Best DAW for beginner

[Bg]

Garage Band /thread

Dude! He's on a PC!

but thats his fault... he could buy a mac

[bender]

reaper, hands down

Reaper is cool if you want a free (or cheap) DAW that has plenty of tutorials out there and supports everything and anything...

This cannot be overstated. There is a huge amount of community support for Reaper, so it's a great one for a noobie.

That being said, Reaper users seem to be like Vegans or Cross-Fit trainers. Hard to get them to shut up about it.*


*(Tongue planted firmly in cheek here)

Bendy, is Reaper the DAW that Dan Worrall works in?

If it is, his YouTube channel is a great resource!
Even if it isn’t, his YouTube channel is a great resource!

Never heard of him, but a quick gander at his channel suggests yes!

[Kris]

reapermania on YT is a great resource, even to get an idea of how it all works.

cool edit pro/ audition / reaper was my trajectory. Tried a few along the way, but the workflow was never right.

[Capt. Black]

This cannot be overstated. There is a huge amount of community support for Reaper, so it's a great one for a noobie.

That being said, Reaper users seem to be like Vegans or Cross-Fit trainers. Hard to get them to shut up about it.*


*(Tongue planted firmly in cheek here)

Bendy, is Reaper the DAW that Dan Worrall works in?

If it is, his YouTube channel is a great resource!
Even if it isn’t, his YouTube channel is a great resource!

Never heard of him, but a quick gander at his channel suggests yes!

I find him informative and entertaining in a dryly cut through the humbug call a spade a spade in an objectively bitchy but in the nicest possible way gem of a character.

[mule]

Not fucking Ableton. It's powerful and has so much control in it, but completely inaccessible. Kinda like a racecar that you'll stall a dozen times before you can get around the first corner.

Yeah its strength is in live performance and DJing not really recording guitars and other instruments

I've been learning the basics of Ableton Live for the past month and this rings true, but I really like the basic workflow as a beginner. I struggled to get any traction with Reaper, but Ableton session view encourages you to get an idea down and build on it, especially anything MIDI based. It's all doable in any DAW I'm sure, I just didn't find Reaper as intuitive.

Of course now I'm making chill lo-fi beats with no guitar tracks so it sort of defeated my original intent for learning a DAW, but it's been fun and has kept the momentum up.

[Aquila Rossa]

For PC Reaper is the way to go, unless you have specific needs and are prepared to jump on the learning curve of one of the paid DAWs like Cubase etc.

One thing I like about Reaper is it fires up quickly. Quite a bit faster than other DAWs I have. It also seems to be very efficient with CPU usage.

If you are the type who pays the Apple tax, then there's Garage Band which leads most to Logic. Apple has advantages for audio, e.g., Core Audio rather than dealing with the ASIO BS in Windows, but that's about the only advantage.

[Bitbull]

I think if you are on Mac, it doesn't get any easier than Logic Pro and tbh it's top-level professional if you dig it. Especially if you like composing or producing, not just recording.
I personally use Cubase and used to use Protools

I would say they all follow the same sort of architecture, so whatever you choose, if you learn it you will be ok. Then would be what's fit for purpose for you. For example, if you are someone who intends to share projects with studios or other musos a lot maybe ProTools is the way as it is the industry standard, if it is just for your own ego and amusement then any would do, and Reaper is free and heavily supported!

I think always start with fit for purpose - then go market to shop with whatever budget you have. cant go wrong that way.
Hope this helps.

[dayl]

Presonus Studio One is one the easiest but all can be learned and the big names are all heavily support on YT