UPDATE: Please see the new DAW Feature Chart for more up-to-date information and a way cooler chart.

I’ve done a couple projects in DP 9.12, Studio One 3.3.1 and Cubase 8.5.20 recently. I’ve spent some serious time investigating my workflow(s) and manual re-reading. I also went through and read the changelogs and watched the video trailer for the last many versions of each product.

I purchased an iPad Pro 9.7” and subsequently I’ve been using the remote control apps available again. That has had a huge influence on my work for the better. It is really an amazing thing to use when you don’t have an assistant.

My time spent in each DAW as a percentage, according to Time Sink has been:

  • Studio One - 43%
  • Cubase 26%
  • DP - 21%
  • Renoise - 12%

There may be a bit of a rounding error there ;)

Overall I’ve become a good bit less annoyed with Studio One. Largely because I’ve had someone go over how to basically totally avoid using drag&drop at all. I also have not had a single crash with 3.3.1. If you read my last post about Studio One, then you may be surprised by how much I’ve been using it. Yeah, I am too. I should revisit that post soon to help clarify the things that I’ve come to understand about the software, and some of the really useful workflow improvements I’ve discovered in it. Largely though… if the documentation wasn’t so incredibly awful, I probably would have liked S1 a lot more than I did 4 months ago. 3.3.1 being very stable also has made a difference in how patient I’ve been able to be while using it.

Cubase has been crashing a lot lately for some reason. I have not yet been able to figure it out.

Still, DP is king in my book. I will still use Studio One until Motu does something about the awful multi-track editing and comping (comparatively) in DP. Where it matters to me though, DP is definitely the best.

So here’s the updated DAW Comparison chart.