Would anyone be willing to lay out their experiences with DAWs? Preferably free ones? I tried waveform, but I’m thinking I’m going to use Cakewalk. A lot of people say Reaper, but the UI seems lackluster. What do yo think?

    • NineMileTower@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      9 个月前

      I’ll have to mess around with it. The UI looks a bit daunting compared to Cakewalk, but people seem to enjoy it.

      • Revered_Beard@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        9 个月前

        I’ve been using Reaper daily for 15 years. If you run into any issues that you can’t figure out, feel free to reach out, I’m happy to answer questions.

        • NineMileTower@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          9 个月前

          I’m trying to use MIDI drums and I have no idea how. I’ve inserted a MIDI synth track, so I should be able to do drums. Is there some sort of virtual instrument plugins I can download?

          • trashcan@sh.itjust.worksMEnglish
            3·
            9 个月前

            Like connecting an electronic kit or pads on a controller? Or just triggering hits on your timeline? Either way yes there are several VSTs but your DAW probably comes with a drum machine or sampler that can do a lot. Plenty of free drums samples out there. Could you elaborate more on what you want to achieve?

            • NineMileTower@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
              2·
              9 个月前

              I would compose the drum tracks on the timeline for now. I may get a MIDI keyboard in the future though. I think VST is the term I needed to learn there

              • trashcan@sh.itjust.worksMEnglish
                2·
                9 个月前

                What DAW are you using? Most should be able to accomplish what you’re after without any plugins. Is there a sampler? Like a virtual instrument that lets you play different audio files? You could trigger them via midi on the piano roll (timeline).

                Edit: the only VST for drums I find useful is XO but that’s just to manage a large sample library. You don’t need that now.

    • rigatti@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      9 个月前

      Also about the UI, it’s extremely flexible and skinnable. So you can make it look almost however you want.

  • Bizzle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    9 个月前

    I’ve used Logic and Reaper just at a hobbyist level, honestly I prefer Reaper

    • rigatti@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      9 个月前

      Seconding Reaper. It will do anything you want it to do, and it’s light, fast, and cheap.

      • Boozilla@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        9 个月前

        It took me a long time to switch from Cakewalk to Reaper for this very reason. With a little time and practice I learned to love Reaper’s streamlined interface.

  • LucasWaffyWaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    9 个月前

    I’m currently using LMMS - it’s fine for my needs, but the lack of VST3 support is deffo worth noting. I’ll have to graduate to something better soon.

  • breaks.ʟᴏʟ@lemmy.studioEnglish
    6·
    9 个月前

    Bitwig Studio! Made from former Ableton devs so it’s similar but the workflow is amazing for modulation and sound design. Plus Linux support. Not free but you can rent-to-own via splice (you do not need an active splice sounds sub).

    !bitwig@lemmy.studio

    Edit: oh and it can also sandbox your plugins (either individually, by company, or all together) so having a vst crash doesn’t bring down your whole project.

      • breaks.ʟᴏʟ@lemmy.studioEnglish
        1·
        9 个月前

        That’s a good question but not one I can adequately answer. I’m currently mostly using a low-end setup so I’m just sandboxing my plugins as one.

  • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
    6·
    9 个月前

    I’m a noob when it comes to digital music, but I’ve used LMMS and Ardour before.

    I like LMMS a lot, because it’s relatively simple, so it doesn’t completely overload you with all kinds of features. Unfortunately, this can of course mean that certain features may be missing. For example, if I remember correctly, you can set a given beat (like 3/4 beat and such) and you can also ‘automate’ changing of that beat during the song, but it will not re-layout the measures to match that beat.
    Well, and speaking of automation, LMMS is pretty cool in that regard, because you can automate anything that’s got a control in the UI. So, automation means you can have it e.g. turn up the volume at measure 53 over the course of 4 measures and stuff like that.

    Ardour is definitely a lot more powerful, a lot more feature-rich. I definitely wasn’t at the point, where I could really appreciate that. It was also somewhat less stable, so it would crash every so often. Since it would dutifully restore all your work, I wouldn’t call that a deal breaker, but it can be annoying.

  • afk_strats@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    9 个月前

    Long time Cakewalk user. It used to be good when it was paid but the stability isn’t there anymore.

    I’m going to save this post because I need some Linux recommendations… Though I worry that my paid VST stuff won’t work :(

    • NineMileTower@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      9 个月前

      What sort of issues? Back in like 2004-2005 me and my buddy would use ProTracks, which is the same software I believe. It was pretty solid back then.

      • afk_strats@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        9 个月前

        I used Cakewalk Producer? back up to the mid 2010s. About that time, they made it free and I tried installing and using the free stuff. I had a really solid setup which had worked really well with the older Cakewalk stuff. I just kept getting crashes. It was interrupting my workflow. I basically gave up on the whole thing and music production in general. Sad in retrospect

  • pebbles@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    4·
    9 个月前

    I use Ardour on Linux. Everything works pretty great for me. I use the LSP plugins which provide all the basic for free like eq and compression. Then I use Airwindows plugins for all the fun distortion is reverb and color. If ya need a free soft synth I’d use surgeXT it’s all ya need.

    I mainly record Audio in from synthesizers and real instruments. I also accepted that none of my old windows VTSs would easily work on Linux, so I didn’t try to port them. Though I hear folks have had some success with running them in a comparability layer. I moved from Ableton on Windows to Ardour on Fedora Linux.

    All is free, though I personally paid for Ardour cause I like to support projects I use. And $40 is still the cheapest daw around.

  • BerenstainsMonster@kbin.earth
    3·
    8 个月前

    A few years ago, I switched from Logic to Reaper and haven’t looked back. Reaper may not be particularly pretty, but it is incredibly powerful. If Reaper’s look is a drag for you though, try out some different themes, like the Reapertips theme. Reaper is also cross-platform, so you aren’t beholden to macOS or Windows, and it runs on Linux.

    Every now and then I feel a bit of envy for the modular sound design I see people do in Ableton or Bitwig, but there’s very little that I haven’t been able to replicate in Reaper, and when I need to, I use Cardinal for more intense modular sound design.