The Daw Saga

[TapperMike]

I have become increasingly frustrated with my current stock of daws.  Many of the issues had become show stoppers that disuaded me from purchasing upgrades in the past.  So far back that I'm not eligible for upgrade pricing to current versions and I find the pricing of those current models not consistent with the value they represent to me as a consumer.

 

I'm choosing not to go back to any DAW I've had in the past.  And I've tried to keep an open mind to daws I haven't tried.  I'm not going to try every DAW in the universe.

 

The three daws I've chosen to test are... Reaper, Presounus Studio One, Mixcraft.  It's looking like Mixcraft after two days of testing and several days of accumlulating opinions of others.

 

Each are offered in a price range I find acceptable.  I had no horse in the race to begin with though I did recognize the popularity of reaper amongst budget concious novices and the stalwart reputation that Presonus has earned in the industry over a very short time against the DAW giants.

 

 

 

Reaper

Reapers footpint is very small.  A small lean daw should mean faster, more stable operations and reduced latency.  When I asked around what reaper users thought the most compelling reason to buy it I got "Yeah it's really cool, this thing is amazing" type responses which did nothing to educate me as to the actual benefits of using reaper beyond price.

 

Reaper didn't come supplied with a project file. (,,,hmm) It. Did have an option to run both 32 and 64 bit plugins built in. 

Even after recognizing my vsts, vsti's and Direct X plugins it failed to load them.  The UI was quite atrocious. Not only in appearance but in window feature sets.  Even after setting all my preferences correctly I still had problems handling the most basic of functions, such as importing a midi file.   When I did import the midi file and hit play no sound emminated from my speakers.  I had to manually assign the midi out on each track to my microsoft wavetable synth. Even though I'd already set that up in my preferences.  Simply getting something midi to playback was a challenge.  And then it was out of sync..   I took my findings back to the daw forums I frequent and the response from reaper users was mostly along the line of "you're lying, that's impossible" to the rare supportive response of "Oh, you need to become a member of the forums and get this extension and do X,Y,Z"  The reaper forums are rather helpful and they seem like a nice bunch but something stuck in my crawl.  Why should I have to install brakes to test drive a new car?  I spent about two days following everyone's advice and I'm still not satisfied with the results.

 

Presonus Studio One II Producer

I like the presonus brand of hardware devices.  They have a lot of very solid ideas when it comes to mixers etc.  Studio One is highly regarded by Daw critics and casual users alike. Studio One has quickly become the go to daw for "real musicians" and stage (band) engineers who, while being very tech saavy prefer a streamlined workflow with stability being of greatest concern.  I can't begin to tell you how many people I know personally who have moved to S1 from both more expensive and less expenive daws to embrace presounus's flagship daw.  All lavish praise to it's sensible workflow and most importantly stability. Which is key when working in "band" situations.

 

One quibble I have with S1 is the pricing structure. One is required to purchase the pro version simply to use third party plugins.  Quite frankly I think that's a rip off and it does not bode well going into the program when one is forced to accept the supplied plugins which may or may not be up to standard with third party developers be they free or pay.

 

First impressions.  Upon start up an startup wizard page is displayed.  I've always found this to be a marketing ploy designed to guide amatuers over having any real value. I downloaded the 64bit version and it was having a hard time recognizing my 64 bit plugins (forget a pre installed jbridge) Only Independence free was recognized.

 

No project demo file.  (really?  really?)

 

I loaded a standard midi file into the program and....Yes the GM sounds properly loaded for the corresponding instruments.  Not bad, not great. I'm less interested in the supplied plug in instruments then how well it handles the wide variety of virtual instruments I already own.  While I did like the included instrument plugin display and the tabbed view of the instruments on a per track basis. I wasn't impressed with the footprint.  Making it very hard for me to access simple things like the mixer and the transport controls while said plugin was displayed. I did some cursory exploration with the automation mixing and effects.  Yes it was highly stable.  Yes I did notice improved latency issues. No the included plugins for all the pretty showed only minor enhancement and nowhere near on par with third party plugins I've used in the past.

 

I tried to create a mixdown of the then prepared midi file to .wav  I tried and tried and tried. When the program exports to wave it has to shut down so that the .wav can play in an external media player (windows media player)  Tried as I could the first few .wav files were trunicated (did not last as long as the song) When I got one that wasn't trunicated it crashed the windows media player.  I had to test it in winamp.  The wave file set to 44.1 16bit was... impressive when I could play it. I found no dithering issues present as I've found with major brands (Abelton Live) It was a very clean mix with a wide dynamic range, plenty of separation and nicely saturated headroom.   But still the fact that I couldn't play the file in windows media player was a downer.

 

...next up Mixcraft

[TapperMike]

Mixcraft

 

I've been around the daw thing for many years. Trying to stay current, keeping an open mind..  Prior to my search for a new daw I only recall a mention of mixcraft in a plugins forum.  I didn't know anything about it aside from the name. Then I happened upon this five part series on Mixcraft Pro 6 at youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YQiQ_XES3Y

 

Without a shadow of a doubt the best daw review I've ever seen from an independent observer.  The name rung a bell with me and I invited Brother Charles into a discussion about mixcraft pro. And I was immediately set that this would be one of the final three in my search for a replacement daw.  I invited Brother Charles into the discussion as he was the only person I was aware of who used the product.  His demeanor was exactly like that shown in the video. Soft spoken yet direct heavy on specifics.  I still had not downloaded any of the daws at that point.  I wanted as much information as I could before testing so I could make my time with each daw as effective as possible. 

 

I gave S1 and Reapear a two day headstart.  Trying to resolve issues with them before moving onto mixcraft. I still had no horse in the race myself. Even though I was flanked with Reaper fans on one side who may have not had the knowledge/experience but had an emotional commitment to reaper.  On the other side I had S1 fans who I've had more of a personal relationship with and we share a closer skillset.

 

One thing to note about Mixcraft.  The Pro version is actually a value added feature rather then the S1 producer version which in my opinion is more of a staged value. (Really you can't use third party plugins unless you purchase an additional right?  that's crap logic)  Mixcraft actually adds popular well known third party add ons at a significantly reduced price (compared to buying them separately) and only slightly reduced functionality.  Things like izotope ozone and vb3 etc, etc)

 

So I downloaded mixcraft to give it a whirl.  Easily recognized all my 32bit (but not 64bit) plugins.  The WaveRT selection as opposed to standard windows or asio drivers is absolutely outstanding and is set to default.  ( I only did some cursory preferences arrangements)  The UI is less clunky then reaper and not quite as spit and polished as S1.  Nonetheless, the docking windows, tabs and other workflow features are just smart.  Easy access to what I need where I need it.

 

When I opened the program... No stupid wizard.... It automatically scanned the obvious places for plugins....A preloaded project file ready to run. (Yeay!!!)

 

Having dealt with these demo type files both in harddisk recorders and in daws.  I've often found the tracks to be "too homogenized" for real life mixing situations. That being said even though this is a rather glossy project file. It is a project file nonetheless.  And as Brother Charles demonstrates in the video... It's not "That polished" so you can use the effects in a closer to real life situation (he uses a noise gate on a vocal track)

 

The track plugin automation (not just volume) is a wonder to behold not only when you need a slight correction in a very specific region but when you want to automate various synth type plugins over the course of a song.

 

In each product I've used the same midi file to see how it handles everything from workflow to latency to plugins and effects.  It's a simple 5 part jazz track.  Loading the midi file into a new project was a breeze (unlike reaper) and the included GM soundset easily loaded the correct sounds (just like S1) I found myself enjoying the soundset and felt it to be on par or above par with various other daws.  However. the "jazz" guitar was a little dark even though I found it to be a proper sample of an archtop with a classic floating bridge.  Making minor adjustments using only a simple eq brought back the mid punch.  The Bass was another matter. Suffice it to say the sound designer and I have disagreements on what a jazz upright acoustic bass should sound like.  I was easily able to open a third party vsti (uvi workstation) and subplant a "more authentic" jazz bass sound.  The rest of the sounds were more then plausable (acoustic piano, drums)  While on the surface the included GM soundset for S1 had noticablely higher quality and a robust interface.  I found that I actually had to fine tune my sounds less in Mixcraft.

 

One of mixcraft's strengths is the large assortment of highly effective effects plugins on the standard version. Which makes the addon of going pro for the additional plugins seem less needed however more value added.  Time and time again I was impressed with both the volume and qualiity of supplied effects. They really dug down through the best of the freebies and reached out to effects plugin makers to provide the perfect compliment to the daw.

 

I have no interest in the supplied loops for S1 or Mixcraft. They may be great they may be terrible but they aren't a make or break for me.

 

When I did a mixdown of my midi file to .wav  I had a highly useable 44.1 16 bit file that was equally playable in all my media players.  The quality was quite good with no aliasing/dithering issues (something I've fought long and hard about with Ableton Live)

 

I won't say that mixcraft is perfect. I will say it has excelled where others have fallen flat. I will say that after only spending a few hours with mixcraft in comparission to reaper and Studio One.  I want to go back to mixcraft and explore it more fully.  The other two don't compel me as much.

[TapperMike]

I don't know if this may be of use, Mike.  But, maybe you're having trouble using Media Player with Studio One because of a conflict with Media Player and your audio driver and/or sound card/interface settings that doesn't allow access by another program outside the DAW.  I found this fix for that.  http://forums.presonus.com/posts/list/36633.page  I've had perhaps a similar issue using both Reaper and Reason.  I can't always stream an audio file from the internet while the DAW is open, or even after I close it if the DAW had been open and using my audio interface.  My workaround is to briefly unplug my audio interface from its USB connection, and then plug it back in.  Hey, it works!  

 

I expected the daw to close in order for the media player to run.  That's something that S1 warns one about.  I didn't expect to have a .wav file spouting errors / corrpution when S1 and all other media programs were closed and I tried to access the .wav  through windows media player.  It did run in winamp and other programs (ifranview, VLC Lan, etc) just fine.  I don't have an external soundcard.  The only thing I have usb attached to this computer is a straight up usb>midi cable.

 

Sometimes it's just a fluke.

[TapperMike]

I'm aware of jbridge I haven't tried it for myself with Mixcraft.  Reaper has it built in.

[TapperMike]

I haven't tried it yet.. But I like the concept of "force to one core" in Mixcraft. You get better throughput on 32bit applications.

 

One of the things I've noticed with other 32bit (non daw) programs is that with hyperthreading and core dispersion from the gpu some cores are less active then others. You'll have data just waiting around in a core waiting for more data to come in and wake up the core to flush the data back into ram where it belongs. This makes both installers and applications sluggish.

[TapperMike]

So I'm stumbing on my words as Studio One users come along and address my concerns.  Offering insight that ..Well I was just to lazy to lookin the right place followed by jumping to conclusions (like the template file for S1 which is rather large and has to be downloaded separately)

 

Mixcraft and S1 are neck and neck again. Things that have less value in my decision making process are now taking a front seat in occupying my time.

Most notably virtual instruments and effects seem to be calling to me when I should be focusing on things like midi input latency, live audio and workflow.

 

Thos things being said, while I was initially unimpressed with the GM soundset included in S1. The more I come back to it the more I'm impressed.  They easily topple SampleTank XXL  Meanwhile the included effects in Mixcraft (standard) are also something to be reckoned with.

 

While I could easily afford both products (I had a slight windfall) I'm still going to settle on one and leave it at that.

[TapperMike]

I've run into a showstopper for Studio One.

My external midi device while being recognized in S1 is not sending to the channel/ Virtual instrument.

 

Meanwhile midi through Mixcraft is off the charts amazing. I'm easily able to handle both filtered and unfiltered aftertouch. The audio response is fast and accurate. I haven't had this type of midi response in any daw to date.

[TapperMike]

The Jury is in. I've just purchased Mixcraft Pro although I think I would have been quite content with Mixcraft 6 standard edition.

 

I kept on not just liking but loving the workflow.  When I wanted to do something it's almost like the program knew what I wanted to do. I never had to

 

• I kept on not just liking but loving the workflow. When I wanted to do something it's almost like the program knew what I wanted to do.
• I never had to ask anyone's advice when something wasn't working because everything was working.
• Although the GM soundset wasn't as extravagant or fully featured they were fast loading and for the most part ready to go out of the box.
• The effects plugins while not originally part of what I thought to be crucial in my decision making were not just functional but highly functional and were easy to access with desired results in little time.  The sheer volume of quality effects as well as the inherent quality of the effects where nothing shy of amazing.
• The low latency midi blew me away.  Even my "hosts" like Cantible can't hold a candle to how well my midi input translated to midi response.  It was accepting polyphonic aftertouch in a class that I've never heard before on a computer. Fast, accurate, responsive.
• Audio playthru and recording was also quite stunning.
• Workflow was damn near organic.  Drag a loop onto the stage and it creates the correct channel.  Click and drag the end of the loop and it properly extends the loop across the intended measures.  No time wasted creating a track, assigning the track, inserting the loop, copying the loop then trying to create additional copies to paste in the timeline.
• Track automation was unrivalled. everything from setting volume and balance to controlled effects changes and more where achieved with minimal fuss.
• Mixdown to stereo tracks was also unparalleled.  Fast conversion to multiple formats with different bit rates.  No dithering issues No clipping issues. The end product was virtually transparent at 44.1 16bit and upward.
• While loops were not even part of the initial criteria or part of my final decision making were well thought out and more usable for rock. jazz, blues, country et all then other (even high end) daws.  They were also well organized with accurate descriptors (key / chord)

I could go on an on and on about what i liked and loved about this program.  As I compared the other (reaper, si) daws as well as my current stable I kept on saying to myself "Why doesn't this work like Mixcraft?"  Each time I opened one of the other daws I had to tell myself to give it a chance all the while my inner voice would be screaming lets get back to mixcraft.

 

I had a problem on the mixcraft online store where there were selections for boxed set and download for the same price.  Something was out of whack for their system.  I immediately went to Ebay and purchased the box set at the same price of $149 USD via Sweetwater.  With free delivery of the box set for the pro version. I expect delivery by monday and still have time on my trial.

 

I already own some but not all of the addons included in the pro edition.  That being said the pro edition still has some great items that would cost ostensibly more had I purchased them separately.

 

I initially thought that Studio One would come out on top. Partially because many like minded individuals of whos opinion I respect greatly lavish praise on it.  And partially because I have great respect for the Presonus name in general.  They do really great work in the hardware field and Studio One is a fine DAW once one adapts to it. 

 

Finally I would fully endorse Mixcraft to anyone seeking a daw at any price range especially the singer songwriter types who may not be as proficient in the fine art of mixing..  Even if you don't love the loops or the instruments you'll have a stable, reliable, responsive daw with an intuitive workflow that supports third party plugins.

Edited May 15, 2014 by TapperMike

[JamesB]

Thanks for sharing your experience, I found it helpful, as i have very little experience with DAWs myself, but was able to understand better for myself what I might want/need based on your descriptions.

[TapperMike]

Thanks,

 

One thing I failed to test during my trial.  Beat /  tempo mapping. Apparently being able to track tempo changes is beyond the reach of mixcraft.

Something I should have thought about before making the purchase. 

[Just1L]

Thanks,

 

One thing I failed to test during my trial.  Beat /  tempo mapping. Apparently being able to track tempo changes is beyond the reach of mixcraft.

Something I should have thought about before making the purchase. 

Congrats Mike on finding the DAW for you. I had to comment because just last weekend I found that I can change the beat/tempo of my tunes at any point. I never realized I could do that so I'm looking forward to giving it a go. I use GarageBand by the way. It seems very similar based on your bulleted reasons for choosing Mixcraft Pro. I'm aware that GarageBand is to professional mixing as Microsoft Word is to graphic design. But I have to say I like it a lot. Enjoy the new toy!

[TapperMike]

Just an update.  I did just buy jBridger while only a small amount of my plugins are currently 64 bit.  Those that are I'm becoming rather fond of.

It's nice to be able to run them everywhere.

[dnafe]

Too bad I'm late to the party. I could have pointed you in the direction of some excellent Reaper resources that would have answered all your questions and probably made your experience a lot more user friendly.

I tried Mixcraft and found it to be a good DAW...not crazy about the GUI, a little too amateurish looking for me but what the hell do I know, I worked with PARIS for nearly a decade before moving on to Reaper (over Pro Tools)

Glad you found something that works for you!

 

[TapperMike]

No worries,

 

Mixcraft has been great so far. I've done some remix things in it and working out a collaboration with fellow mixcraft users.

I've also been developing some template ideas.

[macmanmatty]

Have you ever tried logic pro? or are you anti-mac?

[dnafe]

Actually I used to use Logic for a bit until they went strictly Mac. Too bad as it was and is a good program.

I'm not so much anti-Mac as anti-poor.  The price point to enter the game on a Mac, way back when I started wasn't even close to what I could get a smokin' PC for...ergo PC won.

[macmanmatty]

I use logic 9 and love it too.  Logic pro and $400 used mac pro from craigslist and your set!!

[LayneGreene]

I just bit the bullet on Logic Pro X recently. Gotta say, so far I really like it. Wish they had the control app for iPhone too instead of just iPad though. The stock plugins are really nice.

[TapperMike]

Way cool.

[JamesB]

I downloaded Reaper over the weekend, to get my first real feel for a modern DAW (my last such software was FastTracker2 circa 1997,)((yes, I know that is not a DAW). The user manual is a monstrous 400 pages, but i am working my way through it, and have been able to go from knowing pretty much nothing to truly understanding exactly how much it is that I do not know. Plus I can make space sounds with my Nanopad now. I do not have enough experience to tell if it is really missing anything from the "bigger" DAWs that I might need, but so far I really like it. Just my 2c. 

 

BTW thanks TapperMike, this thread helped me get my head around the available options, and quite a few points on what I should look for.