Here’s my list:
Best DAW for audio recording and editing: Studio One Professional
Best DAW for building midi loops and clips: FL Studio
Best DAW for sample sequencing and precision control automation: Renoise
Best DAW for modular sound experimentation: Reason
Because the results are up??
We’re #10!
New Renoise Slogan: Better than Acid.
Ahh dammit we didn’t beat pro tools. I like the fact that Reaper made it so high though.
What do you use reaper for?
These type of polls are always ridiculous, reminds me of the “best guitarist” polls where the guitarist from Korn or Metallica usually wins, even though somebody like Muhammed Suiçmez could very easily destroy them.
the best daw is:
all daws are different this means no BEST DAW in the world.
Ableton is far not the best but tha best popular is!
Protools is not thest best at all, but it is production standard in audio business
Renoise is THE Tracker
FLstudio is a point and click easy to learn software
Cubase is really kool and usefull too, sometimes it’s the standard
Reaper hmmm i did not like at all
Energy XT 2 is kool but fail when you waht to use hardwares … (out of sync)
Jeskola Buzz is the MODULAR Tracking Haven (i use it more the n 10 years)
so they are different… no best daw…
what i see is only Best for YOU and Popular for the crowd…
all daw ca ndo the job if you know well!
True story. About a year ago, little longer now, I was coming back into making music after a long hiatus (starcraft 2 came out, you see, and occupied my life for about 3 years. Then hots expansion came out and the graphics upgrade meant I couldn’t play at a decent framerate anymore. This jarred me out of my trance long enough to remember music existed.). I had since bought a PC, previously using an imac for music. So I went DAW shopping.
For a DAW that’s supposed to be point and click easy to learn, I sure couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to do the simple task of recording notes. And it’s like, something that’s hard to search for, because it’s apparently simple enough that noone talks about it. Maybe it was just so completely different from what I was used to that I couldn’t even imagine how different it was. I could probably figure it out now if I tried. But at the time I changed to a Cubase demo because I couldn’t figure out how to use FL studio, and Cubase I figured out in about 10 seconds.
It’s those damn kids man, they ruin everything 
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Funny, initially they didn’t have Renoise in the list.
Sent them a message thru FB, and they added it! 
If we’re talking legally acquired price friendly ones, I’d have to go with cool edit pro. If we’re talking something a fancy producer would get I have no idea, but I am a fan of Cubase. Certain versions come with recording hardware. For basic 2 track stereo recordings and converting audio formats I keep it simple with Sony SoundForge. For midi composed tracking you cannot beat Renoise though. Having separate tools for everything works best in my opinion. All encompassing tools like Ableton and Pro Tools are terribly bland to me. Then Reason and Record, well, if I ever could afford that I’d feel obligated to use it for everything as I would have dropped basically a whole studio’s fee to emulate and produce everything myself.
nvm
For me it’s generally Reaper. It creams anything out there hands down for what I use it for.
I use it for sound design and post at work all day, every day. We did a big shoot-out between all the big DAWS when we decided to move our workflow away from Vegas.
The massive surprises for us were that both Nuendo and ProTools were both hugely slow when it came to hardcore sound design for game assets and for sound to picture.
For music it’s Renoise for me, simply because I grew up with the tracker style mode of visualising music, it’s second nature.
Is it the best music package out there? Obviously not, it’s missing some very important features and flexibility but for me it’s the only way to truly enjoy the process, and therefore be freely creative when I’m working on music stuff. Its the most powerful, feature-rich tracker available and can produce world class results.
Ableton Live seems to live somewhere between Renoise and Reaper for me. It’s a decent DAW generally (though the PDC issues are diabolical) and the workflow with sample material is the best of any DAW for many types of music. I couldn’t imagine working on remix/crate digging stuff with anything else.
So, to my mind, there is not one all-powerful DAW out there. There are several that are great for different jobs. Reaper seems to cover the most ground though and it’s sheer flexibility gives it the edge over all of the other solutions out there.
Reaper.
I was surprised to see MuLab in that list. I’m not surprised that FL Studio is the most popular, and Ableton Live is sloppy seconds (my workhorse DAW). I’m partly pleased to see Renoise listed there, but then again some of Renoise’s appeal is that the tracker is such a niche interface that most people are intimidated and stay away. I like the fact that trackers fly under the radar.
renoise = unbeatable for sequencing and sample manipulation
reaper = everything audio …sequencing single shot samples on a timeline ( enable multiple items on track ) , timestretch ,pitch shift and glue to new item …wow