PCMusic & AudiomacOS

What are the best DAWs for beginners?

5

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Considered

38

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Recs.

2 hrs

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Updated

Here’s the Deal

5 Options Considered

Best DAWs for beginners	Price	Compatibility	Max number of tracks
-- FL Studio	$99+	Mac, Windows	500
-- Cubase	$549.99	Mac, Windows	Unlimited MIDI and Audio Tracks (Pro), 128 MIDI and 64 Audio tracks (Artist), 48 Audio and 64 MIDI tracks (Elements)
-- Logic Pro X	$199	Mac	Unlimited
-- Ableton Live	$99-$749	Mac, Windows	Unlimited
-- ProToolsFirst	-	-	-

FL Studio

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Top Pro

It comes as VSTi and Rewire

So you can use it inside another DAW....AFAIK there's no other DAW capable of doing that. See More

Top Con

Not intuitive for track based recording approach

Specs

Compatibility:Mac, Windows

Max number of tracks:500

Processing type:32-bit, 64-bit

Top Pro

Easy to learn DAW

The FL Studio DAW utilizes drag and drop, and can generally be learned quickly without any prior knowledge. See More

Top Con

Has a tendency to crash

Always save before loading a new VST or doing something important: FL is extremely prone to crashes. See More

Top Pro

Intuitive piano roll

Piano roll is a FL Studio's instrument step sequencer. It is considered to be among the most intuitive and flexible tools for quickly creating patterns and manipulating all aspects of each note. A single left click inserts a note, while a right click deletes it. It's possible to mute notes, splice them, stretch them, add shuffle, etc quickly. The Piano Roll caters for those new to Music Theory as well, containing an array of chords from which to choose, be it a Major, Minor, Minor 5th, Minor 9th, what have you. See More

Top Con

No native Linux version

No native Linux version available. It's possible to run it using WINE with native performance. See More

Top Pro

Excellent for visual learners

All the stock plugins look really nice and really show users what is being done, it's a great way to learn mixing theory for a beginner. This approach makes FL Studio easy to learn compared to other DAWs. See More

Top Con

The soundfont player will trash your projects, no 64-bit version available

Remember that nice project with a soundfont in it ? Yeeeah, load it again and prepare to face stuck MIDI notes and a trashed project. See More

Top Pro

Smooth UI

Compared to other DAWs, FL's UI moves at full monitor refresh rates while others are somehow laggy. See More

Top Con

Most controls are hidden

in the mixing console, mid, bass, and treble are not explicitly stated as they should be. See More

Top Pro

Easy to install

No complex activation shenanigans. No dongle and such. See More

Top Pro

Very comprehensive plugin suite included

You have basic and advanced plugins right out the box. See More

Top Pro

Free lifetime updates

With the producer or signature bundle, updates are free, forever. See More

Top Pro

Each update is major

When Image Line releases an update, it's safe to assume that there are major improvements in there. See More

Top Pro

Supports resampling

Supports resampling (non-stretch) which is something some DAWs don't support. See More

Top Pro

Sample/MIDI Manipulation in the Playlist Mode

The Playlist mode comes with various tools for cutting out sections of a sample, midi arrangement, or otherwise. One can also clone, mute, solo out, and stretch a sample by any degree, although the sample's key will change See More

Top Pro

Fully vectorial UI that will scale to virtually every screen

Because most DAWs don't scale well yet. See More

Top Pro

Can import/export 32bit audio

Just as the internal engine bit depth, there's no loss in quality. See More

Top Pro

The only DAW with a VJ graphic generation suite (ZG Editor Visualizer)

No other DAW has that. See More

Top Pro

Learning to use it is fairly straightforward

The FL Studio DAW utilizes drag and drop, and can generally be learned quickly without any prior knowledge. See More

Top Pro

Perfect for engineering because of the production style workflow

The workflow for creating beats in FL Studio is among the fastest which make mixing and mastering a breeze inserting plug-ins and routing on the mixer. See More

Top Pro

Sampler

FL Studio has a very unique sampler which allows all kinds of sounds to be experimented with, be it a siren, a water drop, or more commonly, the infamous "Progressive House" Kick. The Sampler also allows the user to retune a sample to any key he/she desires. See More

Top Pro

Good for the studio

Some DAWs are good for live shows, some DAWs are good for production, but the FL Studio DAW has carved its niche in the studio recording arena. See More

Top Pro

Good for using in the studio

Some DAWs are good for live shows, some DAWs are good for production, but the FL Studio DAW has carved its niche in the studio recording arena. See More

Top Pro

Scalable interface

The interface adapts to the screen size it's used on. See More

Top Pro

Unlimited Creativity

With tools in the piano roll like the "Riff Machine", and the "Randomize" tool, you can literally let the computer automate the production if you want. In addition to plugins like "Gross Beat", Slicex, DirectWave, the ideas can be limitless. See More

Top Pro

Complete control over multiple Launchpad Pro animation lightshow projects.

Live can, but working with more LPs is a pain. See More

Top Pro

It is the only DAW where you can program real scratching sequences (Turntablism)

You can make your own scratches with the "Fruity Scratcher" or "Wave traveller". See More

Top Pro

Very flexible timeline

Top Pro

Best stretching algorithms in the market

Top Pro

Unlimited Creativity

With tools in the piano roll like the "Riff Machine", and the "Randomize" tool, you can literally let the computer automate the production if you want. In addition to plugins like "Gross Beat", Slicex, DirectWave, the ideas can be limitless. See More

Top Pro

Reasonable and liberal license

Buy once, and you're allowed to use it on every computer you own. See More

Top Pro

Non-invasive DRM

Forget copy protection USB-dongles and phone-home activation. Just import a reg key file and your license is activated. See More

Top Pro

Complete control over multiple Launchpad Pro animation lightshow projects.

Live can, but working with more LPs is a pain. See More

Top Pro

Patcher: Modular environment

Top Pro

It is the only DAW where you can program real scratching sequences (Turntablism)

You can make your own scratches with the "Fruity Scratcher" or "Wave traveller". See More

Top Pro

Inbuilt cross 32/64bit plugin bridge

Because you don't need to install/configure a third party bridge. See More

Top Pro

Imports video for scoring

You can open several video players. See More

Top Pro

It's possible to run FL Studio on Linux via Wine without a noticeable performance impact

Version 12 of FL Studio includes a new Generic ASIO driver that's capable of achieving same low latency performance as the native Windows version. Instructions on how to set up the DAW to run on Linux via Wine can be found here. See More

Top Pro

Flexible internal linking engine

It's linking engine and controller plugins are very flexible and useful all across the software. For mixing and also for performance mode. See More

Top Pro

Fully open: accepts a variety of formats

Accepts VST/VSTi (v2,v3) Wav, Aiff, Rex, Acid, Apple Loop, Ogg, Mp3 as well as almost every video format including Mov and Mp4. See More

Cubase

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Top Pro

Batch export

You can pick separate tracks to export in one pass. You can even have them open up a new project or drop in the same project automatically. Huge time saver and DSP Saver. See More

Top Con

Annoying dongle

Not unlike Pro Tools, you have to have a dongle containing your license plugged into your computer or you can't use the software. See More

Specs

Compatibility:Mac, Windows

Max number of tracks:Unlimited MIDI and Audio Tracks (Pro), 128 MIDI and 64 Audio tracks (Artist), 48 Audio and 64 MIDI tracks (Elements)

Processing type:32-bit, 64-bit

Top Pro

Supports chord tracks

Top Con

Confusing pages

The Cubase DAW displays pages that tend to confuse users. See More

Top Pro

All takes can be shown in a single track

When in stacked mode, all of your takes can be shown in a single track side by side. You can then select what parts of which take you need. If you are recording MIDI, the Cubase DAW allows creating a pattern that can overlap and be re-used as many times as needed. See More

Top Con

Lack of built-in noise reduction

There's no built-in noise reduction FFT profiler like you might see in some other DAWs. There's noise gate but it's not the same. If you're on Windows, then you can get around this by downloading ReaFir. See More

Top Pro

Allows changing a pattern in one place to effect each instance of it

Using Parts, the Cubase DAW allows creating patterns that can be re-used as many times as needed, and can be edited in a single place. See More

Top Pro

Powerful, time-saving Logical Editor

Logical Editor allows customizing MIDI data according, in order to set rules to save time. See More

Logic Pro X

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Specs

Compatibility:Mac

Max number of tracks:Unlimited

Processing type:64 Bit

ProToolsFirst

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