My Top 5 DAW Features & Functions

[kinglouis]

I use 2% of Logic's capabilities and features, I'd be very glad to hear about other user's favourite bits, best tips and tricks. Great post.

1. Cycle record and subsequent re-stitching of takes.
2. One click to turn a recording into an Apple loop.
3. Loving the eq range - channel eq low shelves on every track and the others are great for tone shaping.

Can't think of anything jumping out that other daws don't have but like I say I'm aware I only use a fraction of what it can do. Looking forward to learning some more, hopefully from this thread.

[John Egan]

I use Reason and three features stand out for me :

1. The mixer, the layout of which, I believe, is modelled on an SSL desk. For an old school git like me having the Mixer View instantly accessible and in such a straightforward way makes life a lot easier. New tracks are added automatically and everything is clearly labelled, every channel has EQ and compressors just where you would expect them, with decent default effects automatically "wired" to the FX sends and returns, with the ability to accept additional supplementary FX.

2. The comping facilities are comprehensive, intuitive and effective.

3. The third feature I would highlight is one which I have found useful when trying to show youngsters looking to learn how to create recordings for themselves. It is the Reason "gimmick" whereby shift and tab used in Rack View reverses the rack units and shows the (virtual) cabling between units and mixer channels, enbling the connections to be modified or supplemented. This invariably provokes the reaction "cool, just like a proper studio" and helps create enthusiasm to learn to use the tools available.

Hope this helps.
Regards, John

[Forum Admin]

Thanks for the tips - great stuff.

In truth, I think we're all in the same boat when it comes to only using a fraction of our DAW ( except desmond maybe).

I'm sure if I didn't say "thank you PreSonus" under my breath so much already when using Studio One, I'd be a massive convert to Reaper. I've always liked flexibility in software programs, and S1 Pro lets me achieve the same goal in multiple ways (as does Reaper from what I hear, and other DAWs).

And those Macros... being able to automate tasks and map anything to a custom keystroke is bliss. Again, Cubase is powerful here too, but I've watched plenty of YT videos and it never seems as simple and quick to set up as Studio One's implementation.

Macros can help with many tasks if you plan ahead, and this short tutorial video from Marcus Huyskens demonstrates how to use them to gain stage Virtual Instruments.

https://marcus-huyskens-music.com/mh-music-blog/quick-tip-gain-staging-virtual-instruments-in-studio-one-4-using-macros

[Forum Admin]

Just a quick reminder to add your DAW name(s) as a Prefix to the Reply subject title, so skim-readers can find the DAW they use and read your tips/features.

I've edited them thus far.

[Kwackman]

1. Drum Edit Page.
I've used this since it was in Pro-24. The diamond icon for the hit makes it easy to see if a note is lagging or before the beat, better (IMHO) than a line or box. Maybe it's because I started with a TR707? Once a drum map is set up, creating patterns is easy.

2. Cycle Record with the corresponding comp tools.

3. User defined keyboard short cuts.
Everyone uses Cubase differently, so being able to change the keyboard short cuts to what makes my workflow easier is very useful.

4. Reliablilty.
Like all DAW's, reliability is almost the norm now. I did have my first huff with Cubase recently, it took a re-install to sort it. Other than that, it's been rock solid for me for many years on Atari and various Macs. YMMV

5. VST plug ins.
I know all DAW's have them (or their own versions), but Steinberg invented the VST ( I think) and there are now more EQs, Compressors etc. than we can cope with along with new stuff that isn't possible on hardware.

[C.LYDE]

I use more than 1 DAW... for exactly the reason that each DAW has unique strengths.

1. Chord Tools (Pads)
- be it the chord assistant, track, pads - everything related to working with chords - I love being able to keep track of musical ideas without having to write stuff down outside of the DAW. Coupled with the ability to jam within different scales makes this my goto feature for writing.

2. Arranger Track
Other DAWs have something similar but the flexibility to create different versions of my rough work is tops. I tend to work in parts and assembling the ideas in itself can be a creative journey which quickly can become confusing unless one has a map - visual aid - which the AT is...

3.MIDI Device Manager
I still use a few hardware synths - so this is a no brainer - other DAWS don't care about patch names for hardware synths

4. VariAudio
The quickest way to fix and to modify a recorded melody line - which before the latest update, was also the least messy way since Melodyne required more file management .

5. Expression Maps
I cannot imagine a realistic sampled instrument without a bunch of articulations, and keeping track of which is triggered where in the song quickly became irksome ... along came EM - changed my life.

[awjoe]

Adobe Audition:

1 Noise reduction features. Audition has a number of ways to get rid of unwanted noise, and they're all good. If you can't clean it it up in Audition, that's pretty much a clear indication it needs to be re-recorded.

2 Appearance. For a start, Audition often looks better than other DAWs because it limits one's ability to go crazy with jarring color combos. Also, easily configurable screen appearance. It's really easy to make things visible/invisible and move stuff around.

3 I find editing to be very easy and quick.

4 I forget what the feature's called, but I have my template set up so that at a keystroke only a particular group is displayed - the drum group, for instance. It makes navigating a mix super fast and everything's zoomed in/out the way I like it.

5 CD View. I still burn CDs, and Audition has a CD creation screen that makes it really easy to set up and burn CDs.

PS: It might be interesting also to list the ONE feature you'd like to see added to your DAW of choice. Here - I'll start: (puts on grumpy voice) MIDI recording and editing capability!

[The Elf]

1. VariAudio.
2. Fade handles.
3. Ability to warp tempo map to audio.
4. Audio editing.
5. MIDI.

[Mike Stranks]

Hello! Mr Party-Pooper here!

I'd be surprised if the majority of DAW users are markedly different to me in that:

I learnt from various sources what a DAW was;
I decided I could make my life easier/more creative by using one;
I saw one advertised* that seemed to fit/to do what I was looking for;
I bought it; learnt to do the things I need to do; used it. Stuck with it; upgraded as new features became available.

* For others that will have been a recommendation from a forum consensus or having someone they knew recommend/demo one.

Most of us are happy with what we've got. We've not done a tour of alternatives... like many things in life, we like what we know and are nowhere near unhappy enough or persuaded by other features to have to learn a new DAW and the way it functions.

Is the way 'A' does something better than 'B'? I don't know and am not really bothered. I work with what I've got...

[Bob Bickerton]

I’m going to make a new sign for my studio:

STOP THINKING - MAKE MUSIC!



Bob

[Dynamic Mike]

I really have little to no experience of any other DAW than Cubase, so I guess familiarity & the fact that it does everything I need (which isn't much) makes me stick with it. I have no idea how it compares to other DAW's but I'm guessing from this thread there's a huge overlap. If I had more time to spare I'd probably give Reaper another try. My five top features would probably be;

1: Variaudio
2: Quadrafuzz V2 (Stupid name, awesome plug-in)
3: The Chord Track
4: Generate Harmony voices
5: Track Lanes (which initially I hated)

[awjoe]

I use Reason and three features stand out for me :

1. The mixer, the layout of which, I believe, is modelled on an SSL desk. For an old school git like me having the Mixer View instantly accessible and in such a straightforward way makes life a lot easier. New tracks are added automatically and everything is clearly labelled, every channel has EQ and compressors just where you would expect them, with decent default effects automatically "wired" to the FX sends and returns, with the ability to accept additional supplementary FX.

If you have any curiosity in this area, check out Harrison Mixbus. It's laid out like a desk, and many people love it for that reason. Plus it sounds great.

[awjoe]

This thread's been an eye-opener for me. I assumed, like I do with most things, that most people are way better at DAWs than I am. But it seems that most people don't know a lot about any DAW other than the one they've used since they were born. Maybe another question to add to the survey is 'how many DAWs are you more or less familiar with?'

'Cause if you only know one DAW, you're not in a great position to know what your top features and functions are.

[CS70]

This thread's been an eye-opener for me. I assumed, like I do with most things, that most people are way better at DAWS than I am. But it seems that most people don't know a lot about any DAW other than the one they've used since they were born.

That's because, as this thread shows, the differences are minimal, and mostly cosmetic.

I may have missed something, but the only stuff that's a little bit DAW-specific are Cubases' automatic harmony and chord tools and my mention of ProChannel (which however is nothing more than a pre-loaded set of plugins). And it's just a little specific... there's plugins for automatic harmony and chord tools.

Harrison is a bit off because its audio engine has built-in distortion and crosstalk. I have it but it wasn't enough of a thing for me to shift.

So, so long it works, a DAW is a DAW, just like a drill is a drill. You pick a top shelf one and that's about all the attention it needs.

[John Egan]

REASON

'Cause if you only know one DAW, you're not in a great position to know what your top features and functions are.

I'm not sure that it matters whether you have the best DAW with the top features (whatever that is). The music matters. I think it's worth asking if there is anything that your current DAW will not support sensibly that a different DAW would enable.
I have in the past used Sonar as my DAW, but was put off by a change in appearance and style and so moved to Reason. At that time I also tried Live, Tracktion and Cubase, but they didn't grab me at all. There was also Project 5 from Cakewalk, which I found interesting, but it was discontinued. Once Reason enabled recording, I was able to move to it completely, having already started to use its MIDI instruments alongside Sonar, using Rewire. I have seen no reason to change since.

Regards, John

[ore_terra]

Harrison is a bit off because its audio engine has built-in distortion and crosstalk. I have it but it wasn't enough of a thing for me to shift.

I tried it and liked it initially. but lack of stability was a big issue for me.

I sometimes export stereo mixes from Cubase and do the master bus processing in Harrison Mixbus, but that's all I'm using it for these days.

[Matt Houghton]

as this thread shows, the differences are minimal, and mostly cosmetic.

Perhaps I didn't phrase my post about Reaper very well, then. While I agree to an extent when it comes to most DAWs — they've all largely converged on the same basic model, with a few different frills around the edges, and GUI differences — some of Reaper's functionality and approach is very different from that of other DAWs.

[Arpangel]

The play slider in Reaper is my favourite function.

[ConcertinaChap]

Hello! Mr Party-Pooper here!

STOP THINKING - MAKE MUSIC!

'Cause if you only know one DAW, you're not in a great position to know what your top features and functions are.

Welcome, my friends, to the People's Party Pooper Party. Your membership cards are in the post.

CC

[James Perrett]

'Cause if you only know one DAW, you're not in a great position to know what your top features and functions are.

I would guess that quite a few users of the newer DAW's like Studio One, Reaper and Mixbus have moved from something else.

When I bought my first computer based recording system I spent quite a bit of time looking at the alternatives and nearly went for a Sadie or Soundscape system but the cheapskate in me won out and I ended up with a Turtle Beach Multisound card and its associated Wave software which wasn't really up to the job. Fortunately the hardware was supported by the Software Audio Workshop which gave me 4 tracks of stereo audio on a 486 computer.

On the MIDI side I went through Sequencer Plus, Cubase and Cakewalk before ending up with Voyetra's Digital Orchestrator Plus which was the first software I used that could combine audio and MIDI. However, the audio side wasn't particularly sophisticated so I later moved on to Cool Edit Pro which was bought by Adobe and renamed Audition, before finally moving to Reaper around 10 years ago.

Along the way I also bought Sound Forge which entitled me to use simplified versions of Vegas and Acid and I also kept an eye on what Cakewalk were doing and tried a few of their demos. I also demo'd Samplitude for a while.

I don't know how many other people have kept an eye on alternatives in the way that I did but I thought it was a fairly common thing to do.

[Forum Admin]

'Cause if you only know one DAW, you're not in a great position to know what your top features and functions are.

This topic isn't really about comparing DAWs. Even if you only have experience of using one DAW, there is huge merit in everyone stating their Top 5 features/functions of the DAW they do use.

Thanks for the continued input/feedback.

[The Bunk]

Well first up, Reaper here.

This has been interesting; as an enthusiastic but strictly amateur spare bedroom producer, my initial thoughts were that really what matters to me would be way down on the lists of those who are more experienced and better than me and, in a number of cases, professionals. But it's been reassuring to see features that I share with many others. And the point about most of us using a small percentage of our DAW's capabilities was also reassuring. I've often felt I'm missing out on what Reaper can do. For what I use it for, that appears not to be the case.

Anyway, to answer the question...You may notice some of my technical terminology is a tad "slack".

I'll start by referring readers back to my first line if I may:

1) Cost OK maybe not a "feature" as such and definitely not a function, but there's no point in someone like me spending £x00s on a DAW.
2) Importing etc Referred to a number of times above but the ease of drag/drop when eg using samples is a major benefit to me.
3) Editing, moving stuff around I've shown a couple of mates how to do this and their view is "wow that looks complicated". In reality it's very similar to the way they would edit a word document, and that's not at all complicated when you know how.
4) Real-time / live "tweaking / monitoring" I'm not sure I've explained that at all well but I have used a DAW which would not allow you to hear adjustments to things like EQ / Reverb etc etc as you made them. You'd have to do the tweak, stop playback and then re-start. I'm sure Reaper's not alone in that but not being able to do it that way was a considerable PITA.
5) Updates To be honest every time one of these pops up, I look at the relevant details and it's all mumbo-jumbo to me. But the process of updating is dead easy, and it also shows they're responding to comments / suggestions.

HTH!

[Forum Admin]

I don't know how many other people have kept an eye on alternatives in the way that I did but I thought it was a fairly common thing to do.

That's a bit worrying for us at SOS, since we created the DAW monthly workshop articles to both (a) give those users of Reason, Cubase, Live et al something to read each month, and (b) since our reader surveys told us there was DAW crossover/multiple usage, having a range of the core DAWs each issue allowed folks to peruse how things are done in a different DAW.

Well, we've got a 2019 Reader Survey coming up later this year, so we'll get an up-to-date picture on DAW usage/owenership then.

[MOF]

we created the DAW monthly workshop articles to both (a) give those users of Reason, Cubase, Live et al something to read each month

I use Logic and ages ago bought Protools for some of the AIR plugins but never really got around to using it properly, since then I’ve gone down the UAD route to get those plugins.
I occasionally read the Protools articles but mostly the Logic ones. Maybe it’s just me but I find getting updates from the Avid site is impossible and it puts me off using it.
In answer to the main question I love the multiple un-do and re-do facility, the ability to colour patterns so that I know which patterns are the same but triggering a different (stacked) synth or where I’ve repeated elsewhere in a song, the ability to copy sections and try out different arrangements without damaging the original one and in a similar vein being able to add longer intros and outros which were almost impossible in the days of tape, especially when it got to the use of timecode striping to synchronise the computer.