So, those of you with music-program knowledge, I would like you to share. I'm looking for a program to record, edit, add drum tracks, etc.--just do a bunch of musical shit. I could get my hands on pretty much anything: Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Logic, whatever.

Keep in mind I need it to run on a Mac.

So, what program do you like the most (or recommend) and why?

Thanks in advance for your insightful replies.

Disclaimer: my opinion may be of limited value, since I'm relatively noobish, never compared DAW's and pretty much use one. Checked Ableton live lite once but was kinda underwhelmed due to lite version limits (only 8 tracks and couple of virtual instruments I think, at least in my copy bundled to an E-mu keyboard).

Anyway, I'll write couple of words about REAPER from a perspective of person who pretty much started playing around with sounds thanks to it. It taught me a lot about digital recording stuff, before REAPER I was pretty much all huurr durr derp about audio recording and editing. Now I know bunch of stuff about multitrack recording, editing, parameter automation, using virtual instruments, routings (REAPER has it perfected apparently), how to subtract noise from recordings (with bundled plugin), how sidechaining and drum replacing works etc. All with background reading reduced to minimum. It's nowhere near "industry standards" like ProTools in prestige but it's relatively young application (development started about 5 years ago) and rapidly gaining popularity - they also have excellent, helpful community at their forums and react for feature requests very fast.

It's very sleek, stable and optimized - installer for windows version weights about 5 megs, OSX version is couple of megabytes larger, has 64 bit versions too. There's plenty of plugins included - mainly effect/production ones, only rudimentary synthesizer for testing purposes - so you need to gather a rack of virtual instruments and samples by yourself. Accepts VST/VSTi/DX (win)/AU (OSX) plugins and rewire connections. As I said, it's very stable, only thing that can bring it down are shoddily coded plugins, but it should be pretty safe too, since from version 3-something it supports spawning plugins to separate processes so dying plugin won't fuck your whole session up.

Shortcomings I know about - some people mention MIDI editing abilities a bit less sophisticated than in let's say Cubase products - but you have to do pretty advanced things to notice it I guess. For me, handy MIDI editor in track, editing, humanize/quantize and swing settings are enough. Other than that - I don't know. Every time I think REAPER lacks something brief visit on the forum reveals that REAPER does it too.

Oh, and I like their bussiness model. Demo version differs from the registered product only with 5 second nag screen upon startup - otherwise it's 100% functional. Absolute lack of pain in the ass DRM :>. I paid for the licence not because they were forcing me to but because they're super nice towards the potential customer.

So, in short: yep, it's fit for recording, editing, adding drums and other musical shit . Hope that above was somewhat helpful.

A few megs is very sleek for that sort of program--I think I'll check out the demo. Thanks for the recommendation, BrunoN!

Anyone have any experience with Pro Tools or Ableton?

Does anyone have a quick answer about software in windows? I know youve discused it many times, but I´m a noob in recording, editing and mixing, so a noob friendly but usefull program would be good, thx!

Well, if you're looking to record sound, but also toy around with synths, I'd have to say Logic, not only does it come with some awesome synths in it (sculpture, ES2), it also comes with delay designer and space designer (delay and reverb respectively). If you're going just sound, or all outboard gear, ProTools might be better, although for a lot of plug-ins for mixing, mastering, or anything really, you will have to buy them. A good idea might be to get demo versions of the all programs you can, and see what ones work with your work flow.

Hope this helps!

LOGIC

Seriously, after using Cubase and Sonar on a Windows system, then switching to Mac with Logic, I'll never go back. Everything is relatively easy to use and it's very stable. I know Ben Sharp (Cloudkicker) uses Logic Express which is only 200 dollars if you're going to buy the software. Unlike protools you dont need a specific interface to work with.

The downside is that you can't use VST instruments, you need to run Audio Units with it.

I've been using Logic Pro for months now and absolutely love it, running it on a newer 13'' Macbook Pro with Superior Drummer 2.0 and POD Farm. Only times it's crashed on me were from plug ins that weren't installed correctly or were corrupted.

Logic. Especially if you have a mac. I sold my Pc to get a mac only to run Logic.

Ableton is more a dj program but Devin used it for Alien so..
I had it at first but got tired of it. I have Cubase aswell but i prefer Logic.

I recommend Logic with Abelton Live as a second DAW, it can be useful and fun to use in some situation

If you need notation Sibelius is great..

I'm extremely partial to Ableton (But I'm on a PC, so yeah.) It's a totally approiate DAW for anything. It comes with a bunch of audio stuff, like arpeggiators and what not, as well as a bunch of instruments. Easy to add VSTs too, very simple interface which you can do a bunch of nifty things in.

AND Estbarul! Look up Mixcraft. It is basically Garageband, but for the PC. It's very easy and user friendly.