Which computers and DAWs do you use to compose, record, and produce your music?

[maggieloveshopey]

Building drum parts in session view is my favourite thing in Ableton!

I’m about six weeks through the 90 day trial. I do like it, but I’m not sure I like it enough to spend £300 when the trial is done. I am a total bumbling dilettante newcomer though, so don’t take that as gospel.

[FKA_Adam_Jeffson]

Out of interest what model are you currently running and where did you get it?

[stringly]

If you’re planning on mainly recording live instruments instead of virtual ones, I think a Windows PC with decent specs should do you fine.

Pro Tools is fantastic if you’re planning to do mostly live recording, and it’s by far the best DAW out there for recording, editing and mixing imo. However, it’s always been a bit dodgy for composing and doing MIDI based stuff, so if you’re planning on using a lot of virtual synths/drum machines at some point, it would be better to get Cubase or Ableton (or keep with Logic if you go Mac).

My first set up was a cheap Dell laptop that had Cubase, Ableton, and Pro Tools installed. Somehow it managed to work ok with each of these for several years before it eventually broke down (it was probably only designed to be used for internet browsing and office applications lol). I currently have a 2012 MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and both Ableton and Pro Tools still seem to run quite smoothly on it.

[ericVII]

Wish i had the will power to have an offline/DAW-only machine. Must procrastinate.

[grievoustim]

DAWless/ tape only here

Computers are quite dull

[BodyInTheThames]

Currently;

(which cost an entire month’s wages)

running Ableton Live 10.1.25b1

Before that I was running Ableton Live 9 on a 2013 Macbook pro

but almost everything I’ve done - up to and including the Plasticine Pyramids LP I released in 2017 - was recorded on a 2002 Hewlett Packard desktop with a single core Pentium4 processor & Windows XP SPII running Ableton Live 4 through to Live 8.2

I still use the XP machine for backup in the studio too. It’s solid

Of course I mainly use hardware & just record the audio so the computer isn’t actually doing much processing

[moresleep]

I use Ableton, but I want to try Logic and Cubase for something a little different. Not sure which route to go.

[radian]

Cubase has slightly better tools if you still want to use a lot of MIDI imho.

[sprinkles]

Got a 2017 Macbook Pro refurbed from Hoxton Macs, was about £800. A couple of tiny scratches on it but otherwise works perfectly.

It’s only a 13 inch but I hook it up to my monitor. Runs Ableton/Logic like a powerhouse.

[McGarnagle]

Started testing out Studio One 5 this weekend.

I’ve been doing so much mastering work and using Ozone as a standalone for that, but looking at starting to integrate some hardware mastering pieces in the future. Can’t do that in Ozone as a standalone but as much as I like Ableton, it’s an absolute pain in the arse when it comes to organising a mastering session.

I have a Presonus interface which came with Studio One 4 and can get a very reasonable upgrade price to 5, and it’s got some very smart features for mastering.

Seems like a really comprehensive piece of studio software, somewhere between Ableton, Logic and Pro Tools enabling you to record, mix and master very well. There’s a live performance function that’s similar to session view in Ableton that they’ve just introduced, but I’ve not tried that out yet. Can’t see it being as fully featured because it’s new, but I tended to work in arrangement view anyway so we’ll see. On the plus side it has full mpe support which is great with my roli seaboard block, and full control from softube console 1, which is very useful for me.

I’d forgotten how weird it is trying to start working with a new DAW and not having everything laid out - or even named - exactly as you expect. Going to be slow going but I’m intrigued at the moment. Will be brilliant if I can find one piece of software to use for every stage of the process.

[GoFasterStripes]

I use the free version, it’s really good, can only imagine the paid one is brill

[CillaCrack]

I’ve been looking into upgrading my computer as I have to run most of my Ableton packs/plugins from an external HD which is causing lagging and crashes. My friend is selling an iMac (spec below) for £400 - reckon it’s worth it? Enough space to run Ableton and loads of plugins?

[colossalhorse]

I’m not an expert but it looks like it’ll do the job to me. 16gb of RAM and 3.2GHz is solid - you should be able to go VST mad with that (depending on how efficient the VSTs are obvs). My laptop has 16g and a 2.9GHz i7 processor and it runs Ableton and plenty of plug ins live just fine. And mine is a windows laptop - Macs are supposedly more stable for music in general.

[maggieloveshopey]

Processor and RAM look fine (but like CH I am not an expert), in fact I’d say 16GB RAM is very good. What’s the hard drive size? Sound libraries and plug ins can fill them up quickly.

Edit: checked the model online and looks like the minimum they shipped with was a 256GB SSD but to get that you had to configure down from a larger drive. Reckon the storage will be fine. As long as that checks out and everything else looks okay, I think that’s a pretty good deal.

[CillaCrack]

Great, thank you and (and @colossalhorse) for your help!

[CillaCrack]

1tb hard drive

[AQOS]

lads

dumb shit newbie here

everything about ableton makes me head spin so soz, this is very basic stuff

when I did some drums I could edit what I did at the bottom (fig 2). How do I do this for the keys I just recorded (fig 1). Can I? Why is it just grey?

Just having a play around like, tutorials don’t do shit for my brain apparently

[CillaCrack]

The section you’re in now is for adding audio/midi effects. At the bottom right of the screen you should see a small box with the MIDI notes in it. Click on that and then the box should enlarge for you to edit as necessary.

[Elights]

Double click on the clip you want to edit. If its a drum clip you will get the grid, if it’s a midi instrument you will get the ‘piano roll’, which is similar to the grid but with a keyboard next to it so you can keep track of where you are. Left click and drag left/right on the keyboard to zoom in/out.

If it’s an audio waveform you will get the waveform editer and access to the warp engine. The warping stuff can feel a bit intimidating at first, but it’s worth getting your head around as it’s a wonderful tool for sound design.

[AQOS]

@Elights thank ya both