0:02 Ableton Live logic FL Studio Protools
0:04 reason we're going to go through a whole
0:07 bunch of Daws in today's video basically
0:09 all of the relevant Daws and I'm going
0:12 to rank them and tell you which ones I
0:14 recommend the pros and cons so let's get
0:17 into it first up Ableton Live Max MSP
0:21 integration boom amazing excellent midi
0:24 support and some great stock plugins so
0:26 Ableton Live gets a thumbs up for me so
0:28 although Ableton Live can be fantastic
0:30 for creating electronic music music you
0:32 can't really push it much further than
0:35 that often people bounce their music out
0:37 of stems and mix it somewhere else
0:38 you're definitely not going to be doing
0:41 any mastering in Ableton Live it's just
0:43 not the program of choice for that but
0:45 for production it's pretty good so I'm
0:48 going to give it an a rating next up FL
0:51 Studio it's come a long way since I
0:53 started using it on version 3 back then
0:55 you didn't even have audio tracks or a
0:57 proper mix or anything now you've got a
0:59 lot of comprehensive tools so it's come
1:02 a long way from just a basic beat making
1:05 kind of fun thing it's really evolved
1:08 into a bit more of a fully fledged Daw
1:10 but saying that it's still a bit limited
1:12 no one's really going to be doing any
1:13 serious professional mixing and
1:15 mastering in FL Studio you're not going
1:18 to be doing that kind of stuff you're
1:19 normally going to be bouncing out FR
1:21 loops and putting it into something more
1:23 serious to mix it down and especially
1:25 for mastering I don't know any
1:26 professional mastering Engineers using
1:29 Fruity Loops as their Daw of choice and
1:31 saying that the full version to get all
1:34 the plugins and stuff is actually a bit
1:36 on the expensive side so I think FL
1:39 Studios pretty good especially if you're
1:41 into making electronic music a lot of
1:43 hip-hop guys use it a lot of electronic
1:46 music people who are Loop based sample
1:49 based stuff it's a really good choice
1:51 I'm going to give it a b next up the
1:55 native Apple Daw logic but some people
1:56 might not know that logic wasn't
1:57 actually made by Apple it was actually
2:02 made by EIC and I was using logic 5.5
2:04 when it was still run by EIC and it was
2:08 an absolutely serious choice of a Daw
2:10 back in the day such a solid midi
2:12 sequencer and pristine audio quality a
2:14 lot of people who were using other tools
2:17 to compose with like Fruity Loops or
2:19 reisin or something like this they would
2:21 bounce it out of that or use rewire to
2:24 go into logic and get a serious mix down
2:26 using logic so it has always been a very
2:28 serious sequencer and apple have
2:30 maintained a high quality standard that
2:31 said I think there's some major
2:33 drawbacks to using Apple Logic in my
2:35 personal opinion now I used to be a
2:37 logic user back in the day but I long
2:39 since ditched it and move to another do
2:40 that I'm going to be talking about later
2:42 in the list now in my personal opinion
2:44 the way that Apple makes software is
2:46 they want to remove all of the sharp
2:48 edges make it look beautiful make it
2:51 intuitive so that the most amount of
2:52 users are going to get on with it and
2:54 have fun using their software and that
2:56 is great and I think that's a really
2:58 good business mentality to have and
3:01 their design is accept ctional however
3:03 for the more advanced users I feel like
3:05 there's not a lot of advanced features
3:09 and things that really are necessary for
3:12 the power users the advanced users now
3:14 this is sort of similar to some other
3:17 Pro level software in their lineup so
3:19 Final Cut Pro for example they used to
3:23 have a really decent Ripple edit based
3:27 linear timeline and then they scrap that
3:31 in favor of a story line thing which is
3:33 just in my opinion oversimplified and
3:35 terrible if you want to do anything more
3:37 advanced than just I don't know some
3:40 simple video editing so they've really
3:43 dumbed down Final Cut Pro and so I
3:45 ditched that and moved to D Vinci
3:47 resolve so that's my main gripe with it
3:48 if you use it and get on with it then I
3:51 think that it's a really cool Daw anyway
3:53 the problem is just about how it's not
3:56 really there for the more advanced user
3:59 but otherwise it's a perfectly fine DAW
4:03 and I've given a B rating protols it
4:05 used to be the industry standard
4:07 Workhorse software in all recording
4:10 studios that was serious nowadays I feel
4:13 like the way that they've gone with Avid
4:14 with their corporate business model and
4:16 their subscription based stuff and they
4:19 only got aax plugins they you can't even
4:23 load a VST Plugin or an au plugin in
4:25 protols as far as I'm aware that's not
4:26 because of Any technical reasons that's
4:28 just some weird corporate Avid decision
4:30 to exclude include developers and
4:32 gatekeep their own personal plug-in
4:36 format along with pace anti-piracy and
4:38 do this weird gatekeeper corporate stuff
4:40 which I just don't really like at all
4:43 the whole thing seems like bloated and
4:47 slow and excessively big to install I
4:50 just don't really get it nowadays it
4:52 used to be good back in the day but
4:54 times have changed and there's much more
4:56 advanced better Daws available for less
4:59 money that does work better that less
5:02 bloated less corporate weird greedy gate
5:05 kept Vibes I don't know I just don't
5:06 really like it that much if you were
5:08 starting from scratch I just don't see
5:10 why you would choose Protools as your
5:13 Daw I'm going to give it a c qbase back
5:16 in the '90s either you a qbase user or
5:18 logic user there were some other things
5:19 that you could use on the market but
5:22 they were the two major Market leaders
5:25 and it's always had a good reputation a
5:27 lot of people have used it I used it for
5:29 a couple years back in the day and
5:31 there's nothing wrong with it at all
5:33 it's very mature technology the audio is
5:35 pristine it's you can get very high
5:37 quality results in it and I know people
5:39 who use it even for mastering
5:41 professional mixing you can do
5:43 everything in it it's a very high
5:46 quality mature piece of software however
5:49 it's sort of ugly in my personal opinion
5:51 it's sort of expensive in my personal
5:54 opinion and it's not that exciting it
5:56 just doesn't excite me it is very
5:58 sensible and if you use it I think it's
6:01 a great piece of software but I don't
6:03 know it's it's a bit expensive and a bit
6:05 ugly for my personal taste but I'm going
6:08 to give it a B rating reason so I
6:11 started on propeller head reason version
6:14 one back in the day and you could turn
6:16 it round and patch in the patch cables
6:18 and that was absolutely amazing and it
6:20 looked absolutely sick back in the day
6:22 the graphics were amazing compared to a
6:24 lot of the other competition at the time
6:26 it just looked phenomenal it was like
6:28 wow this is like something out of the
6:30 future how is this even possible that
6:31 you can patch in these cables and it all
6:34 looks 3D and it was so cool and of
6:36 course it was a bit limited back then
6:38 you didn't really have audio tracks or
6:41 anything if you wanted to have any audio
6:43 in there you'd have to Chuck it into The
6:45 Redrum thing and then trigger it on a on
6:48 The Redrum and do all sorts of tricks to
6:50 get around that so you could put some
6:52 recording in there maybe you wanted a
6:53 vocal in your track or something then
6:56 you have to do it like that and a lot of
6:57 people back then they were using logic
7:00 in tandem reason you using rewire to
7:03 pipe the audio into logic and then you
7:04 could sync it up and then you could add
7:07 your vocals or whatever audio tracks in
7:09 logic so that was also another approach
7:11 that you could use back in the day but
7:13 since then it's got a lot better A lot
7:15 more comprehensive and now you can
7:18 actually work with audio in reason so
7:20 it's absolutely phenomenal now how it's
7:23 improved however it's similar in kind of
7:26 Fruity Loops right FL Studio Fruity
7:28 Loops back in the day it was a similar
7:30 kind of thing it's a beat making to it's
7:32 really cool for making electronic beats
7:34 but can you really push that into
7:36 professional mixing and mastering I
7:39 would say not really I'd say the type of
7:41 people who are going to be using reason
7:43 are going to be bouncing out their stems
7:46 or using rewire to pipe that into uh
7:48 another thing like logic or something
7:50 and get a professional mix down in there
7:52 and do mastering in another DW or send
7:54 it off to be mastered no one's really
7:57 going to be using this DW to do
7:59 composition mixing and mastering a
8:00 professional level in my personal
8:02 opinion that said I never got the vibe
8:03 from reason that he was trying to do
8:05 absolutely everything and be at all for
8:08 professional mastering so it's a bit na
8:10 in terms of that so I'd still give it a
8:13 solid B rating Studio One now there's a
8:15 lot of people who like this software I
8:16 think it looks just fine there's a bunch
8:19 of really cool stock plugins it can do
8:20 pretty much everything that you want a
8:23 Daw to do it looks just fine for
8:25 composition mixing and there's even an
8:27 integrated mastering page which looks
8:30 interesting that said I'm not entirely
8:32 convinced by that mastering page it
8:34 looks cool but it looks a bit too pruma
8:37 for me it doesn't look something like a
8:39 professional level tool that I could use
8:41 for my job as a mastering engineer if
8:43 you use Studio 1 and get on with it well
8:46 as I say I think it looks just fine it
8:48 just doesn't excite me that much I think
8:50 it's very solid and I would give it a B
8:52 rating bitwig Studio they used to be the
8:54 new kid on the Block but now they've
8:55 been out for a few years they've got
8:56 some really cool features they've got
8:58 full clap support cuz they're partly
9:00 behind the clap format and they've got
9:02 VST support and all the plugins that you
9:03 want they've got but they've even got
9:05 some really cool stock plugins and one
9:07 of the craziest features that I've seen
9:09 is that parameter modulation page that
9:11 you can do you can modulate anything
9:13 from anywhere with lfos and all sorts of
9:15 stuff it looks absolutely fantastic for
9:17 composition that said where it's still
9:19 relatively new compared to some of these
9:21 other Daws from the '90s it's less
9:23 mature and there's some features that
9:25 are still lacking like Advanced
9:27 rendering capabilities is completely
9:29 lacking from bitwig and I just couldn't
9:31 use the software there's also no
9:33 scripting no theme ability there's a few
9:35 things that are just not there yet and
9:38 so I don't think I could switch to it
9:39 because the work that I do I just
9:41 couldn't do in bitwig yet but if they
9:43 were to integrate some of these more
9:45 advanced features it would be something
9:47 that I would consider switching to that
9:49 makes it quite difficult to rank but I'm
9:51 going to go for an a rating next up
9:54 Reaper this is my Daw of choice and this
9:56 is what I use for my job on a daily
9:57 basis as a professional mastering
10:00 engineer there's absolutely nothing that
10:02 comes close to Reaper in terms of its
10:04 capabilities now a lot of people knock
10:06 it because they don't think it looks as
10:08 pretty as logic or something else or
10:10 bitwig maybe you like the look of some
10:12 of these other software and some people
10:13 think that it's too difficult to get
10:15 started with the learning curve is too
10:17 steep but in my personal opinion if you
10:19 can get into it and you can understand
10:22 how to use it it is the most advanced
10:24 Daw commonly out there and it just blows
10:27 everything away if something doesn't
10:29 exist as a feature in Reaper you you can
10:31 just literally just start programming
10:33 the scripting capabilities are
10:35 ridiculous you've got Lis script you've
10:38 got all sorts of jsfx scripts you can
10:40 write your own plugins in Reaper you
10:42 don't even need to use xcode or
10:44 something else and compile it as a VST
10:45 plugin you can literally just start
10:48 writing code within Reaper it's that
10:51 crazy and all of the advanced it's just
10:53 mindboggling how many Advanced features
10:54 there are I can't even get started with
10:56 this on every single plugin you've got a
10:59 wet dry knob for for example other Daws
11:00 don't seem to have that you just every
11:03 single plugin you've got a wet dry knob
11:06 baked right into Reaper and then you can
11:08 also press one shortcut and then you've
11:10 got the Delta you can hear the Delta
11:11 just natively on every single plugin you
11:13 can hear the Delta of what it's doing
11:15 how cool is that other Daws just don't
11:18 seem to have that maybe some but most of
11:19 them don't have that what else have we
11:21 got written down here it supports a
11:23 whole bunch of different plug-in formats
11:27 clap VST Au um JS effects and on Linux
11:29 you've got all of the Linux plugins now
11:31 the render Matrix the render Matrix is
11:34 absolutely gamechanging for anything
11:36 where you're bouncing out consecutive
11:39 regions stems all sorts of different
11:41 combinations of stuff like it would it
11:44 saves so much time in my job as a
11:45 mastering engineer using the render
11:48 Matrix now I know that in qbase and some
11:51 other stuff you do have some kind of
11:53 similar features and you've got like
11:55 cyle things that you can place there and
11:58 do sorts of work work around stuff but
12:00 the render Matrix in reper is just bang
12:02 there and it works and it's just
12:04 fantastic it's just this grid thing that
12:06 you can select exactly what you want to
12:08 render and this is an advanced feature
12:11 which Advanced users require on a daily
12:13 basis for their jobs and without this
12:14 you're just going to be sitting there
12:16 twiddling your thumbs waiting for one
12:18 thing to render like in logic and then
12:20 you have to do the time selection and
12:22 render out something else it's amateur
12:24 stuff this is professional level stuff
12:26 and it's right in Reaper and then you've
12:28 got the rooting Matrix and you can root
12:31 anything into anywhere with this crazy
12:33 patch based it's just absolutely
12:35 mind-boggling what you can do there now
12:37 other Daws have rooting functionality as
12:40 well but stuff like Logic for example if
12:41 you want to set up a side chain thing
12:44 you need to like assign it to a bus and
12:46 then you've got like a fader over here
12:48 and then you've got to select the bus
12:50 input on the side chain all weird stuff
12:52 like this in Reaper you can just send
12:54 anything anywhere now I mentioned
12:55 earlier that bitwig has really cool
12:57 parameter modulation stuff but Reaper
13:00 has had that for years you can do lfos
13:02 random walks you can do all sorts of
13:05 stuff you can even get audio to trigger
13:07 parameters in plugins it's absolutely
13:09 mindboggling what you can do with that
13:11 if you know how to use it h yeah it
13:13 doesn't look as pretty as in bitwig it
13:15 doesn't look as pretty as in some other
13:16 stuff but it's there the functionality
13:18 is there and I use the functionality
13:21 often and it's advanced stuff which
13:23 Advanced users need and it's all there
13:26 in Reaper Reaper is fast it's solid it's
13:28 lightweight when you download it's say
13:30 like 5050 me gab when you download
13:32 Ableton Live or Protools or one of these
13:36 other Daw it's like 5 10 GB and you got
13:38 no hard drive space left at the end of
13:39 it now some people want to say that
13:41 Reaper doesn't look as pretty as some
13:43 other Daws well maybe that's true to a
13:45 certain extent but you can write your
13:47 own theme and just change it to be the
13:49 exact way that you want it to be and I
13:51 did that myself and I I'm very happy
13:52 with the way that it looks for me
13:55 personally the big thing that I get
13:57 annoyed by by Reaper is the fact that
13:59 there's so many updates but they don't
14:01 really seem to change anything ever
14:04 there's all of these trivial Fringe
14:07 updates about we have fixed a bug that
14:09 if you have some ridiculous midi thing
14:11 that I would never use and connect it to
14:13 this device that I've never heard of
14:15 then there was some glitch and we fixed
14:18 I don't care like there's never been
14:20 anything interesting that they've
14:24 introduced for like actual years I can't
14:26 even remember the last time that I
14:27 downloaded the latest version and was
14:29 like oh wow there's something cool
14:32 that's new and I like it they're all
14:34 just trivial things that I don't care
14:36 about and when you look at something
14:38 like bitwig and you look oh wow they've
14:40 got this really nice page with this
14:43 modulation stuff that looks so cool why
14:45 can't Reaper have something pretty and
14:47 nice and integrated like that it just
14:49 seems a tiny bit old school the way that
14:51 it works and so yeah but you can't
14:53 always have everything you can have all
14:55 of the features in Reaper cuz it's got
14:56 everything that you want in terms of
14:58 features but it might not have all of
15:00 the pretty fancy things that you might
15:03 want from some other Daw but Reaper for
15:06 me it just has to get an S rating there
15:08 is nothing that comes close in my
15:11 opinion next up Cakewalk now this is
15:12 quite old software and it used to be a
15:14 competitor to logic and qbase back in
15:17 the 90s however it got bought by one
15:18 company and then bought by another and
15:20 passed around all over the place and now
15:22 it just seems a bit confused and it's
15:26 Windows only so on that ground alone I
15:28 would just say that it's failure how can
15:31 you make a Windows only software in this
15:34 day and age so failure I'm just going to
15:36 give it a d rating just the mere fact
15:39 that it's Windows only and it otherwise
15:40 it just doesn't seem particularly
15:42 exciting with so much competition in
15:45 this market next up nendo from shinberg
15:48 now the thing is it's essentially qbas
15:50 plus a bunch of fancy post production
15:51 stuff that most people were never going
15:53 to be using for music and it's more
15:55 expensive as a result so we can just
15:58 judge this in the same way that we
16:01 judged qbase because it's essentially
16:03 the same thing and if you need those
16:05 extra features then they're there and
16:06 you can pay for them but I'm just going
16:08 to give it a b and be done with that
16:11 because it's essentially qase samplitude
16:13 now this seems to be another Daw which
16:15 has all of the normal features that you
16:18 might expect from a DW but it's Windows
16:21 only D digital performer don't get
16:23 confused and think this is just some
16:25 throwaway software which is bundled with
16:29 Motu Hardware no this is a serious do
16:32 which is used a lot in film scoring and
16:35 in the TV industry and industries where
16:38 you need to do a lot of music with
16:42 actual scoring so musical notes to video
16:45 so film stuff writing to film or writing
16:48 to TV stuff and stuff like that where
16:52 you need to do notes and video it's
16:55 incredibly powerful and set up exactly
16:57 for that sort of workflow so if that is
16:59 your thing then digital performer might
17:02 be for you however the feature set that
17:04 digital performer has Isn't especially
17:06 unique Reaper can pretty much do
17:08 everything that digital performer can do
17:10 for example but digital performer is
17:13 slightly better in terms of its scoring
17:16 and video capabilities so if that is
17:18 your thing if you do film scoring for
17:21 example or TV sync work stuff to video
17:23 there may be digital performer is the
17:25 right tool for the job but otherwise
17:28 it's just not especially unique unless
17:30 you're a big fan of the chunk system
17:33 then it has no exciting features that
17:35 aren't available in Reaper or elsewhere
17:38 so I'm going to give it a very strong C
17:39 traction waveform now their main
17:41 offering is completely free so I'm
17:43 guessing they're thinking just cuz it's
17:44 free that's going to get people
17:47 interested in it I see a bit differently
17:49 I need to be interested in something
17:52 because it's standing out in a crowded
17:55 saturated Market with players like qbase
18:00 Reaper Ableton bitwig logic we've got
18:02 these absolutely phenomenal bits of
18:05 software and so if something is to
18:07 attract my attention it needs to do that
18:09 on its Merit not merely by being free
18:11 now traction waveform doesn't seem to
18:14 stand out in any particular way to me
18:18 maybe it's a capable DAW and that's fine
18:20 and if you want a free capable Daw then
18:24 I guess there's one available here but
18:27 there's other Daws which are much better
18:29 and Reaper for example
18:31 it it's not free you have to buy it but
18:33 it never really runs out the demo so if
18:35 you are a bit on a budget and you want
18:38 to use the demo of Reaper for a while I
18:39 just recommend just grabbing a Reaper so
18:42 I just don't really see why i' would be
18:44 so lowed into getting something just
18:47 because it's free now so on that reason
18:49 I'm going to give it a d rating our door
18:51 is another free daww but it's open
18:53 source and part of the Linux Community
18:55 which gives it more brownie points in my
18:57 book personally however it's not
18:58 entirely free if you want the
19:01 pre-compiled binaries unless you want to
19:03 install it from the source code which
19:04 can be a bit more difficult on Mac and
19:07 windows it's maybe a bit easier on Linux
19:09 but it's still easiest just to get the
19:10 pre-compiled binaries like people are
19:12 normally used to doing well you actually
19:14 have to pay for that that said it's a
19:16 sort of pay what you want model so you
19:17 don't have to pay a lot of money you
19:19 could just pay a little bit of money and
19:21 get the pre-compiled binaries there but
19:23 in a world where you've got other
19:26 amazing Daws which you can use even on
19:29 Linux so if you're a Linux user you got
19:31 Reaper you've got bitwig there's not
19:33 really any reason why you would
19:35 necessarily need to use ardor in my
19:36 personal opinion especially not for
19:38 professional work it doesn't seem to be
19:40 as capable as some of the commercial
19:43 offerings so that seems to be the case
19:46 with many bits of Linux software it's
19:49 often great and really cool for beginner
19:52 or intermediate users but the commercial
19:54 offerings are necessary for more
19:56 advanced or professional users in many
19:58 cases and it's no exception here so I
20:00 would recommend if you're even if you're
20:02 on Linux although Ardo is also available
20:06 for mac and windows I would not be that
20:08 enti in Ardo personally I would give it
20:11 a d rating Harrison mix bus now this
20:13 piece of software is modeled to look
20:15 like an analog mixing console and
20:17 everything in it looks kind of analog
20:20 and cool now it's very pretty and it's
20:22 sort of capable as well as a Daw there's
20:25 nothing particularly wrong with it but
20:28 in my personal opinion the emphasis is
20:31 on SKU morphic approach interface design
20:33 and making stuff look pretty and vintage
20:36 and analog and in my personal opinion
20:38 that's not really what I need as a
20:40 professional audio engineer I need
20:44 functionality I need features that are
20:48 going to be timesaving effective fast
20:49 accurate and stuff like this I don't
20:51 want to like twiddle vintage looking
20:53 knobs and stuff like that so it's sort
20:56 of a bit of a gimmick it does have Atmos
20:58 support in there but if you want the
20:59 atmos support you got to buy the more
21:03 expensive version it's pretty but maybe
21:06 it's just a pretty face going to give it
21:09 a d rating uad Luna now this is going to
21:12 work very tightly with the Apollo
21:14 Hardware so all of the uad stuff is
21:16 going to come together very nicely and
21:19 tightly in a ued ecosystem now I guess
21:21 it looks a tiny bit similar to the
21:24 Harrison mixb approach of making SKU
21:27 morphic interfaces vintage old looking
21:29 stuff that you can twiddle knobs and
21:31 have pretty looking interfaces and stuff
21:34 like that again I'm not really a fan of
21:36 pretty looking interfaces for the sake
21:38 of them being pretty I'm more into
21:41 functionality and precision and uh
21:44 productivity speed accessibility
21:47 shortcuts Advanced features proper
21:49 rendering support and all all of those
21:51 more professional level stuff that you
21:53 find in Reaper and this is built into
21:56 every into the fabric of Reaper I'm not
21:58 really sure if it's got that as it's
22:01 Focus this seems to just to be this
22:04 novelty value pretty interface twiddle
22:07 knob type thing again with expensive
22:09 plugins and expensive Hardware when you
22:11 can get the same kind of sound using
22:14 free stuff or less expensive stuff so
22:16 for me it doesn't really impress me that
22:18 much it's not really the kind of thing
22:20 that I look for in a professional
22:23 sequencer for serious work this is
22:25 something that is maybe uh for a
22:28 beginner or an intermediate hobbyist to
22:30 twiddle knobs and have some fun and look
22:33 at some pretty vintage looking pictures
22:35 so in that respect I would say I would
22:38 give it a d rating now let me know what
22:41 you think of my ratings if there's any
22:44 Daws you think that I've missed on this
22:46 list and the first people to tell me
22:50 what these records are here can win a
