Most intuitive DAW?

[PeteeBee]

Title pretty much sums it up. I want to be able to record junk direct when I have time and edit later on my laptop. What's the easiest? I know that I won't be diving in real deep into this world of plug ins and real elaborate mixes, I just want to get my lofi bedroom jams finished Seems like people always recommend reaper? Anything else? As of this moment, I'll be running my Katana direct or using my zoom h4n as a mic, not sure if that matters. I have a macbook but everyone says not to use garageband. Cheaper the better but I'm willing to spend money if it will make it more possible to actually create what I want.
The flow for the first project will be to get my guitar parts dialed to a click, have my friend play drums, then some other friends lay down various other parts (bass, bassoon, and trumpet). After this thing is done it'll be on to other ideas.
Any advice appreciated!

[Ev_O)))]

Intuitiveness when it comes to DAWs is totally a matter of preference that is developed through experience. They are all pretty similar in that it takes time to get the hang of things, but once you do, it will be intuitive to you.
If you have a Mac I strongly advise you to look at Logic. Its insanely cheap for what you get . I know you mentioned you wont be getting too heavily into plugins/mixing but really you can make it as lofi or as professional as you please. Just a massive amount of content packed in. Easy to use as a simple audio tracking program but with room for expansion should you ever decide you need a bit more power for when you're "on to other ideas".

Reaper is fine, I haven't used it for years but it's extremely cheap. Lots of people swear by it though.

If you want to record anything properly you are probably going to need an Audio interface as well though. Can act as inputs straight from your Zoom or as a DI for your Katana. The focusrite scarlett stuff is pretty solid as a cheaper option.

[ibarakishi]

i love using logic. have used others in the past, but logic was just the easiest for me to quickly put down what i am thinking. now with all the updates they just did for X, i have no reasons to really switch over to anything else at this point. The other person i play music plays in Ableton, and that is the only other DAW i might revisit and try to get more familiar with in the future. He loves it, but was also interested in logic as well. But really, anything will get the job done for you so long as you put the time in to learn your program and become comfortable with it.

[PeteeBee]

Cool. Thanks! I’ll plan on picking up logic after I sell some stuff off. And I definitely want to get an interface, I figured I can make this stuff work for a little while just so I have an idea of which model I want as far as inputs and outputs.

[lumena]

I use ableton, but have used logic. Probably logic is the most like a tape recorder. Generally I think logic will let you set up a template so that you justs elect new using a template, hit record and thats it.
I did quite a bit of recording using a roland sy300 as my interface so using the katana direct will probaly sound fine as its the same. 44.1 24bit
For most things like youtube etc. Thats fine - for serious projects using logic has the advantage that most studios are familiar with moving tracks in and out of logic so that you won’t get caught without proper stems to listen to at home or being able to get your scratch tracks from home into a session to record with. Logic is $200.

Ableton is great to experiment with but the clip metaphor it uses requires solid knowledge to movethings to protools to work with studios. I love push and its like a digital eurorack. However, Ableton was not my first daw and I wouldnt use it for bandstuff. Logic is just better set up to multitrack and mix and with something like a behringer xtouch you can really get stuff done.
Just my opinion...

[ibarakishi]

if you are getting an interface too, it is helpful to think into the future with it when buying it. It is often hard to resell them now with the technology advancing so fast, so if it were me i would try to put a bit more money into something that you expect to last you for a while instead of just something that will only last a year or two. It isn't going to be like buying a pedal where you will pretty much always have return on your investment. This is just my opinion though. It all kind of depends on what you expect to do with it though, and what your intent is for the future with it as well. Generally the more ins and outs you have for it, the more future proof it will be if you ever want to do more with recording in general

[ibarakishi]

i say this though coming from the point where i am going to need to upgrade my interface this year and i wouldn't be in this situation had i just put a tiny bit more money into just getting the next bigger model for what my needs are now becoming currently... which kind of makes me sad haha, but i guess lesson learned

[PeteeBee]

Yeah I believe it. That’s why I want to put off buying an interface for a little while. I don’t even have any mics lol. At this moment I can’t imagine needing to record more than two things at once, but I know that point comes real quick.

[ibarakishi]

Yeah I believe it. That’s why I want to put off buying an interface for a little while. I don’t even have any mics lol. At this moment I can’t imagine needing to record more than two things at once, but I know that point comes real quick.

Yeah i came at it with this mindset, and then found out really quick that if you ever want to mess around with mic pres, signal routing, or other stuff like that, it is extremely valuable to at least have a few ins/outs on the back in addition to whatever built in pres you have on the front. And the more you have, the less climbing back and rerouting stuff you have to do with each piece of gear (which sounds ridiculous, but this saves you sooooooo much time when you are just about to hook things up and leave them to be chosen within your DAW rather than being forced to physically have to reconnect and unplug everything every single time you want to use a new piece of equipment). Also, the moment that you have an opportunity to either help someone out record that you love/respect, or have them come in and help you record something, and you don't have quite what you need to make it work, you figure out really quick what you should have gotten while you are trying to figure out a way to make it work with what you have haha But yeah, just try out what you are interested in and go from there to see what works and what doesn't. If you don't try and make mistakes, then you never know

[Gone Fission]

Tracktion is designed to be intuitive and accessible. Worth a download of the trial for the current version, Waveform, and a couple versions back, T6, is now free.

[actual]

Fwiw, Ableton is just as suited for multitrack as it for working with clips. You just gotta record using the arrangement view instead of the clip view. Ableton also offer a 40% educational discount.

[Ev_O)))]

Fwiw, Ableton is just as suited for multitrack as it for working with clips. You just gotta record using the arrangement view instead of the clip view. Ableton also offer a 40% educational discount.

Agreed. I rec'd logic above for this gentleman but I personally use Ableton. 10 is beautiful.

[spacelordmother]

Another vote for Ableton. Also, if you’re not going deep you can buy an interface or control surface/midi jam and get the lite version for free.

[Sonaboy]

Another vote for Ableton. Also, if you’re not going deep you can buy an interface or control surface/midi jam and get the lite version for free.

Is it worth it to buy the Live version, even if you got Lite with a midi controller?
Being able to import random softsynths that come up here and there seems like a fun perk to the Live version that I don't think is part of the Lite version.

Any truth to that? Or just thoughts about this?

[spacelordmother]

Pretty sure you can load vsts, it just doesn’t come with the Ableton synths and fewer effects. I think the main limitations are track count, I/o channels, and number of sends. In the end having a hardware controller is useful either way, so can’t hurt to try and see if you hit a barrier that makes you want to upgrade.