Hi Folks

Right this is my scenario,

I use my Zoom R24 to get ideas down and develop them, usually being a bit of acoustic guitar, vocals and some piano etc, (it's a great little tool for this) I take the WAV files and put them in Cubase LE 5 to structure the songs but now I want to add some loops, synths and rhythms etc.
I have reason 4 and I love the sounds it offers in all instruments but alas I can't rewire reason to cubase le, bugger!

What would you guys recommend as a main DAW that I can slave reason to for around the £150 to £250 mark. My style is acoustic but with orchestral and electro slants hence why I love reason. I don't know whether to get Cubase 6 or Reason 6 or anything else, I suppose I need something that I can transfer my WAV files of vocals and acu guit from the R24 on to, isn't completely loaded with sounds that I might never use but has decent effects,reverb etc and good mastering capabilities. I'm not looking for the dogs bollocks and obviously for my budget I'm not going to get it(or even them) I just want something that covers all of the above, is simple to use and understand and allows me to get on with writing music

I'm open to explore new DAWs although I have most experience in Reason and a bit in Cubase LE since I got the R24. I tried Ableton when I got my M Audio Keystation but didn't really get on with it.

I'm a newbie but a quick learner and I know what I want my music to sound like, I just need a better tool than the LE version of Cubase.

Your words of wisdom will be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Jules

I tried reason about ten years ago when it was the 2.5 or 3 version.
Presume now it's a full DAW so why not upgrade to the 6.5 version? That will cost you 150€
https://www.propellerheads.se/shop/index.cfm?fuseaction=prod...

Good luck!
J.

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Pro. violinist who likes some experiments...
www.myspace.com/pagannini

Reason is going to be hard to beat for that everything-in-the-box dance production stuff. Version 6 has audio support and support for non-Propellerheads add-ins, so you should probably upgrade (assuming version 6 lets you import external WAV files!).

Alternatively...

If you are on a Mac then Logic is impossible to beat for the price, stability and performance (gigabytes of loops, very high quality soft synths, drum machine, sampler, 79 effects, state of the art MIDI editing, ReWire host, MainStage for playing soft synths live).

Next up is Cockos Reaper. Runs on Mac or PC. Really cheap, very very capable DAW in the traditional Cubase/Logic style. But you need to supply your own loops, soft synths and effects. It is actively developed; very lively forums, easy to get support for.

After that you are into the ££ territory of Cubase, StudioOne, Sonar, ProTools, etc. No need to go there unless you have a great need.

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Spanky

Edited by MonkeySpank (23/01/13 02:28 AM)

FL Studio 10 is great for arranging audio (in the playlist window) and has a really functional 're-wired' application, which lets you run your other DAW's through it too (sorry if you already know what that is haha) but yeah man great program. specially for beginners, and youtube is teeming with tutorials.

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www.soundcloud.com/skerrick

It may cost more, but if you have invested time in Cubase already that might be the best choice for you.

I abandoned Reason and ReWire long, long ago - you can do all of those things directly within Cubase with a few well-chosen plug-ins.

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An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

I always found rewiring a bit of a faff and would prefer to work in a single application.

I guess it comes down to sounds, functionality, usability, and cost. You're really the only person who knows what matters most, so the best bet would be to demo the various options.

http://www.propellerheads.se/download/reason/
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/reason-tech-0911.htm

Reason now supports audio, so you might look at it and feel it could do everything you want. But if you check it out and still feel you'd prefer a full DAW, then you're basically just using Reason for the sounds, so whether you decide to upgrade it then depends on whether you think any specific improvements to its synth collection are worth paying for.

If you decide to go with the DAW route, then you could trial Cubase and Reaper and decide whether the joy of working with Cubase is enough to persuade you to hand over the extra £300 or whatever. It's a great DAW for song arrangement, but for the same money you could pick up Reaper and something like Komplete 8 which would give you an amazing arsenal of sounds. Like I say, it's a case of juggling the various factors and deciding which matter to you.

I've had the misfortune to try to work in just about every DAW out there, except Logic, which just looks so convoluted that I couldn't be arsed to even try. We have Soundscape and ProTools and they are both my idea of a sick joke. Why do I have to move files? Create a media pool and define routing before I get to hear anything? Clunky and slow. Nuendo? Rubbish. Soundforge? OK for mastering simple jobs, but otherwise a complete waste of time. We had the latest version of CuBase here a few weeks back and it is absolutely brilliant at freezing and falling over like a fat man on a unicycle. I could go on, but you get the idea. Every time I was confronted with a DAW, I found myself going back to our large 48-track RADAR system, which works like a tape recorder, but costs real money. It is however not suitable for difficult edit jobs at all, but for live tracking, it is just the best ever built.

THEN (on a whim) I tried Reaper! Just a download and a $60 honesty box.

Oh joy! Drag and drop all the files onto the time-line and hit play and bingo! It plays. No routing, no defining, no media pool, no creating tracks, it all happens for you and instantly! Even if the tracks all start at different places, then you mark them up and hit 'source preferred position' and bang! They are all in the same place that they were in when recorded (i.e. Broadcast WAV files).

Editing is a dream, the cross-fades are perfect. Zoom in and out on the scroll-wheel and in any direction, depending on where the mouse pointer is. Stable? I ran 96 tracks on an ancient laptop that I bought from Aldi for £500 four years ago. Never crashes ever!

Then I tried the plug-ins! Wow, it came with everything. It had its own version of Autotune, beat detective, harmonizer, L2 and convolution reverb, hundreds of plugins! And the elastic audio is the best that's out there, no glitches, no warbles!

Our next big gig will be done in ProTools and I shall smile benevolently as I watch the engineer struggling manfully, trying to do things that I could have done in seconds in Reaper. I shall ask him if he wants a coffee to calm his nerves.

Thankyou so much people, some excellent, honest replies! It looks like I might try Reaper by the sounds of it. I'll come back to you if I need any help choosing between Cubase and Reaper.

You can always count on the SOS family.

Yes, Red Bladder should have been clearer. The answer is Reaper. RB, could you try not to sit on the fence so much next time?

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

Hmmm... I don't think Red Bladder can have tried most DAWs in earnest, as there's a huge amount of misinformation about most of the other DAWs there. 'Just drag and drop' is, in fact, available in most of the above. Notably not in Pro Tools - that has it's strengths, but it's probably not for you.

However, I agree that if you're going to the effort of learning a new DAW, then Reaper makes a lot of sense as not only does it offer a huge amount for the money, but you can try a fully functional version for free and pay (a modest sum) if you want to keep it.

IMO you'll need to spend some time sniffing out some decent affordable instrument plug-ins to go with Reaper if you want to ditch Reason. The trickiest part there is going to be a decent sampler. The benefit of Logic is that it includes plenty of serviceable virtual instruments, including the EXS24 sampler - a bit long in the tooth, but still very useful and with a decent library to start of with.

Quote Mixedup:

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The benefit of Logic is that it includes plenty of serviceable virtual instruments, including the EXS24 sampler - a bit long in the tooth, but still very useful and with a decent library to start of with.

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The disadvantage of course is that it requires a Mac, whereas you're posting in the PC Forum, which I'd failed to note

I'd put my money on Reaper, upgrading Reason, or ploughing money into Cubase if you're particularly happy with the cut-down version. Cubase 7 has been solid on my Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit system. Very happy with it, and it includes a whole load of useful compositional tools — which may or may not be for you. Cubase offers Variaudio 2, and Studio One ships with a version of Melodyne, neither of which you'll get with Reaper. But as I said, Reaper is arguably best bang for buck if you don't require these sorts of tools.