Working with multiple DAWs

[ZeeOne]

Those of you with long memories may remember me inquiring about inexpensive MIDI keyboards a while back. I've pretty much narrowed it down to two; the Novation Launchkey 49 and M Audio Oxygen 49 mk II (a newer version of Oxygen with drumpads, like an Oxygen/Axiom hybrid). Both are within the mid-$100 range and both come with Abelton Lite Live, but the Novation also includes the V Station and Bass Station plugins and the M Audio includes SONiVOX Twist.

I've heard good things about Abelton, but I'm used to working with Sony Acid Music Studio 8. Sure, Acid isn't the greatest DAW out there but it works for me. I'm willing to try Ableton out, but what if I want to import something from one program the other? Also, I don't have a super advanced computer, so I'm not sure how well it could handle running 2 DAWs at once...

[Stab Frenzy]

My four year old mid spec MBP runs two DAWs at a time no worries. Also with Live you can bounce out each track as its own file in one action to import to Acid if you want.

[griffin avid]

Is that Mac or PC? As far as I know the audio drivers can't be shared between two programs.
I get around this by having two audio interfaces so one runs my DAW and the other is free to run anything independent like standalone VSTs or soft samplers...Maschine etc...

I think once you choose ASIO as the main, it's no longer a choice for the other programs when they start.
And the available choices had latency.
A long time ago, I got the "release driver in the background" to work so whatever screen didn't have focus was basically silent. I can't figure that out on my current system though I haven't really made that my mission.

I'd like to hear how to get this set up running.

[Stab Frenzy]

Is that Mac or PC? As far as I know the audio drivers can't be shared between two programs.
I get around this by having two audio interfaces so one runs my DAW and the other is free to run anything independent like standalone VSTs or soft samplers...Maschine etc...

I think once you choose ASIO as the main, it's no longer a choice for the other programs when they start.
And the available choices had latency.
A long time ago, I got the "release driver in the background" to work so whatever screen didn't have focus was basically silent. I can't figure that out on my current system though I haven't really made that my mission.

I'd like to hear how to get this set up running.

Acid is Windows only.

Use rewire to run audio from one application to the other.

[clubbedtodeath]

Running twos DAWs might be more trouble than it's worth. Latency may become an issue: expect the odd crackle and pop.

Btw, re: ACID, I felt the same way about SONAR when considering taking the plunge and buying Ableton Live. In the end, I downloaded the demo of Ableton and gave it a good try out. It's a different way of thinking to SONAR, but perhaps a better one for me, so I made the switch to Live.

I still occasionally use SONAR, though: I just take off any balance, volume, compression, reverb and delay the export the Individual audio tracks. That still gives me plenty of scope to chop/polish in SONAR if I want.

[meatballfulton]

ZeeOne,

You're not forced to use Ableton to use those controllers, keep working in Acid as long as you like. It's unlikely you would ever need to run both at once anyway.

You can transfer audio and MIDI files from one DAW to the other easily enough if you want, export from one and import into the other.

[Ashe37]

A lot of the 'neat' functions of the Launchkey only work in conjunction with Ableton.

[Nistegmos]

I use FL Studio 11 for it's drum step editor, then export the drum tracks as WAV stems which I import into REAPER v462. It's working pretty well now for a long time. I don't usually try to run them both at the same time, but FL Studio does have a VSTi function where you can load it as a VSTi into your DAW. It does work on REAPER, although on my system when I did it (on a previous version) the VSTi ran at half the tempo unless I used a smaller number of beats per pattern. But it did pretty much work otherwise.