weeks for them to ship a product, so I cancelled .. perhaps if they want to offer 40% off they should ship it the same week !!