Reaper seems to be the standard DAW - is that right?

prowla

Shame the Linux version is only Beta, so I have to go down the Windoze route.

Caffeine_Vampire

Audacity

octatonic

Reaper is popular with hobbyists because it is cheap and does a lot for the money.
I don't see many in the pro market using it, although there are some.

The rough split of other markets is thus:

Pro Tools: Pro market- overwhelmingly so, especially Dolby and audio post, tracking bands.
Many pro film scorers sequence in Logic/Cubase etc but mix in Pro Tools.

Ableton Live: Electronic Music 

Logic: huge market share because it is locked up with Apple computers. bit of an allrounder.

Cubase/Nuendo: mix of electronic music, film scores and audio post.

Studio One: Singer songwriters, Pro Tools refugees.

FL Studio: Electronic Music

digitalscream

prowla said:

Shame the Linux version is only Beta, so I have to go down the Windoze route.

Why? The Linux version has been stable for a very, very long time. In fact, I've never had a crash that wasn't caused by a dodgy plugin.

However, the Windows version is also rock-solid under Linux and WINE. In fact, it runs better under WINE than it does under Windows, no doubt because of the fundamentally better threading model in the Linux kernel.

Adji

Pro Tools is still the industry standard.

Reaper has gotten a lot more respected just because of how popular it is. It is missing a couple of key features that I need to switch to other DAWs for, but has become my main DAW over the last couple of years. The customisation is excellent, and it runs super lightweight.

blobb

Traditionally, cubase was seen as the goto for MIDI work. I guess the difference is not so pronounced now.

prowla

digitalscream said:

prowla said:

Shame the Linux version is only Beta, so I have to go down the Windoze route.

Why? The Linux version has been stable for a very, very long time. In fact, I've never had a crash that wasn't caused by a dodgy plugin.

However, the Windows version is also rock-solid under Linux and WINE. In fact, it runs better under WINE than it does under Windows, no doubt because of the fundamentally better threading model in the Linux kernel.

Thanks for that - I'll give it a go on Linux too.

LightB4sound

Digital Performer for many of the film composing community.

Reaper is a good, solid DAW which does many things that ProTools doesn't (or didn't....eg recent folder tracks), it is incredibly customisable, and rock solid. I recently did a project using over 1000 tracks of ambisonic recordings and it didn't bat an eyelid.

But PT still is what the industry use and to be honest after that project I couldn't wait to get back to PT. I love the editing work flow, I love the way it handles audio and I love mixing in it over any other DAW.

Having said all that, all DAW's are awesome these days and all of them will produce a finished piece of work. Pick one, learn it inside out and you will be good to go.

(note, I never did work out how to do time select a piece of audio in Reaper, having to do it from the time ruler and select the track, drove me nuts!!)

Danny1969

As much as I love Reaper I don't know anyone except people on here who use it. Most people I work with are either PT or Logic, nothing else really. Our local college teaches Logic in their music production course so the kids get a start on it there. Our Uni teaches Protools so there's quite a lot of people comfortable in either DAW. 

Reaper could have gained traction quicker I think had it followed the easy aux bus method of PT which people like myself coming from analog desks were used to. They kind of do it their own way which works fine, as does  the automation but needs a bit of head scratching to work out how things work simply because the terminology is different.

WiresDreamDisasters

FLStudio gets something like 30,000 demo downloads a day from what I've been told.

Pro Tools isn't hitting those numbers at all, and their market share has certainly diminished over the years. Even in my nearly 13 years in the industry, I've noticed fewer people using PT. But that's anecdotal.

You can't really get accurate stats for this, because no-one releases them.

LightB4sound

FL gets so many downloads as it's become very popular with Beats makers and I dare to say hobbiest electronic music producers. I have to say it's come on a long way but it's certainly not a solid audio engineering platform.

PT will not have many downloads these days as it is al already entrenched in the studio and post production world. Also it's price and learning curve put the kids off. We still teach Pro tools as it is a prerequisite for any one wanting to enter the industry as a technical. An artist can use what the like of course.

Not sticking up for PT as my main personal DAW is logic. But not sure PT v FL is a like comparison at the moment.

Danny1969

PT is subscription now so it's not a casual download anyway. I haven't brought a version since 9 myself but as far as I know you can't just buy a version now, it's a subscription model so basically renting the software

springhead

BBC uses Reaper in their radio OB trucks for music recording.  I was suprised it wasn't Pro Tools.

LightB4sound

You can still buy a perpetual licence. It's £499 but you only get a year of upgrades.

Danny1969

LightB4sound said:

You can still buy a perpetual licence. It's £499 but you only get a year of upgrades.

Wow, if I was still running a studio It would make sense but it's a lot of dough for a home user 

Legionreturns

I use both Reaper and Studio 1 v5 Pro. The former is everything I need for traditional band recordings and simple midi projects. S1 is what I use when I need more complex midi and for Melodine and some other advanced plugins

octatonic

Danny1969 said:

LightB4sound said:

You can still buy a perpetual licence. It's £499 but you only get a year of upgrades.

Wow, if I was still running a studio It would make sense but it's a lot of dough for a home user 

Ultimate is 4 times that and £400 a year for the 'support contract' and free updates.
It is highly irritating but the only choice is to dump HDX otherwise, which I cannot do.

Legionreturns

octatonic said:

Danny1969 said:

LightB4sound said:

You can still buy a perpetual licence. It's £499 but you only get a year of upgrades.

Wow, if I was still running a studio It would make sense but it's a lot of dough for a home user 

Ultimate is 4 times that and £400 a year for the 'support contract' and free updates.
It is highly irritating but the only choice is to dump HDX otherwise, which I cannot do.

Interestingly, Presonus Sphere is fully supported, includes Studio 1 Pro and all plugins and instruments, and is £11 ish per month. 

Danny1969

octatonic said:

Danny1969 said:

LightB4sound said:

You can still buy a perpetual licence. It's £499 but you only get a year of upgrades.

Wow, if I was still running a studio It would make sense but it's a lot of dough for a home user 

Ultimate is 4 times that and £400 a year for the 'support contract' and free updates.
It is highly irritating but the only choice is to dump HDX otherwise, which I cannot do.

No if you dump HDX you won't be able to open any HDX session I guess .. we used to get work at 2020 just because we had HD and could open HD sessions. We were HD when there was a lot of used HD stuff about though so it wasn't a massive outlay for us thankfully 

WiresDreamDisasters

Danny1969 said:

PT is subscription now so it's not a casual download anyway. I haven't brought a version since 9 myself but as far as I know you can't just buy a version now, it's a subscription model so basically renting the software

We still get developer licenses, so I could install it right now if I wanted to, but I've just never jived with PT that much. I think growing up using Reason and Cubase gave me a certain level of expectation and non-experience with the analog console world, that to me PT just seems primitive in so many ways.

Regarding Reaper, I actually only really use it for work stuff at the moment. When we record BFD packs, Reaper's editing tools and ability for us to write our own in-house tools inside it's Lua scripting engine, simply hands down beats ANY other daw for slicing up drum hits.

At the moment my main mixing and composing DAW is Studio One. I'd consider Cubase at some point, because I really like the feature set, and I'd consider moving my "band" stuff over to Ableton Live as well once version 11 introduces take lanes and comping, which I've been asking them for over a decade for!

Danny1969

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Danny1969 said:

PT is subscription now so it's not a casual download anyway. I haven't brought a version since 9 myself but as far as I know you can't just buy a version now, it's a subscription model so basically renting the software

We still get developer licenses, so I could install it right now if I wanted to, but I've just never jived with PT that much. I think growing up using Reason and Cubase gave me a certain level of expectation and non-experience with the analog console world, that to me PT just seems primitive in so many ways.

It's an age thing ... when I started out properly PC's couldn't run 32 tracks of audio with a load of plugs and zero latency, PT was the cards and the software so as a package was unbeatable. The actual PC back then was a G4 with 866Mhz CPU 256Mb ram and a 20Gb harddrive