• Registered: 2017-02-28
  • Posts: 146

Topic: Best DAW from a pure performance standpoint (for live work).

Sure there are tons of factors when choosing a DAW, involving your personal requirements, different features, options, aesthetics, etc. But if we throw away all the different features, is it possible to name a DAW (PC) that is the most stable with the lowest latency settings? ASIO - Cubase, no? Or they all are more or less the same in this regards?

My personal agenda is playing and recording a virtual piano, one track usually, no more than 8 tracks in some rare cases (everyday practice, composition). Low latency settings and stability are at very high priority. For the workflow I prefer Ableton Live.

Regards,
Andrei

www.youtube.com/pianopictures

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
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  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 12,891

Re: Best DAW from a pure performance standpoint (for live work).

With this small amount of tracks and only 1 VST instrument you should IMHO not have to worry about this in any way.
Better look what suits your expectations best in terms of workflow, features and what not. Tastes are different.

Maybe better ask this in a recording forum which covers topics like this. The RME forum is only about RME products.

From RME perspective their products give you a value no matter which DAW you use.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • tzzsmk
  • tzzsmk
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  • Registered: 2016-03-14
  • Posts: 139

Re: Best DAW from a pure performance standpoint (for live work).

as I've been using various RME interfaces on various platforms, here's my point of view:
Cockos Reaper DAW is undoubtedly best in terms of resource usage, way ahead Cubase, Studio One or Sonar, but the way it's designed I'm not sure it would be too suitable for live performance (looping and other stuff), though I've been using it with plugins (reverb and various delays mostly, quite performance heavy) playing on rehearsals with band,
if you want Ableton-like workflow, then definitely check Bitwig Studio,
speaking of latency, nowadays DAWs are pretty much all capable of literally zero latency loopback - latency introduced is caused by system audio mode (ASIO, CoreAudio), audio interface (RME is among best for low roundtrip latency), but mostly by plugins themselves - some companies focus on high quality mixing/mastering stuff which is often not even usable for realtime playback, definitely spend time researching plugins which will perform well for the task you require

HDSPe AIO, ADI-2 DAC, Fireface UFX, Octamic D, Octamic II
Reaper, Windows 11, M2 Studio
  • Registered: 2017-02-28
  • Posts: 146

Re: Best DAW from a pure performance standpoint (for live work).

@@ ramses, tzzsmk
Thank you. By "live work" I did not exactly mean looping and stuff, I had in mind playing the piano software mostly. I see that they are mostly all the same in terms of latency, I'm aware about Reaper resource usage, although not exactly a big fan of their MIDI implementation. I got the point, maybe I was expecting something like, say, RME sure did some tests so maybe there is some technical data, like, Steinberg being the developer of ASIO, maybe have the best sort of low level implementation or something. Ok, I see.