Composing : Hmm Which DAW?... by Jonathan Price

I use DP9 and have nothing but good things to say about its UI and use with film. However, if you're looking to be compatible with other composers, Cubase seems to be the way to go. I've never used it, but a lot of composers do. There are a number out there who use DP (Elfman, Giacchino, Desplat, Shore, Beltrami), but Cubase seems to have the rising star. I believe Zimmer uses Nuendo, and before that Cubase.

You know what's the funny thing; I started out with DP2.x YEARS ago!!!! Then I tried Pro Tools mBox when it first came out by Digidesign. Then I got rid of that, and tried a used license of Nuendo 2.x, which was actually very good at the time. Then I tried the "light" version of Logic before there was Garageband. I eventually moved to Win Cubase SX3, progressed to Win Cubase 5, and now I've been using Cubase 7 Windows 8.1 Pro/64bit for the years that Cubase has been out since version 7. And you know what? I'm actually tempted to do what Brandi is doing, and go back to strictly using Pro Tools 12 native for everything, after selling my license of Cubase 7! I'm debating that one still. All in all, Cubase really does have a lot going for it, but it also has it's "issues" sometimes. And I still have a place in my heart for MOTU Digital Performer no matter what. I guess what I'm saying is, no matter what you use, NONE of them are perfect. They all have something their user base wishes they would "get right", or do better. All of them. The grass is always greener on the other side as they say.

Jonathan what issues are you having with Logic Pro X? Are you scoring cues for a film? DP in my opinion has more film scoring features. If you are looking just to mix stems, then Protools, Nuendo and Sequoia are great on that front. I use Logic Pro X and Mixbus, though I do have others DAWs for those special live performance audio warping needs.

I have to support Omar on one of the DAWs he mentioned for mixing audio. Sequoia is a BEAST!!!!! I was apart of a mastering session for an indie artist I produced years ago, and they put money towards getting their album mastered at a top mastering house in NYC; battery park area. But they exclusively used Sequoia. I had never heard of it before. I can tell you after seeing that, and hearing it, that has to be the BEST audio engine I've ever heard from a DAW! Cost a lot of money. But if it makes any difference to you, Magix develops Sequoia, and Magix Samplitude uses the same audio engine as Sequoia. But, Sequoia is Windows only so far, if that makes a difference.

Samplitude and Sequoia run flawlessly on Apple Mac's boot camp.

Man guys thank you so much for you comments and suggestions. I really appreciate it. This gives me a lot to go on and research. Once projects slow down I'll have more time for that. Keep me posted if anything else pops into your kids about making scoring easier and faster. I'm always looking for new and better ways. Work smarter and in some cases harder.

Jonathan you should also check out reaper at www.reaper.fm. It is coming up through the ranks for scoring to film on a budget and then some.

It seems like some people like the layout of Ableton Live as a daw. I've never used the latest version. But it handles audio, especially loops extremely well. For scoring, it certainly seems to be able to handle anything you throw at it. and to be honest, just about all the daws do nowadays.

I would recommend Cubase, but for some reason, I've read a lot of comments online from Mac users that claim to have poorer performance with the Mac version of Cubase verses the Windows version. Don't personally know how true that is, being that I'm using Cubase 7/Win 8.1 Pro/64. But it handles scoring to picture extremely well.

I have a friend who just switched from DP to Cubase and he was asked what he missed most about DP. His response: "Tempo between two markers. That is so cool. You tell it where your timecode hit is then say you need a tempo so it will hit exactly on the beat, DONE! also CLICK PATTERNS! Ughh. Well Logic has them now but Cubase does not. "

To add another vote for Reaper- it's absolutely brilliant for film work, I've scored two films and tons of samples using it, and haven't had a single problem. Very much worth checking out alongside all the traditional options.

cubase has markers you set in the timing window, has had this function for as long as i've been using it (15 years). I would fully recommend cubase, as I have never had a reason to change it.

I used FL STUDIO, STUDIO ONE v2, DP9 and specially CUBASE but non of them really helped my work flow on film scoring. Right now, i am using Ableton Live 9.6 and it's absolutely amazing and it's learning process is very quick. I tried so many times switching back and learn from the ground up CUBASE but i found it very hard to learn and complicated ( maybe because it has more features ) For me, ableton live is what i need, it has amazing audio and midi features and you can compose with it in no time. But you can't ignore the fact that most composers in the world use CUBASE. And the final choice is yours.

good answer there Jim