Votes are in - 2020 best DAW - FL Studio wins again

[dante]

https://www.musicradar.com/news/the-bes ... pc-and-mac

No surprises here - status quo with FL Studio #1. Good to see Presonus Studio One maturing to 2nd place - would be my next in line in if I wasn't so invested in Reason (7th) / Harrison (not even rated).

[Bud Weiser]

https://www.musicradar.com/news/the-bes ... pc-and-mac

No surprises here - status quo with FL Studio #1. Good to see Presonus Studio One maturing to 2nd place - would be my next in line in if I wasn't so invested in Reason (7th) / Harrison (not even rated).

It´s good to have all the worlds available ...

Studio One Pro and Reason have both their advantages and disadvantages,- and they have 2 disadvantages in common:

1.)
No interactive MIDI notation editor in the sense offering the option working w/ virtual notation, piano-roll, list editor and drum editor simultaneously ...
2.)
No MIDI SysEx support

So,- I use Reaper, offering SysEx support and notation editor,- even the notation editor is not perfect like p.ex. Apple Logic´s is.
I simply prefer watching notation in sync w/ list editor over piano-roll all day.
It´s also evident Reaper offers the best 32Bit to 64Bit bridge,- and there are some plugins only available/usable in 32Bit still.
The latest Windows version of "Alchemy" (now exclusively MAC) is one of these.



Bud

[dante]

Yes no sysex support sux - Im using a laptop seperate to main DAW to run XG-Gold for my rack mount DB50XG and a pocket MIDI merge due to XG-Gold interfering with Reason MIDI if run on same DAW

[valis]

Logic is good enough for most work a home user will find, but I see guys complaining all the time about what they miss from SIbelius or Finale

FL Studio has grown up a lot and now sleeps with the big boys, glad to see.

[Bud Weiser]

Logic is good enough for most work a home user will find, but I see guys complaining all the time about what they miss from SIbelius or Finale

Logic is excellent MIDI, coming the long way from C-Lab (later Emagic) Notator (SL).
Old Emagic Logic Audio Gold w/ serial dongle and MacOS 9.x is an excellent MIDI editor supporting sysex already,- and Logic Audio Platinum 6.4.3 for OS X has everything MIDI wise.
There changed a lot w/ Logic´s GUI, the audio engine and editing features,- but the MIDI stuff was great already decades ago.
I doubt it changed much until today.

Well,- I stopped using Macs, so Logic is not for me anymore.
I kept the old machines, G3 / G4,- and I´m able running the Logic versions mentioned above, but it´s more and more cumbersome keepin´ the old machines alive, using different DAW apps simultaneously ... and nowadays there are the energy costs which in germany are the highest in europe and rise again this year by approx. 8-10%.

I don´t need big score editors like Sibelius and Finale at all,- if I´d do, Presonus Notion would be my choice together w/ Studio One Pro which I own anyway.
I just only love to see the MIDI events as notation when using the MIDI editor in a DAW application and there´s no interest runninga 2nd app in addition.
It´s the best workflow for me because I learned reading music.
Logic offers, Cubase/Nuendo too,- but Logic is king of the hill in that department IMO.
I remember I didn´t like much when I used Cubase SX3.



Bud

[valis]

Well, steinberg did hire most of the original team behind Sibelius for their new Dorico notation application, so if the main trunk of Cubase & Nuendo haven't improved for scoring as well since SX3, what the heck are they doing? I haven't upgraded either of my licenses since v5, because I *DO* still use Logic on Mac. Since my VFX/3D work is happier on a windows computer, I not only get to separate out workflows per machine but also get the benefit of only needing (mostly) audio on the Mac side so an older or used one is fine there, meaning I can still keep up with the Logic Joneses.

[Spielraum]

Midi options have even been reduced somewhat. the highest level was anchored in Cubase VST5. beloved phrase synth, automatic accompaniment were really cool tools that I have been happy to use since atari (cubase+ module) ...
ok, the expression switches have been introduced, which strongly remind me of multitimbral midi channel switches and are also often misused
STDR - MidiChannelChanger

... and Midi2 tries hard to establish itself,
then we need additional hardware converters for the old dear `80-`90 boxes

[valis]

Not sure about Cubase, but in Logic nothing has been removed, and much was streamlined. The only thing that has more or less gone away was opening an arrange window FROM the environment via a hidden shortcut to...basically it shows you all your automation *as if* they are (embedded in) midi parts that span the duration of the track portion covered by automation. You can go in here and cut/move/glue sections to move automation data around if necessary, and it's cleaner for certain uses than 'copy automation with...' messages when you move audio/or midi parts. But it depends on the kind of automation, and you can STILL use the key commands and menu items to move track automation to/from midi parts in the regular arrange, so it's really only suited to expression data that's heavily used (like with heavy orchestral work).

All else still remains, bang messages (program UI control data addressed via the environment objects as a sort of extension to nrpn style messages but with a special logic bang header), sysex/nrpn, environment, midi transform functions in arrange & midi window plus environment object, scoring, two types of automation data (classic--embedded in midi parts & track based), etc etc. You mix 'phrases' by packing folders, you can target folders with bang messages for auto playback of things if you feel fancy...on and on and on. Hence why I still have Macs here, and run Scope on a separate machine.

Nothing wrong with FL Studio, just a different workflow that grew up to match the other DAWs. It's the most popular app in many Discord and IRC chat rooms for over a decade, so I can see it being rated #1. Live though has been a close second, not Studio 1. Seems like everyone in EDM and a good portion of hiphop and house etc all use Live now.