Best DAW on PC?

[th0mas]

Ok the title's a bit of a joke, please no flames

I have a break in my music life, my band is on hiatus since our bass player moved 5 hours away. I'm trying to sort of "upgrade" all of my current techniques, and take my "s**t" to the "next level".

I currently record my music in cool-edit in multitrack and I think it's an excellent candidate for something for me to take to the next level.

What's the current state of PC market DAWs? I'm willing to take the time to learn and the money to buy, and am going to go google the topic, but I'm always interested in what ya'll are doing, so, please, let me know.

edit: anyone have an opinion of protools m-powered? I've got a delta-44 as my interface, and I think the limitation of 64 tracks is something I can work with (I usually use closer to 10-20), so I might go for that

[GeneralBigbag]

Reaper is well worth a try, fully featured, constant updates, and it's a whole lot less expensive than the big DAWs. Plus (effectively) unlimited trial period.

[th0mas]

Thanks for the input!

One of the things I'm hoping to gain by moving to a new DAW is integrated MIDI tracks / virtual instruments alongside audio tracks. I tried Reaper awhile ago and found it's MIDI implementation to be sort of horrendous. Maybe I just need to spend more time on it. I think I did try it on my netbook primarily, which is always a bit silly.

[GeneralBigbag]

Midi in reaper was pretty dodgy until (I think) 3.0 - it's great now, they've really put some effort into improving it.

[thatmullingskid]

+1 for reaper.

I've tried Sonar, Pro Tools LE, Ableton, and FL Studio 8, and Reaper tops them all as a recording solution.

Ableton has a bit of an edge if you plan on doing anything live, but I assume that's not really what you're going for.

[gtivr6fan]

Not sure about Reaper, but I have always used Cakewalk Sonar Studio for DAW. I'm currently on version7, good enough for me, no need to upgrade. It's super stable, and easy to use, at least I think so. I don't think price really should be an issue when it come to your DAW (I guess unless your the kind of guy who uses behringer pedals, di boxes, etc...). I think the going rate is around $250-300 for Studio8 version. Fully MIDI capable, step sequencer, 64bit processing, yada yada. The upgrades are pretty reasonable too, I tried the demo version of 4, along with several other comparaable DAWs and this was the best fit for me.
Thats 2 cents.

[b3groover]

I use Cubase 4. Been with Cubase since the original SX release. Tried Sonar and Reaper along the way, didn't care much for them.

Cubase 4 is very stable for me. The MIDI implementation is top-notch. Very easy editing both of waveforms and MIDI data.

[Ghost of Crow]

Sonar. Seriously scrumptious.
Course its up to you. buy a Mac quick...

[th0mas]

. buy a Mac quick...

had a powerbook g4, the screen went out, then a year later it wouldn't charge the battery or boot of AC, and I decided to go back to machines that I can swap parts out of when something breaks (for less than the cost of replacing the whole thing). Too bad, too, cuz it was awesome and I loved using it.

Thanks for the input guys! A lot of different answers. I'm going to try the ones that have demo versions and see whats the best. Right now I don't have any MIDI & audio connection in my DAW and I think it might be a powerful time saver if I don't have to re-write tracks by hand on my MPC every time I want to change up a beat in a bar

[TrondC]

no love for Live? I'm in the same boat, got Reaper, but want full fledged midi-capabilities (say, record the midi-data of all my synths while I jam, so that I can later record each individual sound/instrument without having to remember the order of patterns etc..), and Reaper has been good enough so far, but then again, I only ever used it as a recording software, some slight EQ/pan/volume etc adjustments, never for midi.

Live sounds like a good option for an full fledged, yet easy to use, intuitive (or so I've heard), fun, and the release of the Launchpad further expands the capabilities in a not-so-complicated way.

any Live users btw?

[th0mas]

any Live users btw?

Seems everyone I've seen that uses live does so only for, well, live performance. I've tried it for writing and didn't find it matched my style, maybe if I tried using it just in the DAW mode and not in the performance (or whatever it's called, the 'grid') mode.

[Joey]

If I went PC I'd get reaper.

Its super cheap, has a lot of features, and is constantly being updated.

If you want to spend more though get cubase, I used that before I went mac.

[slig665]

If I went PC I'd get reaper.

Its super cheap, has a lot of features, and is constantly being updated.

If you want to spend more though get cubase, I used that before I went mac.

Seconded. I tried Reaper and was impressed. It's easy to use, has tons of features, and seemed very stable and efficient. Not to mention only $60.

[Stab Frenzy]

There is no 'best', just what suits your needs best. If I were using a PC I'd probably use Live and Pro Tools, cause they're what I use on Mac. I might be tempted by Sonar though, in the ancient past I used it on PC and liked it. Haven't used Reaper but it gets a lot of praise so I'd check it out too.

[tallowwaters]

Another for Reaper. Would really love to pick up a control surface for it though.