The search for a perfect DAW
by Pierre Boisvenue. July 22, 2008
In my quest to find a suitable digital audio workstation I experimented with FL Studio 8, Ableton Live 7,
studied the Akai MPC and Sonar 7. Unfortunately no Cubase demo version is available to download and evaluate.
The
Yamaha motif es has been my main workstation with it’s built in sequencer for several years and I recently
introduced the Korg RADIAS synthesizer into the mix.
I must admit that I was totally against introducing a computer
mouse has a music making tool and was only interested in staying with hardware components.
Since the Motif ES’s sampling facility is unusable in its current form for my needs I started to attentively
look at the Akai MPC and the Roland MV series sampler/sequencer for triggering audio samples via sampling, recording and sequencing.
Multiple online forums were read to gather the feel for what my next upgrade path would be and came
to the conclusion that the AKAI MPC was not for me because of it’s 16 bit sampling rate limitations
along with 128 Megs of RAM sampling time. That the Akai OS was buggy and supported by a third party
developer. There was also problem on some models with PAD quality and the price a bit high and the
screen very small. The newer AKAI
MPC 5000 is really expensive and for close to the same price could
get a decent laptop, sound card and Akai MPD32.
FL Studio 8 XXL is a complete DAW and as a standalone unit, meaning as a MIDI master system,
is very popular but cannot be slaved to an external MIDI master. A work around is to use it as
a VSTI instrument inside another
HOSTING program like Ableton Live or Sonar. The dark color
interface for some including myself is not pleasing and difficult to read at different monitor angles.
I find FL studio to lack integration. It’s has if all component like Edison or Sampler act like VST
inside of FL Studio. However FL Studio is very popular but as a musician first FL Studio is not for me.
I will be watching for newer releases to see what come up
Ableton Live is something new and fresh in regards to its session view. It behaves very well as a MIDI
master or slave and support control surfaces and you can easily map midi devices to trigger audio loops.
Audio loops management is very good and the product is popular with DJs. However I do not consider
Ableton Live a traditional DAW in that its midi capabilities are limited and it is geared towards
LIVE on stage performances. I will be watching for newer releases to see watch come up. The greyish
user interface look and feel does not appeal to me as well.
Sonar 7 Producer edition, in my opinion, is a true professional DAW and my final choice.
It is very MIDI friendly, and like to others supports ACID loops from playing to creating.
Very friendly to control surfaces and supports
vista, multiple monitor support, instrument
definitions and multiple core CPUs, Sonar is for professional musicians and/or producers.
Its 1600 page manual is a bit intimidating at first yet well explained. Sonar 7 Music doctor
know it all and SWA Complete Sonar 7, both DVD tutorials are a nice additional tools into
learning Sonar 7. I’ve decided on Sonar because it is hooked up to external hardware instruments and plays well with them.
I give Sonar a
Daw, Ableton Live, Sonar, FL Studio, Akai
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