Rick Campbell wrote:
I think there's a place for both.
RC
A tad long but maybe a good read LOL
Yep fully agree. A discussion of which is better , or which is easier to use etc.. is kinda irrelevant.
There really is only ONE question- What exactly am I trying or wanting to do, what is my goal ? "Whats best for me" ?
We read often- "I don't need all those Bells and Whistles" - which of course are features and not needless additions , then of course a simple 4 or 8 track workstation is going to be "your new best friend". An amazing amount of music a can be produced on a simple workstation, and it will sound great ( if recorded properly)
Then we have "the PC issue is not for me" And if we are not PC literate then stay away from a PC based DAW. IF the PC ain't up to snuff, or maintained, the DAW will be hanging on for dear life. But in those cases, we usually blame the DAW software.
Software is a funny thing, ALL SOFTWARE . I've been using MS products, Word, Excel and Power Point for years, my in depth knowledge of each of those packages is probably somewhere between 25 and 50%. I've never needed to get into the weeds. And I'll bet thats the same for most of us here. BUT when we talk about a PC Based DAW, everyone runs for cover, " Oh MY God look at all of the stuff I have to learn "
Nope, same thing applies, once the software is loaded and operating, just like ANY PC based software package, we learn and use what it is we need to be productive. WE DON'T LEARN EVERY FEATURE AND OPERATION.
I started my recording life at about age 10 with a Pentron 7" reel to reel, recording with a mic in front of the AM radio. It probably took a dozen attempts before I actually got a clean recording instead of a totally distorted recording. That simple process/principle is still the #1 thing we need to learn be it a workstation or PC based DAW. If its distorted, it ain't the workstation or the DAW.
My recording tenure had me with multiple Recorders , Tape Decks, Workstations etc over the years, the process and principle is exactly the same. CLEAN SIGNAL.
I started using DAW software in the mid 90's, it was Cakewalk on floppy disks. I had it synced to a Teac 80-8 at the time. Then in early 2000's I moved to Cubase, then to Sonar, then , in 2009, Musicians Friend had Pro Tools 8 , full version with perpetual License , for $150. That was it for me. Sonar is a good package and I found that my experience with it made Pro Tools pretty simple. The one thing that Pro Tools had and still does, is the editing feature. Its the software feature that to me made perfect sense, still does. Sometimes we "CLICK" with software, sometimes we don't. In this case, I clicked.
I ran PT 8 on XP ( max 4 gig ram) right up to 2015. Thats when I moved to Pro Tools 12 on WIN 7 with I believe 10 or 12 gig or ram and an SD drive for the OP system and PT software. I built the WIN 7 PC specifically for PT 12. That system is still running today, same PC, same PT 12. No other programs for daily use and no active internet connection, and UPDATES OFF. I can go to may AVID account and grab some PT12 updates but after reading what they do, I didn't bother. One thing I have done for many years now is record sessions to an external drive. By the way, the PT 8 on XP, while retired, is still functional .
The only workstation I now have is a Zoom R16 which I haven't used in a very long time, but its a valuable tool for me to keep around, cause ya never know .
I've run sessions for me, my wife, my band, friends etc, and I still do E Sessions now and then, all on the PT 12 system.
So the argument is not which is better , Workstation or PC Based DAW, the question is which is better for YOU and which one best fits your life !
My system has a 28" Monitor, I'm not returning to a small LED window anytime soon !