Which one is best for pop/rock?

[ourapollo]

Hello I was wondering

I guess Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase and Ableton Live are the most popular DAWS.-- which one is the best if you want to make pop/rock music?

thanks

[UKRuss]

I guess you won't be surprised to hear that you can make both pop and rock in all of those. A DAW is a DAW. The user makes the music.

I would say the biggest drawback about Live is the absence of a comping tool for vox and guitar work. I'd really like that, but for everything else? Live works fine.

[kanuck]

I use ableton for rock music and yeah it really doesn't matter. Another thing i'd like to say though is a lot of ableton's effects are meant for electronic music but I can make some more unique stuff because of this. Also to keep in mind I've found ableton to be a tad bit more expensive than other DAWs

[Khazul]

The choice of DAW is not about the type of music that come out, but instead about the way you want to work.

Live has excellent workflow for creating phrases and then arranging them on the fly into a track. Its workflow for mix down stage however is weaker than more conventional DAWs, but 'conventional' probably only applies of your production is 'conventional'.

One of the great strengths of live for processing souds is that it doesnt restrict what audio and midi you can route where as much as some other DAWs - end reuslt you can easiily do some really wierd routings with fx that might required alot of bounces in another DAW (and in even a recentish version of a major oher DAW - that would have required bouncing the audio out of the computer and back through the audio interface and still reqires mucho fucking about to do it even in the latest versions).

I would say Live is a stronger music creation tool and strong creative engineering tool and a weaker mix/master engineering tool.
Also it happens to be quite a decent performance tool - which is what it started out as.

If you have a mac and you are going to be doing conventional linear recording and production - then get logic and forget live. If you want to work mostly by building you songs from short clip and loops tha you record/create/drop in from libraries with the occasional linear bit, then get live. PT is for fashion victims who want to claim to be a produza coz they use pro tools so they must be pro etc (thats not a dig at actual experienced proffessionals who use PT). BTW - even if doing conventional linear recording, then the warping capabilities can be very good for tidying up the timing of a recording.

For what you get in the box if the intent is to use it mostly like a regular DAW, Live is very expensive and very feature poor - and I guess thats because it aint a regular DAW - it just manages to scrape by on common DAW functionality to be useable as such and so often mistaken for one.

You might want to ask you yourself what you actually want (bare recording and mixing host, or a good collection of effects and instruments too?), perhaps what you own music background is - solo and plays one or two instruments? in band and want to record/produce your band etc?

If it matters to you - I find it way way more of a pain recording multiple takes of linear stuff (vocals, guitars etc) in Live than in say cubase. I find cubase to be too crippled on the creative musical and engineering side (and much prefer live), but find cubase to be much better for linear recording and multiple takes and master mix and post mix work - that probbaly makes it excellent for recording a guitar band, but I hate it as a tool for doing remixes, making tracks out of short recorded phrases and library stuff etc.

If you do go with live as a production tool for a band, then you may also want to think about getting some version of melodyne if you need to be pitch and timing correction to recorded audio. Live is good for just doing timing corrections however.

Live's (even the suite version) in the box instruments and processing is a bit so-so. Definately recommend something like NI Komplete or even just Kontact and any half decent reverb you can find to replace the tin-tank can that comes with Live. If you get logic, then you end up with a load of quality plugins. I dont have the latest version of Cubase, bt I gether that has a pretty decent set of plugins as well now. IMHO Lives plugins just aint well suited to pop/rock, much better suited to minimal/glitch/idm etc, thpugh its compressor and EQ (the two essentials) are perfectly good.

An interesting take on live vs reason vs logic comes from the way the freemasons use various tools - live to them is just a tool for specific jobs. Reason - the same, actually they tend to use it alot for repitching audio as it arguably has the best audio pitching algorithm for simple repitching or stretching. However logic is what they use for actual production - ie to bring everything to together into a final mix.

If cubase wasnt such a face ache to use, then I would probbaly work the same way (I dont have a mac, so logic isnt an option for me, but I do think it is perhaps the best all-round DAW for general use, but it has its quirks too).

[Cezband]

This is like asking what's the best guitar, or what are the best lyrics. Ask ten people, you'll hear ten different answers.

As a very rough rule (imho), every single DAW does most stuff adequately, a few things excellently, and a small handful of things in a way that could definitely be improved on.

It's a matter of exploring each one and seeing if the things that they do excellently are most apt to your style of working, and ensuring that the things that need improvement aren't dealbreakers.

[beats me]

Simple answer: Live is the worst of the lot for recording and mixing a lot of live instruments/musicians.

This isn't to say it's horrible or can't be done, it's just bottom of the list in that department.

[3phase]

I guess you won't be surprised to hear that you can make both pop and rock in all of those. A DAW is a DAW. The user makes the music.

I would say the biggest drawback about Live is the absence of a comping tool for vox and guitar work. I'd really like that, but for everything else? Live works fine.

?? not really. sure you can do it with live but actually garageband is better equipped allready..so i suggest ti safe the money and go garageband when you just want to do some quick and dirty recordings..


when its about daw´s protools is no1 for all acoustical styles and when we get to pop its logic..

for sound quaöity and experimental nerdom cubase wins the game and ableton live is actualy a trap but when you just like to play and dont bother about results its the way to go

[UKRuss]

I have to disagree on that, I have plenty of good feedback on my mixes and tracks I make in Live. I don't say it isn't harder work but its certainly better than Garageband. But you can have pro results from any of the mentioned DAWS.

Its subjective though in the sense that it is about your workflow,, the 'Live is inferior' angle is just a well-known 3phase point of view you like to push.

[ourapollo]

Ok thanks for the answers

Howcome is Logic best for pop?
how do you mean, Live is a trap?

Thanks/ later

?? not really. sure you can do it with live but actually garageband is better equipped allready..so i suggest ti safe the money and go garageband when you just want to do some quick and dirty recordings..


when its about daw´s protools is no1 for all acoustical styles and when we get to pop its logic..

for sound quaöity and experimental nerdom cubase wins the game and ableton live is actualy a trap but when you just like to play and dont bother about results its the way to go

[Khazul]

@ourapollo - if you want a useful reply, you need to say something about what you do (solo/band, level of musician ship, whther you wil be recording vocals, able to record other parts in a single pass, or whther you are the kind of musician who needs to make little clips and arrange them etc), what computer (mac or windows), whether you are in a band and what something good to record and produce the band... etc?

Also whether you know anything at all about common recording and production workflows and techniques etc? (I am guess not as you would have worded the question very differently realising that genre isnt the question, but production workflows and approach are the right questions).

Without that - the best your going to get are generic answers, and a suggestion to look at a generic DAW (ie logic or cubase or sonar depending on the computer type, yeh - or even PT, but I would stick with a VST or AU plugin host as you get far more and cheaper plugin options) - PT gets good when you have alot of money to throw at it and enough experience to spend that money wisely.

[dinaiz]

Live has excellent workflow for creating phrases and then arranging them on the fly into a track. Its workflow for mix down stage however is weaker than more conventional DAWs

Would you mind elaborating ? I completely fail to see why it's weaker for thez mix-down stage ? Do you mean, because of the effects ?

One of the great strengths of live for processing souds is that it doesnt restrict what audio and midi you can route where as much as some other DAWs - end reuslt you can easiily do some really wierd routings with fx that might required alot of bounces in another DAW (and in even a recentish version of a major oher DAW - that would have required bouncing the audio out of the computer and back through the audio interface and still reqires mucho fucking about to do it even in the latest versions).

I also don't understand that. What kind of routing can you do in Live that you can't do in Cubase without bouncing a lot of stuff for example ?

I see things the other way round : live is pretty good for mixing down stuff because it's dead simple, while it's easy to get lost in cubase. However, even though I find the routing OK, it could be way better in my opinion (for example, I'd love to be able to sidechain anything to...anything )

(EDIT : I don't know if you can "sidechain anything to anything" in cubase for example, it's just that I think routing could be even better in live)

[Khazul]

Would you mind elaborating ? I completely fail to see why it's weaker for thez mix-down stage ? Do you mean, because of the effects ?

Well when working in arrange mode as one is typicallyy hen working on a track ratther than just clips, compare this:


To this:


















'nuff said!
(No its not that an image is missing, its that Live has fuck all ).

I also don't understand that. What kind of routing can you do in Live that you can't do in Cubase without bouncing a lot of stuff for example ?

I see things the other way round : live is pretty good for mixing down stuff because it's dead simple, while it's easy to get lost in cubase. However, even though I find the routing OK, it could be way better in my opinion (for example, I'd love to be able to sidechain anything to...anything )

(EDIT : I don't know if you can "sidechain anything to anything" in cubase for example, it's just that I think routing could be even better in live)

Try sending a return to itself in Cubase to create a cuistom feedback loop on saay a delayy based effect chain. Actually even try something as basic as boucing an instrument track to an audio track without having to create a submix/group, or even just getting a sidechain (maybe they finally fixed this in V5?) Even getting sidechain inputs linked up used to be a non-obvious pain - again maybe fixed finally in v5.

[smaucher]

I would say Live is a stronger music creation tool and strong creative engineering tool and a weaker mix/master engineering tool.
Also it happens to be quite a decent performance tool - which is what it started out as.

this.

for mixing and recording get something like Logic, ProTools, Cubase or Studio One

[monobeach]

or Reaper! (which costs a lot less than the lot, but is equally equipped, and updated frequently):

http://www.reaper.fm/

[Fizmarble]

Would you mind elaborating ? I completely fail to see why it's weaker for thez mix-down stage ? Do you mean, because of the effects ?

Well when working in arrange mode as one is typicallyy hen working on a track ratther than just clips, compare this:


To this:


















'nuff said!
(No its not that an image is missing, its that Live has fuck all ).

I don't get it. I use session view to mix my arrangement all the time. A quick press of the 'tab' key and you are looking at a traditional mix environment. By the way, I record full band rock, pop, folk as well as rap, electronic and film score with Ableton Live. Out of all those, the only one that could really use work is film score. Comping would be nice, but so far I haven't needed it.