I’m running Cubase Elements v9.0, potentially upgrading to 11.0 if the trial version works well enough.
But I hate German software. And the associated licensing issues.
Does anyone recommend any alternatives? Price point under £150 & ideally with no stupid licence keys/Dongles/secret Teutonic handshakes
Windows10 machine, 64bit, external i/o box by Yamaha.
To be used for mixing & mastering typical rock music (guitars, drums, vocals etc). Not bothered (yet) about MIDI instruments, keyboards etc
Try Reaper. Tonnes of tutorials on it, and essentially free.
Just messaged my boy who knows about this sort of thing and he says"For his needs (live recording rock music) I cannot recommend Reaper enough, and its way under his budget"
I saw the thread title and immediately thought of suggesting Ableton. Then read the post. 😞. I have a soft spot for reaper, so can recommend it, but it's not up to the same standard as the usual suspects.
Cheers chaps, I’ll have a look at Reaper
check out mixbus for something old skool style
https://harrisonconsoles.com/product/mixbus/
MIDI is a bit rubbish on it though
Another vote here for Reaper
Presonus Studio One is also worth a demo.
Tracktion/Waveform.
Reaper is awesome considering the price.
Ableton ‘lite’ (fully functioning and not a demo version by any means) can often be found bundled with cheap midi keyboards/controllers; should be enough channels and features for your needs. You can then upgrade to a higher version at a decent discount if it takes your fancy.
Useless answer if you don't use a Mac, but Logic Pro X is about £200 and the upgrades are free (or at least they have been so far)
Great standard plug ins and virtual instruments if you need them.
I generally record virtual drums and bass/keys and real guitar and vocals. Not had any experience of any other DAW other than Garageband, but Logic hits the mark for me.
Reaper.
Yeah if you’re on Windows and doing audio work then you won’t beat Reaper (if you’re heavy into midi I still find it awkward compared to both Cubase and Logics midi editing chops)
Also it’s not ‘essentially free’ they just don’t cripple it after the trial expiry so please buy the very low priced license 👍🏻
You can get Ableton Live 10 Lite for free if you register with Splice before the 31st Dec.
https://splice.com/daws/38929163-live-10-lite-vst-by-ableton
Anyone moved to Reaper from Reason? I currently use an old version of Reason (5.0) but am tempted to move to Reaper for electronic music creation.
I wonder how the two compare
In all honesty moving from Reason then I wouldn’t bother with Reaper, FL Studio or Ableton would be much more suited (or if you’re on a Mac then Logic has recently really upped its game for electronic music production with the new loops/clips workflow then there is the sheer amount of amazing content, samples, synths it comes with especially the Alchemy sample based synth which used to almost cost what Logic does on its own)
I use the cheap version of Reason...but the latest version. It's awesome! Way better than Reaper for dance stuff imo.
the Alchemy sample based synth
I used to make presets for that in a past life
@bigjim awesome I still have loads of 3rd party libraries for it on my samples drives. Love them.
@bigjim in that case I don't suppose you frequented the KvR forum back in the day?
@mickyfinn great! The third party stuff was the most interesting, factory presets always had to be more mainstream. I've not actually used it since apple but think I'll buy logic to keep me busy over Xmas.
@colournoise I did indeed pHz 😉
I did indeed pHz 😉
Now I'm intrigued...
(from a long-lost time and place where I was what STW would call a big hitter I guess)
Actually... Jim [Camel Audio] I presume? Small (virtual) world.
The very same. I had personal login too but I can't remember which name was kvr and which was dogsonacid, it's been a while!
@Tom-B - I didn't realise they did a cheap version, do you find many limitations? I have the full version of 5.0 but probably only scratch the surface of its capabilities.
Btw, Ableton is developed in Berlin which is why I put my "😞" above, and didn't directly recommend it. (To be very clear, I have no problem with this, just responding to the OP's comment.)
You can get Ableton Live 10 Lite for free if you register with Splice before the 31st Dec.
oooo, i'd forgotten about that. Well spotted.
Lite is not quite so good at the warping type stuff such as moving beats and pitch shift but for straighforward stuff is fantastic. You can often drop in vsts to do those as well
If anyone is interested, Reason have 30% off until the end of the year:
https://www.reasonstudios.com/shop/browse/?product_type=music-software&sort=name