[alohachris]

Aloha,

Nice thread Jim 1960! Thanks for all the background information RE: DAW's guys. Very informative.

Played on others' studio album's in the 60's & 70's. Went through 1/4" - 2" reel tape formats & Portastudiio cassettes in 70's. Then got into digital recorders in 1979. But the process & gear requirements were still way too expensive for this gigger here. At least with digital, we had no more expensive tape pancakes, tape hiss, or razor blades. Things were getting better for would-be acoustic home recordists. Still, we had to wait for something cheaper & better - DAW's.

I watched DAW's emerge in the '90's (talk about unintuitive - YIKES!!!). Then I took a bite & started out in 2004 on Avid's cheaper Pro Tools DAW - PTLE. I started out with the cheap PT because I could not afford the minimum $5K price of studio PT versions.

PTLE was an absolute nightmare in MS Windows! Crash Central! It was attached to Avid's inferior hardware dongles. And trying to get any support or solutions from Avid was absolutely impossible. They were belligerent. I crashed daily on PTLE for almost a year - the same as the many other PTLE users I connected with. Finally, I jettisoned that Loser DAW & company, & Avidly started over. New upgrades for everything in my simple signal chain, including switching to iMac's & Apogee. Great choices!

I auditioned EVERY available free online DAW sample - about 15 in all - taking time to find the right workflow & settled on Apple's Logic Pro 8.

Logic Pro was perfect for me. It provided the most stable pairing with my Apogee interfaces (never crashed), was intuitive to me, had incredible quality, onboard FX & EQ choices, & too much of everything else really to fully learn. But I found the perfect workflow AND QUALITY for me in Logic Pro X. It handled every external plug-in flawlessly, & helped me, along with Final Cut Pro & full Room Treatment to produce the best acoustic recordings of my life. It also captured the true sound & subtlties of my self-made guitars & the many high-end mic's I was addicted to - Ha!

In terms of my expertise in Logic Pro? Since I never wanted to be a pro engineer, but had knowledge & studio experience, I learned exactly what I needed in Logic to make satisfying acoustic recordings that pleased my very judgmental ears. And I skipped the 99% of the DAW I didn't need to learn. Had I started in my 20's, I'd have been more into mastering all of it. Just ran outta time. DAW's came too late in my musical life - Ha!

Logic Pro +1

I have some strong opinions RE: DAW choices. When I was auditioning them & researching, I found uneveness in the R&D capability of most DAW companies. How could you commit to them?

I came to the conclusion at the time that only Pro Tools & Logic Pro were the two fully-professional, full-featured DAW's out there w/ companies committed to improving & sustaining. That meant I could take a Logic track to an ME for mastering, which I did a few times at local studio's, & have my tracks be fully compatible with the DAW's found in most studio's - Logic & PT. Try taking Reaper or Ableton to a pro studio. Depends on your goals for recordings I guess.

Also, Apple offered its 'one-to-one' training program when I first got into Logic Pro. I received 60 individual training sessions from trained Logic guys at the Apple stores for a mere $99 in my first two years. That was an incredible value & also a big draw for me moving strongly & more confidently towards Logic Pro.

At $199, Logic Pro is a Real Bargain, even for beginners. Why get into bad habits on lesser, limited DAW's - like clunky Reaper - when you can step up to the big leagues in quality with a fully professional DAW at such a low price?!? AGF guys tend to stick with the DAW they start out with. I mean, why stick with Garageband when Logic Pro is available so cheaply, right? Start out on Logic Pro.

PT 10 is also a great DAW. But, as they've always shown, Avid is a S&C*%)#) company. That's another strong reason why I went with Logic Pro. Apple has the most successful business track record.

Whatever works, right? All I know is that DAW home recording gave us singer/guitar players a chance to finally produce pro-level audio home recordings for the first time at a relatively affordable price. DAW's are absolutely revolutionary.

Have fun recording guys!

alohachris