Now that my
SammichSID is completed (and it rocks!), I have started to finally get back into making music instead of synths. I still have my MB-6582 to finish, a MIDI interface to build, etc. but for now it's nice to be giving it a go again - sorta. I've actually been spending time evaluating DAW software more than making music.
I've been trying to find a replacement to Cubase SE 1.0. Though it runs on both PC and Mac, it's so old it only runs on PowerPC for the Mac. And it has a number of annoyances. Things I now consider basic like being able to easily route MIDI around to different interfaces and channels for both in and out. I had to do terribly complicated things in SE to get this to work. I wanted to simply upgrade unfortunately (for them)
Steinberg is not making that easy. I tried to post for help on the forums, my account was deactivated; I tried looking in the knowledge base for my answers, they weren't there. Their tech support is on vacation.
So, while Cubase is still on the table, I have decided to branch out. Among the items on my list is
Reaper and
Ableton Live. I thought about
FL Studio and
Logic but neither are multi-platform. While I would like to move to making music on my Mac, I still want options.
So far, my favorite has been Ableton Live. It's definitely different but the MIDI routing is awesome and training control surfaces, while not flawless (I could not get it to use my transport buttons on my NanoKontrol properly), it makes things so much easier, particularly with VSTs. For real hardware, it's still a matter of setting up the knobs on the control surface manually but oh well. The way Live handles MIDI events is nice. No more list view. Instead, it maps the control messages right over the piano roll and I can edit them individually. That means I can combine knob and note data in the same MIDI track.
What about Reaper? Well, it's the most inexpensive and does the job well. It supports VSTs and Rewire like Live. The main problem I have with it is the interface is not quite there yet in areas I need it to be at least for OS X. The layout is kinda weird for my tastes. Granted, it does work and is something I am still evaluating. Really at this point it seems to be down to Live or Reaper. Great thing about Reaper is fewer limitations. I would actually be purchasing Live Intro which can be quite limiting in some respects (few I would run into regularly though I don't think). Now I have not tried Reaper on PC and I probably should. If it is more polished, Reaper would make a lot more sense since I know they are working on the Mac port fairly heavily.
Another thing I need to do is try to reconfigure my "studio" but that is for another day...
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