Nothing wrong with Studio One, and I agree with the other poster - get the one that supports 3rd party plug ins if you're going to get it. So you need to find out what most of the people who are working in the style you want to write are using. Neither was the best tool for the job for them - they'll do it, but not as easily, or as practically, and so on. I know plenty of people who shelled out the money for Pro Tools who wanted to do live loop launching, and plenty of people who wanted to record an album but got Ableton. A lot of people don't use something becuase they have a bias against it based on what others have told them, or because it's 'free' it must not be good, and so on.įigure out how much money you can spend, what your computer OS can support, and what features you think you'll need, or what style you work in. Some people are fanbois of certain programs, or platforms, or philosophies of a particular builder. A lot of people who use the cheaper programs do so becuase they simply can't afford the other ones. A lot of people use what other people told them to use. So a lot of people use what they first used. I had a student who used Studio One and he showed it to me and it was really good, but after he took our class he switched to Cubase. He tried it last week and basically a whole new world has opened up for him. But we're doing it in class and he mentions something, and I told him he could take the things he's created in Sibelius and just drag and drop them into Garageband and get better/different sounds and an easier way to control volume changes over time and so on. I have a student who actually has Garageband and had never really used it. Hell if you've got a Mac, Garageband comes free and is a great place to start. If you want to pay service to the Apple Gods, then Logic Pro X (which actually is a great program, albeit 'illogical' in some typical Apple ways). If you're doing a lot of synth-based music production and MIDI, Cubase. If you're recording audio primarily, Pro Tools. If you're doing live performance loop launching, Ableton Live! would probably be better. If you're a 'looper', you'll find FL Studio (Fruity Loops) to be more your speed possibly. Only drawback is, if you're used to the other major DAWS (Pro Tools, Cubase, Logic, Digital Performer, etc.) it is 'non-standard' in many ways.īut hey, it's only $60.00! And you can try it for free for 60 days to see if you like it.īut, beyond that, the best DAW for YOU depends on what you're doing. Users can even build plug-ins and things for it to enhance its basic functionality (which is far from basic). Plus it's continually being updated, bugs addressed, and so on. It pretty much does anything any other DAW does (even includes notation now). Amazingly customizeable, works really well, great support forum and great tutorial video support.

Studio one vs pro tools