One DAW as your only environment/instrument(s)?

[waltervianacom]

I use Soundop on Windows and honestly, there's nothing better. It's a solid editing base, where I can insert my instruments, record, capture samples, create samples, edit and everything else, in this powerful and robust editor, with multitrack sections and VST host. Simply fantastic and unbeatable!

[machinesworking]

It's pretty insane how far things have come. I haven't completely ditched external plugin instruments yet, but I've greatly reduced the times I've loaded them up, and when I do, its because I'm familiar with those tools.

Personally I use Kontakt, Diva, Hive, Thorn, Falcon and the whole gamut of plugins almost exclusively, but I just use Live and Bitwig for smaller projects and DP is barren with software instruments.

I had the experience with Logic 7 of it being super unstable when they included all the previously for sale embedded instruments, it actually sent me back to DP. I owned Komplete so there was no loss of plugins really. I doubt that there's anything unstable about Logic from embedded plugins these days, and it could have been other parts of Logic 7.0 that set it off for sure.

[BONES]

Saying one would like to just put one thing on their computer to make it their music workstation and without having to add any other plug-in, which DAW would that be?

Who cares? If that was an actual thing, it would come down to the range and quality of the built-in effects and instruments and Orion would get the nod. But it's not a thing and I only keep Orion around because I have 15+ years worth of projects on it that I might need to move to Studio One at some stage.

It's not life or death, just considering the amount of time spent on keeping things up to date and of course, discussing them on forums.

So maybe you just need to stop caring about keeping everything up to date because I don't spend one minute a week on that. I install whatever is the current version when I am building a new machine and that's usually that, unless something gets a big update with new features I am keen to try. I tend to keep Studio One up to date, though, in the forlorn hope that they might fix some of the little, niggling issues I have with it. But they never do, I don't think they know how.

I use Soundop on Windows and honestly, there's nothing better. It's a solid editing base, where I can insert my instruments, record, capture samples, create samples, edit and everything else, in this powerful and robust editor, with multitrack sections and VST host. Simply fantastic and unbeatable!

Except it doesn't meet the criteria set out in the original post, unless you forgot to talk about the instruments and effects it comes with?

[elxsound]

It's pretty insane how far things have come. I haven't completely ditched external plugin instruments yet, but I've greatly reduced the times I've loaded them up, and when I do, its because I'm familiar with those tools.

Personally I use Kontakt, Diva, Hive, Thorn, Falcon and the whole gamut of plugins almost exclusively, but I just use Live and Bitwig for smaller projects and DP is barren with software instruments.

I had the experience with Logic 7 of it being super unstable when they included all the previously for sale embedded instruments, it actually sent me back to DP. I owned Komplete so there was no loss of plugins really. I doubt that there's anything unstable about Logic from embedded plugins these days, and it could have been other parts of Logic 7.0 that set it off for sure.

I’m down to Kontakt, Diva and I recently started using Pigments, but I’ll likely drop Pigments soon. Occasionally I load up something else just for fun, but it is just that… a little fun.

For effects, it’s a much bigger list, but Live is very capable there too.

Logic for me is super stable, but because I don’t use it, it’s a clumsy environment for me. Nothing bad about it or any other host. Familiarity goes a long ways.

[FranklyFlawless]

Ardour, which is actually the only DAW I ever use anyways.

[VOODOO U]

This one was tough. I'm going with Reason.

[soundmodel]

REAPER.

Reason, if there was a way around the barely existing audio editing tools.

[spacepluk]

Another vote for Reason. It has built-in stuff that I actually enjoy using.

[Ancientbehemoth]

REAPER.

Reason, if there was a way around the barely existing audio editing tools.

whats the top 3 stock synths of reaper, in your opinion? looking to try that one.

[Ancientbehemoth]

Ardour, which is actually the only DAW I ever use anyways.

whats the top 3 synths of ardour, in your opinion? looking to try that one.

[FranklyFlawless]

The only software synthesizer I use now with Ardour is Surge XT. I also tried Dexed, but their MPE implementation is incomplete.

[Ancientbehemoth]

The only software synthesizer I use now with Ardour is Surge XT. I also tried Dexed, but their MPE implementation is incomplete.

Is surge xt and dexed part of ardour??
Cause if you read the thread you're in its what daw could you use as the ONLY one. So you have to only use the ones in ardour. Therefore I wondered what was so great about ardour what synths it has.
To me personally ardour seems like absolute trash tier but I didn't know if it maybe had excellent stock synths. But considering you mention two 3rd party synths it seems you dont know how to properly read a thread and you are maybe delusional?
I hope im wrong, please reply!!

[harddaysnight]

The only ones I can think of that could pass this task are Studio One Professional, Ableton Live Suite and Cubase.

Everything else doesn't cover enough bases, that I've tried - and I should note I haven't tried every DAW.

The ones I listed all have drums, instruments, fully fledged work environments, mixing and mastering tools, everything is there. You don't need any third-party plugins to make great music with them, and you won't need a whole music shop worth of instruments either because they're all there.

I'm looking at this from a bedroom producer perspective btw - so I'm thinking in terms of some synths, ways to get bass lines if you don't already have a bass, drum kits in the DAW as most people don't have a drum kit in their house/bedroom or even an e-drum kit and I'm also thinking in terms of using a MIDI controller rather than a traditional keyboard so I'm wanting the choices to have basic instruments included, ie pianos, pads, strings etc.

Bitwig doesn't have enough built-in sounds that I'm aware of, it's not versatile enough with what comes stock - but if you're focused on electronic music, then I'd include Bitwig. I'm wanting to keep my options more expansive than that, I want more organic music to be able to be created in the box and Bitwig doesn't have the instrument libraries for strings/pianos etc etc that the others do in one way or another.

Same as above for FL Studio - lack of organic instruments means it doesn't tick all the boxes.
Both Bitwig and FL Studio may very well have these, and I just haven't seen them or don't know about them.

REAPER.

Reaper is imo the most ill-equipped DAW for the task set out by the OP.

It has 1x instrument - ReaSynth. No drums, no keys, no sampled instruments, nothing - it would work for someone that has all physical/real instruments of everything they'd want in their music.. but if you don't, then that's the end of Reaper for this and also the stock FX suck imo.

I don't really understand how Reaper could be a suggestion for this thread.

[soundmodel]

You heard of Burial? He makes tracks with Sound Forge.

REAPER has good audio editing etc.

But, yes, Reason, FL Studio and Bitwig would give you more plug-ins out of the box.

[Ancientbehemoth]

The only ones I can think of that could pass this task are Studio One Professional, Ableton Live Suite and Cubase.

Everything else doesn't cover enough bases, that I've tried - and I should note I haven't tried every DAW.

The ones I listed all have drums, instruments, fully fledged work environments, mixing and mastering tools, everything is there. You don't need any third-party plugins to make great music with them, and you won't need a whole music shop worth of instruments either because they're all there.

I'm looking at this from a bedroom producer perspective btw - so I'm thinking in terms of some synths, ways to get bass lines if you don't already have a bass, drum kits in the DAW as most people don't have a drum kit in their house/bedroom or even an e-drum kit and I'm also thinking in terms of using a MIDI controller rather than a traditional keyboard so I'm wanting the choices to have basic instruments included, ie pianos, pads, strings etc.

Bitwig doesn't have enough built-in sounds that I'm aware of, it's not versatile enough with what comes stock - but if you're focused on electronic music, then I'd include Bitwig. I'm wanting to keep my options more expansive than that, I want more organic music to be able to be created in the box and Bitwig doesn't have the instrument libraries for strings/pianos etc etc that the others do in one way or another.

Same as above for FL Studio - lack of organic instruments means it doesn't tick all the boxes.
Both Bitwig and FL Studio may very well have these, and I just haven't seen them or don't know about them.

REAPER.

Reaper is imo the most ill-equipped DAW for the task set out by the OP.

It has 1x instrument - ReaSynth. No drums, no keys, no sampled instruments, nothing - it would work for someone that has all physical/real instruments of everything they'd want in their music.. but if you don't, then that's the end of Reaper for this and also the stock FX suck imo.

I don't really understand how Reaper could be a suggestion for this thread.

Facts. When I saw reaper and ardour (????) I thought people had gone completely insane.