Free Digital Audio Workstations Discussion

[DijiTwitch]

I'll start. :0

What do you guys think is the 'best' free DAW? What are your reasons for liking it?

[Freewave]

FREE daw? I dunno Reaper is pretty decent for a streamlined, low resources needed DAW, that makes a certain amount of visual sense. Can't go too wrong with using it but obviously its far weaker then something like FL10. If you want to be honest (ie not get a cracked daw) and have a pretty weak pc you can do worse i'm sure.

[Blood Plectrum]

I dunno really, I use REAPER, but even though the site itself hates LMMS, I think it's pretty good for what it is. It's got some good default synths and is very easy to use for genres like chiptune. Hope this helps ^_^

[Captain Ironhelm]

Reaper yo

lmms is so glitchy and crashes too much

[Blood Plectrum]

LMMS has barley crashed on me, probably once a month, and that's when I add too many VSTs. That's probably why I'm so defensive of it XD

[Captain Ironhelm]

I could never get massive or my filters to load without making it crash... so I couldn't really do anything in it. I did use it when I first started, and it's not that bad so long as your plugins are compatible.

[Acsii]

Adding another +1 for Reaper. But on the topic of LMMS, it's good if you wanna use ableton but don't have the money yet, because it crashes about the same amount of times has a similar lay out,

[OakenPenance]

Caustic 3.

Free for Windows/OS X, $10 paid on Android/iOS plus in-app purchases (and smartphone apps come with full support).

It's a great way to learn different synthesis techniques and there's a semi-flexible PCM Synth you can use for your samples, so you aren't obligated to go after the paid presets (although some of them include pre-layered drum hits and other cool stuff).

It has its limitations but I firmly believe it's the most powerful free DAW out there. Besides, I've come to find that limitations only inspire more creativity. Give it a shot.

http://www.singlecellsoftware.com

[CitricAcid]

There's AudioTool as well. I don't think it's for me, but I did once meet a video game music composer who said he used it almost exclusively.