I have been trying to decide which daw to get for a while now. I have tried the trial versions of FL Studio, Ableton, and Reaper. I know that for me, the workflow of Ableton best suits me in terms of how I think about recording, etc.
I just can't get over the idea of spending $500+ on a daw. I'm the type of person that if I'm going to purchase something, I purchase the best I can get, or don't get it at all. So I would be getting the Suite version.
I can afford it, but I tend to be pretty conscious of my spending (read: cheap), and I want to make sure I'm really getting the best value.
I only spend a few hours a week on messing around with music, so that is another factor to consider. But I spend a lot of time reading about music and electronic music production, I really enjoy it. I've played guitar for 15 years, music as a hobby is a major factor in my life.
I've been trying to use other daws like FL Studio to try to justify not having to fork over the cash for Ableton. I like the idea of spending $200-300 once and then getting free upgrades. However, the only thing I really like about FL is the piano roll. Other than that, the pattern concept, and manually assigning to the mixer gets a little messy to me. I don't like how you can't edit a pattern to make a variation, you have to make a new pattern. This leads to the potential for a lot of patterns and it gets hard to manage.
I also don't think audio manipulation is very intuitive in FL.
I've tried Reaper for a little bit, but something about it just seems clunky. I'm not a fan of the UI.
So far the quickest and easiest to comprehend workflow to me is Ableton. I like how everything is in front of me, and I don't have to jump around different windows.
But man.....$550 to upgrade to Suite (I have a Live Lite license I can use to upgrade for $550, instead of the current $599)
And then an additional $240 for every major release, although that seems to be every 4-5 years. It still adds up though.
Was anyone in a similar boat?
Submitted November 05, 2017 at 01:46PM by RetroByte https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/7aymv4/how_do_you_get_over_spending_500_on_a_daw/?utm_source=ifttt