If I were primarily on a Mac I would absolutely be using GarageBand/Logic. That’s partially because I used GB before learning Reaper, though. I’m really happy with Reaper so far.
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Same here. As it is, I’m not going for anything more complicated than Audacity.
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Given all the good full DAWs on Windows it strikes me as bizarre to hackintosh just to get GarageBand 
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i can see that. but i also think that if you can get around the steep learning curve of a lot of these, that it might be worth it.
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I vaguely recall trying that Garageband for Windows last year and found it to be rather janky. I’m happy with Audacity… it’s easy to learn and use, and does everything I need in a DAW.
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I’ve pretty much slowed down on using DAWS, as I have generally gone from digital more to analog over time. But if get ideas etc and want to layer it all up, I have ableton lite, and while I understand it and can generate stuff, I think I’m still in the learning curve territory.
As well as that, I have a really old version of acid pro music which is easier purely because I used it first, and I have a copy of Mixcraft as well, which is really similar to acid pro.
But now I’m firmly in physical analog bass land, I generally jam organically with other people now. Though I should really brush up again and put a few things down and record something just so I remember how to do it!
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@itsratso Thanks. I’ve mostly settled on Audacity for now.
It is nice to know this option exists but my current laptop is so old, if I tried to run…
Garageband
on top of
Sierra
on top of
VMWare
on top of
Windows 10
It would probably just die right in front of me. 
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I used GarageBand a bit in the past, but am switching to Ableton, merely because a band mate uses that and I’m thinking of moving away from Mac (I’m 50/50 on Win/Mac devices at the minute). Seems ok so far. Don’t do much except record bass right now anyway.
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I really wanted to spend some time getting into Ableton (and I will, just not yet), but for now I’ve been more and more happy with GarageBand on iOS!
Reasons being that I don’t get distracted by switching to a browser to ‘just quickly look something up’.
And because it’s somewhat simplified I’ve spent very little time learning a DAW and more time thinking about… learning bass!
I’m actually thinking of picking up an ipad just for music, I’ve been enjoying it that much (just not my tiny iphone screen!).
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This was why I ended up going with Audacity. I didn’t want learning a DAW to take away from my real goal… Bass.
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- I tried GarageBand for Windows… Yuck
- Checked out Adobe Audition. It’s cool, but don’t want to pay monthly fee to use it
- I tried Abelton … too complicated and too many features I’ll never use
- Have been using Audacity and made several recordings during the past 10 months. It’s simple to learn and use, but lacking in a few features
- Just recently switched to Reaper on the advice of a few B2Bers, and am obsessively learning to use it. So far, I really like it.
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GarageBand on iOS is great! I used to use it as a little drum machine on my phone.
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Apart from Audacity not doing MIDI, what features are you missing?
Dammit, I already have too many things taking away time from bass practice… 
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Audacity cannot do MIDI or virtual instruments. That alone kills it for me.
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Which is why I asked “apart from Audacity not doing MIDI”.
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It cannot do virtual instruments at all, midi or otherwise. It cannot load VSTi’s. I also think its normal VST support is super limited for virtual amps and effects. It does have its own plugin thing though.
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I know.
I was already under the impression that, if you want to use Audacity, you will have to bring and play your own instruments and model your own sound, so to speak. I’m looking at it as a substitution for a multitrack recorder.
As far as I can figure out (which may not be very far), it does that very well, and without the learning curve that comes with Audacity. 
So I’m trying to figure out what it would be lacking in terms of recording music you make yourself, and if there are other solutions that offer the same features, but better.
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Yep, as a simple recorder it is fine as far as I can tell.
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That’s the impression that I overall got when listening (reading) to other peoples conversations about DAW.
One question remains though: I get why one upgrades from Audacity to Reaper, but apart from “well, I got a license with my DAI” I don’t see a reason to learn Ableton. Why would I want to learn Ableton instead of Reaper?
Just a matter of preference/choice or is there actually something to the clunky interface that gives one more possibilities? It seems very much like even if the Ableton feature set is bigger compared to Reaper that those are features us hobby producers wouldn’t use anyway.
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