Buying first DAW

[Rokster]

I've tried trial Live and Bitwig (a couple of others too, but these 2 suited me most). At the moment I own Live lite and am planing on buying something more proper. I had my eyes on Suite but than I've tried Bitwig and it is quite good. I am also eligable for student discount so my options are: 209 Live, 299 Bitwig, 359 Suite. Is there anyone that used ableton extensively and also tried Bitwig that could tell me some pros/cons against bitwig? I know they are both really good daws, just don't want to get burnt in the long run.

Kind regards

[TomViolenz]

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[Machinesworking]

Personally I don't think either Suite or Bitwig are the best choice for advancement.

Suite over Bitwig though, Bitwig offers only marginal things over Live.
Suite offers Max For Live and a convolution reverb plus other plug ins.
If you're a programmer type, then Max For Live is going to be huge for you, if not, it's going to be a slew of plug ins.

If you use hardware and want to get into mixing down your tracks on a more surgical level, use a score editor, do serious film work etc. then the better choice is an old school DAW as an accompaniment to Live. I use Digital Performer 8 for all the mixing and a good portion of the song writing I do. Others here on these forums use Logic, Studio One and Cubase for the same reasons. The price between getting Suite and getting another full DAW is about the same, Bitwig and Logic come in with no competitive upgrade but are at near the same price points. Upgrade/full version costs are something like:
DP8 - $399
Logic - $199
Cubase-$399
Studio One - $299
Bitwig - $399

Again, DP, Logic, Studio One Professional, Cubase etc. are going to give you features Live will never have.
If you want to use another DAW like Live then getting Bitwig makes sense, but it doesn't even support rewire so…

[Machinesworking]

Also the Lounge is far superior.

[stringtapper]

I prefer Live as my experimental notepad because it's just great for that and because I can roll my own weird sound toys with M4L.

But for more traditional applications such as multi-tracking, live recording, scoring and arranging using large sample libraries Logic is and has always been my main tool.

Of course you can experiment inside Logic too but it's not as fun or fast as Live is for that (for me at least).

[Rokster]

Tnx for all replies. Will check Cubase and DP8, unfortunately I can't go for Logic because I'm on Windows.

[Machinesworking]

Tnx for all replies. Will check Cubase and DP8, unfortunately I can't go for Logic because I'm on Windows.

Just my opinion, but it's more about DP8 VS Studio One on Windows. The guys that did Studio One worked on Nuendo, Cubase with more big studio and film tools. It's more streamlined than DP and has been around (at least on the PC side) for longer than DP.

DP has amazing key commands, and probably the best integration for doing film work, plus arguably the best environment for mixing of any DAW. It's also dense deep and some find it alien as hell. I'm very fond of it.

Studio One has a special Mastering environment, Melodyne integration and the kind of ergonomic work flow that Ableton does.

[Machinesworking]

Also my bad, just noticed you said you only had the trial for Live. For some reason I thought you were asking about what DAW to compliment the full version of Live?

that's rough, though at this stage I would say Suite. The Max For Live bundled content and the features of Live are far bette than what Bitwig currently offers. Plus Student Discount wise, Bitwig is offering nothing compared to the deep discount that you're getting for Suite.

[TomViolenz]

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[Rokster]

I have alredy Live Lite, I got it with novation lounch key.

[H20nly]

Yes