Back to Pro Tools, Cubase(maybe Logic)

For several weeks now, I’ve been working with different DAWs trying to find both the most efficient and productive system for my work flow. I’ve played around with Garageband, Ableton, Cubase and Protools. I know that every musician has his/her favorite, but I needed something that could get my ideas from my head to the hard drive as quickly as possible without any loss in quality.

All of the above mentioned programs did that, however all had some kind of fault as well, (at least they did for my use). As I’m always seeing folks on different forums asking which is the best system to use, I thought I’d throw in my 2 cents by telling you what worked and what didn’t work for me.

The 4 programs I mentioned above basically all do the same thing, but in different ways. Here is my opinion of each in no particular order. It’s also important to note that with some of these programs I did not use the full version but either the LE or limited version that came with a bundle:

Ableton LE:

Ableton showed me how to approach music composition and recording in a completely new way. I use to record my songs from beginning to end adding each instrumentation as I went along. Ex: I would record a drum pattern for about 4 or 8 bars then copy or duplicate those bars to the end of the song. Then I would add bass, and other keyboards and guitars. With Ableton, I discovered how to write/record by parts or as they call it “Scenes”.

Say I have a song that consists of the following scenes: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. Let’s say that all my verses and bridge use the same drum pattern. Instead of copying it for 30 measures or so, I can simply create it, and input it into my scene called “verse”. Using the looping feature on Ableton I can then add other instruments (bass, keys etc). Since the bridge will also have the same drum pattern, I don’t need to do anything with it. I’ll just add my new bass line and whatever additional instruments I want to the scene called “bridge”. Then I would do the same for the chorus.

Once all my scenes have been created, I can just copy & paste them into the measure they belong. Or I can convert each part (already separated by bars) to audio and sequence them into their corresponding measure on another program (Cubase, Garagband etc.).

I found this system of working very convenient for my dance and electronica productions. However the downside was that for some reason I couldn’t get Ableton to recognize my midi out port from my Mbox 2. It could recognize my midi in but not the midi out.

Another problem was that once I had all these scenes and instruments programmed, I could only convert to audio 1 track at a time. This may not be a problem with the full version of Ableton, but it did slow my productivity.

Garagband:

You may have read on previous post how much I love Garageband. Although it is not a “do-all” system, Garageband is in my opinion the best recording system out there to get your ideas recorded with the least amount of technical hassle or “know-how”. You don’t need to fumble around your hard for that perfect bass sound or Hyper synth. Apple created this program with high quality software instrument (you’ll find some of them on their mother ship Logic).

How many times have you had a really cool guitar part or melody and wanted to put it on tape with a good drum and bass reference only to find yourself spending a good 30 minutes or more looking for the right sound or preparing tracks and uploading different virtual instruments. With Garageband you don’t even need to leave the main window. Everything is right there for you.

Because Garageband is so efficient in getting my ideas recorded quickly, I wound up producing about 15 songs in less than 3 months. However, it was when I began to back-up the tracks for all  those songs that I realized one of the biggest draw-backs of Garageband. That is, single track recording instead of multi-track. You can only record one track at a time in Garageband, so when I needed to convert all those virtual instruments to audio, I found myself in one long excruciating process.

I learned a long time ago that you should always bounce your virtual instruments to audio so that if 10 years from now you need to come back to the song and those software instruments no longer work for whatever reason, you still have the audio. One of the best ways to do this is by sending each VST to a separate bus channel, then creating audio tracks for each one and recording them all at the same time to their corresponding audio tracks. Garageband doesn’t offer this.

Another drawback in Garageband is the lack of midi out. I have a Korg Triton which has some great sounds that I like to use. However the only way I can use it with Garageband is by playing it live. Which means that if I mess up a note or two, I have to re-record it instead of just editing the note through midi. I’m hoping Apple will notice the hundreds of request they get on their forum regarding this feature and add it soon.

Protools and Cubase:

In the end, I found myself going back to the programs I originally started working with. Cubase was the first DAW I used when I got serious about digital music production. I love the fact that there are thousands of VST’s out there that you can use on this program, and it is in my opinion the best software to use when it comes to midi sequencing. Unfortunately, I only have an old PC version and I never got around to getting one for my Mac.

Pro-tools as everyone knows has been the industry standard ever since it came out. That’s not to say it’s the best (I personally am not a fan of it midi implementation), however just as with Cubase you can set up templates using various software instruments like Structure and EZDrummer in which you can get your ideas recorded some-what quick. And with the introduction of Pro Tools 8, it looks like they’ll be making that process even easier.

Many folks will argue that the best system that incorporates the ease of Garageband with the quality of Pro Tools is Logic Pro. And in many respects I have to agree. This program is in fact made by Apple. The same folks that brought you Garageband, and Logic has been a top quality program for decades. I used it briefly until Apple purchased it and it became a Mac only program, which is not a big deal for me, but a huge let-down for PC owners. Another issue with these high-end program is the price. As much as I would like to give the new Logic Pro 8 a work-out, right now I can’t see myself dishing out $500 for “yet another program”.

In conclusion, I’m currently using Pro-Tools LE to sequence and record my music. I’m bouncing all my RTAS (pro-tools virtual instruments) to audio in one sweep, and believe it or not I’m mixing it in Garageband. That’s right Garageband.

For some reason that’s beyond my limited technical know-how, I find that my mixes on Garageband sound way much better than those I do in PT or Cubase. This may be sacrilegious to engineers and they might even say that it’s because I don’t know what I’m doing.But I think the real reason is simply that I may have learned how capture the sounds I’m looking for easier on Garageband. Whatever the reason is, I’m happy with my results.