In Short
There’s no such thing as the perfect DAW, just the one that’s perfect for you. However, in many cases it may take more than one DAW to tick all the boxes required in modern audio production.
In Depth
Back in the late 1980s an advert hit our TV screens for a ‘revolutionary’ new hair cleaning product. The product was called Wash & Go, which was a combined shampoo and conditioner in one bottle. The strap line for this amazing new product was “Why take two bottles into the shower?”
The suggestion was that with Wash & Go you would no longer need to buy seperate shampoo and conditioner. Forty years on and it’s still on sale, that’s a success in any product lifetime. However, you can still buy separate shampoo and conditioner, the market for both shampoo and conditioner is probably bigger now than it was then.
Often those selling DAWs claim they have ‘everything we need.’ For some that’s perhaps the case, but for many of us we still have to jump between two, in some cases, three DAWs. I use two DAWs, Pro Tools and Studio One, I want to tell you why I still have to take two DAWs into the shower, sorry, studio!
My choices won’t be the same as yours.
Why I Use Pro Tools
I first started using Pro Tools in the late 1990s. When I first saw it in action I was mesmerised by the magic it did with audio. I recall seeing non-destructive edits and real time plugins. Yes I know every other DAW does this and some did it then, but Pro Tools had garnered legendary status as the widespread use of tape moved onto hard drives. When it comes to an audio based DAW, then Pro Tools was my first love, coupled with a Digi 001 audio interface.
Over the years I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Pro Tools. Sometimes frustrated by it crashing, or running out of power, to then present me with an error message that may as well be written in a long lost language, for all it’s worth. I swear there are error codes that not even those who coded Pro Tools can explain! I’ve also been frustrated seeing features in other younger, more agile DAWs, that have taken an eternity to arrive in Pro Tools… ARA anyone?
Anyway, I write the above to say that in the 25 years or so that I’ve been using Pro Tools, it’s not all been one long honeymoon and there have been plenty of times I wanted a divorce.
With that said, there are a few reasons I continue to use Pro Tools.
First, it’s so easy to edit audio. Perhaps it’s because it was the first DAW I got my teeth into. However, having used many of the others, I still jump back into Pro Tools when I need to edit audio. I’ve seen how hard some other DAWs have tried to offer similar audio editing but I still find Pro Tools the easiest.
Second, like many people, I work across several creative disciplines, one being video creation. I still think Pro Tools makes editing and mixing sound for video easy, even with the somewhat questionable Avid Video Engine.
Third, I need to send and receive sessions to people, and Pro Tools, like it or not, is the industry standard. I don’t have the time, energy, and often the budget, to have to take sessions and convert them to other formats, or mess around with audio files (not stems) and then figure out what goes where. A Pro Tools session is a Pro Tools session, and when you need to do stuff fast then it’s easy. Not to be confused with an AAF, which is about as much an industry standard as square wheels are in the cycling world.
Fourth, it’s simple. Two windows and you’re motoring. You’re either mixing or editing audio, and in most cases that’s it. No moving around endless windows, or having it all stuffed on one screen like some audio doner kebab.
Fifth, and I’ve left the best until last, after a recent revelation. Pro Tools Carbon with Hybrid Audio, is for recording real instruments and vocals an absolute dream. I have a super powerful Apple Mac Studio and a second DAW (more about that in a minute) that I can drop to 16 samples of latency, but it’s still not a patch on the Carbon. Now before you start smashing the keyboard in the comments telling me “Oh you’ve never tried this.” or “latency isn’t that bad in native.” or “DSP only matters when you’re tracking.” Let me be clear why I love the Carbon workflow. In the words of Apple, it just works. There’s no extra layer of software to keep latency down to almost zero, I’ve used them, I know how cool they can be, but they are still an extra layer I don’t want to have to think about. There’s no “Am I in DSP or Native?” It just works, and for me, that kind of invisible, inertia-free, this is like plugging into a desk, workflow, is worth its weight in gold. You may be happy with your latency numbers, I thought I was, until I used Carbon and Pro Tools and found out how easy managing latency can be. For that alone, I wouldn’t stop using Pro Tools. To be frank, for Avid to give HDX and DSP a new lease of life at this point in DAW history is a masterstroke.
Why I Use Studio One
I started using PreSonus Studio One about 7 years ago. I think it was one of the days I mentioned above, where Pro Tools had either thrown a wobbly, lost a song, or was just annoying me. Up until that point, and like many people, the idea of learning another DAW was about as attractive as root canal treatment.
However, I got to a point where I thought, what have I got to lose? Many people had told me how good and straightforward Studio One is to use, so I decided to take the plunge. I took to it like a duck to water. The rest, as they say, is history. Here are some reasons why I use Studio One.
First, Drag And Drop. The drag and drop workflow of Studio One, means I can be up and running and creating a song idea in no time at all. I don’t use templates, part laziness and part because I rarely do the same thing twice. So being able to drag an instrument onto the timeline in seconds and be working is great. It’s the same for plugins too. Going through lists of stuff is annoying, especially when I know what I want to use.
Second, routing. If you drag a multi-out instruments into Studio One then it knows you might want to have separate outputs, for example on a drum VI. Even better, it doesn’t assume you will want them, so it puts them to one side of the mixer until you tick the ones you want. Setting these up in Pro Tools is frankly, a ball-ache, especially after you’ve done it in Studio One.
Third. Music creation tools. Built in arpegiattor, proper step input, drum lane for drum parts. There are lots of simple and powerful tools to help create musical ideas fast.
Fourth. Loops. Yes, a lot of DAWs offer the chance to use loops in tracks. Perhaps it’s because I spent many years wrestling with the Pro Tools Workspace trying to audition loops that when I experienced how easy it is to audition (in time with the track) and drag in loops is in Studio One, I couldn’t go back.
Fifth. Scratch Pad. This offers the chance to try out different arrangements of songs without destroying the original. I also want to mention mixer snapshots and undo, plus versioning which means I don’t have to create multiple file versions of a song to have multiple versions of a song.
There’s lots of reasons I love Studio One. I use it mainly to get ideas down fast, and the great thing is that the workflow doesn’t get in the way of me doing that. I can build song ideas much faster in Studio One than I can in Pro Tools, it’s as simple as this.
The Perfect DAW?
As I mentioned at the outset, I’m yet to find the DAW equivalent of Head & Shoulders. Both Pro Tools and Studio One have their strengths and weaknesses.
Would I prefer one DAW instead of jumping between the two? I’m not sure I would, one concern I have about Studio One is that over the last few versions it’s trying to become all things to all people. There’s a danger with that approach that you end up making something that is not as good as the sum of its parts. It’s possible to end up with a fat man in a pair of Speedos. It might all fit in, but it’s not that attractive.
Perhaps you are like me and use two, or even more than two DAWs for your work. I’d love to know what choices you have made and why. I know they will be different to mine, and that’s fine.