Which DAW should I get?

[bob32069]

Hello and thanks in advance to anyone who can give me some advice about this before I start forking out big handfuls of cash.

I am starting from scratch and want to know which DAW to buy. Of note, I have not yet bought an audio interface yet either. I am not intending to be a professional, just an amateur hobbyist.

I am planning to use the system mainly for recording acoustic guitar (mostly nylon string) and vocals on the one hand, as well as using virtual instruments to compose/produce classical music. As such, I think I would need a DAW with a good score editor. I do a lot of writing in Sibelius but am unsatisfied with the way the Sibelius Kontakt player sounds. Therfore, I would like to write music using a score editor and then output through VSTs.

Let me first mention that I am running Windows Vista 32 (I know there's not a lot of support for this yet, but I am hoping that there will be more in the future, plus I really like its other features). I have an Intel Core 2 Duo e6400 processor (i think it's 2.4 GHz), 3 GB RAM, with 500 GB 7200 RPM HD.

After a lot of research, my initial thought process was to buy a Focusrite Saffire interface, which comes with Cubase LE, becaue I had heard that Cubase had the best score editor, and once I get up to snuff with LE (and come up with more cash) I would then purchase Cubase Studio 4 or Cubase 4. But then it seems that Cubase seems to have a problem with hyperthreading dual core processors and I am not savvy enough to go into my BIOS and fiddle with that. I know that Sonar is compatible with Vista, but I have heard it does not have good score editing.

SO having done a lot of research, I am more uncertain now than before I started.

Sorry about the rambling, but I thought it would be helpful to provide some details.

Thanks all-

Bob

[sabianq]

I really like my Adobe Audition 2.0
it does everything i want it to do and the programming is fantastic, super stable and very powerful.

I have Sonar 5 producer edition and I don't even use it.

[87PRS]

for mixing and editing and I use AA 2.0 (www.adobe.com)I have no idea about Vista compatibilty
but I am running Core2Duo computer.


are you going to use... usb, firewire or pc card?
how many microphone plug ins required
phantom power for lcd required?

buying an interface similar to Focusrite may be best, add your software and go from there...with Vista, check your software drivers make sure they work...hope this helps a little, have fun and welcome to the audioforums.

[jmail]

You'll not find much of anything Vista "compatible" just yet. See the Vista threads here (http://www.audioforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=44)...

[itsplayed]

Sonar is probably your best bet with Vista. You can test drive Sonar's score editor using the demo. It's a fully working demo that has the save function disabled.

[sonarman]

I have XP Pro but know the latest Sonar was designed compatible with Vista. Love my Sonar 6 but also go back to the good ole Adobe Audition for certain things (especially restoration and noise elimination of old stuff archived from the analog tape days).
Best of luck. Let us know what you decide on.

[bob32069]

thanks to everyone who replied. i am currently testdriving the Reaper DAW. This is shareware available for download at cockos.com. Registration costs 40 dollars. It is an amazing piece of software and has met all my needs so far. you all should check it out.

bob32069