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Tracktion Waveform 12 Free - now available


abacab

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1 hour ago, abacab said:

And it's a rather affordable $99 upgrade from Prime to Studio One Artist, which does include VST support now. That's $50 less than the full Waveform Pro. And Artist is bundled with some PreSonus audio interfaces.

Overall I think that Studio One offers a better workflow and feature set. And a user manual.

Since the AudioBox USB 96 is $100, it makes sense to just buy that to get Artist instead of doing the upgrade (while it’s still available).  https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AudioBox25--presonus-audiobox-usb-96-usb-audio-interface-25th-anniversary-edition

Note that the newer cheapest interface (AudioBox GO) doesn’t include Artist.  I assume once the existing stock of the AudioBox (USB 96, iOne, iTwo) sells out (eventually, but may not be soon), you’ll have to shell out more to get Artist bundled.

I agree with your assessment of Studio One.

Back to the OP, Waveform is still the best option for a multi-platform free DAW with VST support.

Edited by ALC
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Don't forget Reaper! The discounted license is only $60 for the whole functionality and that for years of updates (not like Mixbus that requires money for almost each update).

Also, if I compare the performance of Waveform to Reaper, then I get sleepy with the WF's plugin scan and startup time! The functionality seems also somehow limited if I look at the track controls. Last but not least some of the text in WF is almost unreadable for me when I test it on my laptop. The complicated offline license workflow (by support) for WF Free is also strange IMO. All in all, it seems to be nothing for me!

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4 hours ago, marled said:

Don't forget Reaper! The discounted license is only $60 for the whole functionality and that for years of updates (not like Mixbus that requires money for almost each update).

Also, if I compare the performance of Waveform to Reaper, then I get sleepy with the WF's plugin scan and startup time! The functionality seems also somehow limited if I look at the track controls. Last but not least some of the text in WF is almost unreadable for me when I test it on my laptop. The complicated offline license workflow (by support) for WF Free is also strange IMO. All in all, it seems to be nothing for me!

I think Studio One has a better feature set and workflow than either of them. :)

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1 minute ago, abacab said:

For Windows only!

True ... In our band we get around that by also using REAPER. 2 members are MAC only. Works great. Would be nice if there was a CW to Reaper native project import/export. There is a third party utility alright, not as streamlined as if a full native import/export was available

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27 minutes ago, aidan o driscoll said:

True ... In our band we get around that by also using REAPER. 2 members are MAC only. Works great. Would be nice if there was a CW to Reaper native project import/export. There is a third party utility alright, not as streamlined as if a full native import/export was available

Obviously only an issue for collaboration with those on other platforms. I have always used Windows myself, but I can understand the issue. There still doesn't appear to be a workable standard for cross-DAW project interchange. Haven't had to deal with that personally, but maybe this might help a bit:

Cakewalk's new Control Bar takes all the pain out of exporting stems.

"Cakewalk has always had advanced export options, but now that functionality has been streamlined into a Control Bar module that simplifies exporting projects and, perhaps more importantly, stems."

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/cakewalk-export-stems-control-bar

Edited by abacab
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Yes @abacab ... The stems thing on REAPER side is good, basically making separate WAV track from a midi track and it mutes the orig midi track. A project with just all WAV tracks is easier then to load in CW.

This also gets around the situation where we all have different plugins. However doesnt get around a situation where ( in our case ) we decided on a suite of plugs we all have and use in shared projects. The possible way there is to export the .MID project from say Reaper and load into CW, but then you have to reassign all the plugs and settings. It would be nice if you could export the project tracks with plugs and settings to say CW or visa versa and IF both people used same plugs it would just work.

As you said the "standards" are not great eg OMF, AAF. OMF is a disaster TBH

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19 minutes ago, aidan o driscoll said:

However doesnt get around a situation where ( in our case ) we decided on a suite of plugs we all have and use in shared projects. The possible way there is to export the .MID project from say Reaper and load into CW, but then you have to reassign all the plugs and settings.

I understand that doesn't get around the MIDI side of things.

But if each collaborator is working on a different instrument part or section, hopefully they can bake any necessary plugins into their wave files before exporting. So that whoever is doing the final mix only has to assemble all of the audio stems, and apply final mixing & mastering plugins.

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Indeed @abacab  .. which is pretty much the way we work. BUT it would be nice if during the creative stage of developing the track we could all back and forth with the live plugins and same settings. A WAV as you said is baked and cannot be "edited" by another, has to be rebaked and sent back to all each time which can screw up the creative flow :D 

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4 minutes ago, aidan o driscoll said:

Indeed @abacab  .. which is pretty much the way we work. BUT it would be nice if during the creative stage of developing the track we could all back and forth with the live plugins and same settings. A WAV as you said is baked and cannot be "edited" by another, has to be rebaked and sent back to all each time which can screw up the creative flow :D 

No doubt! Good luck! :)

Everyone use Reaper! Problem solved! ?

Edited by abacab
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2 hours ago, abacab said:

I think Studio One has a better feature set and workflow than either of them. :)

That is your opinion! ? There are also a couple of things in Reaper you cannot do in SO, 2nd there is quite a price difference and last but not least SO cannot match Reaper's startup/plugin scan performance. Also installation and authorization is quite painful compared to Reaper! Do you need more arguments? ?

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1 hour ago, abacab said:

"Cakewalk has always had advanced export options,

That is really true. A couple of years ago this was one of the crucial argument for me to make my decision for Sonar. I like this logical way of export where the user has all the options what shall be included. Also inline bouncing is that way. Those are the best solutions I have seen in all the DAWs that I inspected.

1 hour ago, abacab said:

but now that functionality has been streamlined into a Control Bar module that simplifies exporting projects and, perhaps more importantly, stems."

Still I am not so comfortable with the Control Bar module and the new export dialog. It happens often that I overlook something and that the result is not as expected. Most of the issues are caused by values that I changed from the preset. With the new dialog those values are reset to the preset if you open export again. In the old Sonar dialog they were kept.

Edited by marled
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48 minutes ago, marled said:

That is your opinion! ? There are also a couple of things in Reaper you cannot do in SO, 2nd there is quite a price difference and last but not least SO cannot match Reaper's startup/plugin scan performance. Also installation and authorization is quite painful compared to Reaper! Do you need more arguments? ?

DAW Wars, Episode IV.

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