What DAW should I use in 2021?

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uns4ph3
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by uns4ph3 »

d.healey wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 11:58 am
sunrat wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 1:41 am
Death wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 1:14 am * Tracktion Waveform | Not free. You have to re-buy it every year for updates.
Hot off the presses - Tracktion Releases Waveform Free 2021
As in freedom or just price?
Just price, and it's basically there to be a demo so you can verify it works and try it out.
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by d.healey »

uns4ph3 wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 5:10 pm Just price, and it's basically there to be a demo so you can verify it works and try it out.
That's a shame.
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by tavasti »

Lèyon di li Neûris′ wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 5:00 pm
tavasti wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:02 pmIt is pretty huge work to learn DAW properly, so I would say learning all DAWs is huge waste of time.
There's a big difference between trying and learning, what I mean by “trying” is just to instinctually give a try and explore a bit what possibilities are easily available, this to have a big idea of how it works. Doing that with each one available will certainly lead to some preferences and, moreover, will give an little idea of what is possible with one or another and is certainly enough to chose one then to really dig into it to learn how to use it properly.
Yeah, there is difference also in results: if you don't learn DAW properly, you don't know is it good or not. With quick test you can use tool which is simple to use for basic things, but it won't reveal real power of good and complex ones.

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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by Lèyon di li Neûris′ »

Yes, but, then, if you chose a digital audio workstation and you can't do something with it, you have a better idea on which one might do that and you can then switch more easily to what suites you.
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by Death »

I forgot there's the free version of Waveform. Worth trying if you want to evaluate the program I suppose. I'm not sure what limitations it has compared to the paid version.
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by 1bitdragon »

Death wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 1:14 am Oh man, what DAW to use.. I've been on Linux for years and I still haven't found one. I still use FL Studio in Wine! That's not a Linux problem though. Nothing compares to it on any platform so I'm stuck with this situation. Anyway, isn't Mixcraft kinda like Garageband? I haven't used it but I got the impression it was quite a casual sort of program. I'm not sure what a good, direct equivalent would be but I've tried lots of Linux native DAWs so I'll suggest some of the best ones I've tried, whether free (as in price) or paid for.

* Qtractor | Free & open source. One of my favourite Linux DAWs.
* Tracktion Waveform | Not free. You have to re-buy it every year for updates.
* Bitwig Studio | Definitely not free. Upgrade model like Waveform's but much more pricey. Good if you like Ableton Live though.
* Reaper | Not free. More than fair pricing model.
* Ardour | Very cheap & open source. Lacking for midi work though.
* Harrison Mixbus | It's just like Ardour in functionality (Based on the same code) but its mixer is an analogue console emulation with built in FX which I think is really nice (I'm pretty sure this part of the code is closed source). It has a higher price tag too.
* LMMS | Free & open source. The closest thing to FL Studio. To me it's like how I imagine FLS was 20 years ago but I could see me getting on with it better if I wasn't comparing it to the current FLS.
* Renoise | Not free or open source. It's pretty cool if you like Trackers!

Another one to look at is MusE. I haven't tried it for a long time so I can't comment on it. As far as I'm aware, it is free & open source. I know it's quite popular though. There's plenty of users on this forum too.

As always, if you find a good piece of software you like, please support the developers :)
This list is very complete and well detailed. I will just add 2 other music creation software designed for beginners: Bosca Ceoil, which is free, and 1BITDRAGON :wink:, which is low-cost and easy to use.
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by blockflute »

I see there is also one called Rosegarden than nobody has mentioned.

If all I want to do is record, edit and mix acoustic instruments via microphone (no midi, effects, etc), which would be a good bet? I'd like something simple so I don't have to spend too much time learning how to use it. I've tried Ardour so far, it's clearly a powerful tool that has lots of capabilities I will never use. Maybe that doesn't matter, and I will probably stick with it if there's no obviously better candidate. However, I've only used it very briefly, so not much to lose if I switch to something else.
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by folderol »

tavasti wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:02 pm
Lèyon di li Neûris′ wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 1:10 pm I would say: try as much Digital Audio Workstation as possible to choose what's best for you. It takes time, but then, you have a good idea of what exist in case the one you choose go to a direction that does not suite you any more.
It is pretty huge work to learn DAW properly, so I would say learning all DAWs is huge waste of time. Ok, if you have plenty of time and don't know how to use that time, then fine.
You don't need to learn them all in depth, but you should at least try as many different ones as possible. You'll know fairly quickly which are the most comfortable. Then dive in further to a selected few. The ones with the fullest features might not be the most useful for your purposes and all the extras may well just get in the way.
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by folderol »

blockflute wrote: Tue Apr 06, 2021 7:19 pm I see there is also one called Rosegarden than nobody has mentioned.

If all I want to do is record, edit and mix acoustic instruments via microphone (no midi, effects, etc), which would be a good bet? I'd like something simple so I don't have to spend too much time learning how to use it. I've tried Ardour so far, it's clearly a powerful tool that has lots of capabilities I will never use. Maybe that doesn't matter, and I will probably stick with it if there's no obviously better candidate. However, I've only used it very briefly, so not much to lose if I switch to something else.
Rosegarden is more a MIDI sequencer than a DAW. This actually suits me perfectly, as I very rarely want to do any audio editing. I find I have much more control by maintaining a bunch of MIDI tracks and editing at that level.

If I do want to (say) add a guitar track I'll record it in Audacity while playing the MIDI, then drag the recording into an audio track of Rosegarden, so I still have a single unified project.
Incidentally, in more than 20 years, Rosegarden (for all it's quirks) has never corrupted a saved project - all the others I've tried have :(
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by MattKingUSA »

Qtractor is a nice option as well. I really like the pluggin management.

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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

If you run out of ideas there's always the KVR Audio linux DAW thread

started Sat Dec 09, 2006 1:46 pm

74 pages as of now

maybe pdf print it for a rainy offline day
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by Michael Willis »

You might be able to get this nigh-forgotten gem to run in wine.

Image
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by Kott »

Death wrote: Fri Feb 19, 2021 3:48 pm I forgot there's the free version of Waveform. Worth trying if you want to evaluate the program I suppose. I'm not sure what limitations it has compared to the paid version.
https://www.tracktion.com/products/wave ... e-versions
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

Michael Willis wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 1:53 am You might be able to get this nigh-forgotten gem to run in wine.

Image
If wine's not working and you need say 8 tracks then use proxmox to host 8 Windows VMs each running one Sound Recorder. Route audio i/o with something like netjack. It will never fail. If it does only the track that fails is lost. Might need about 250GB for all the VMs since Windows isn't particular skinny out of the box.
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Re: What DAW should I use in 2021?

Post by Michael Willis »

Fmajor7add9 wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:13 pmIt will never fail.
:lol:
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