Olympum
Active Member
There isn’t one. Simple. Moving on ... however ...
I have been on this quest to find the perfect DAW for me, and learnt a few things along the way. I work with orchestral samples, and I like to have two or three choices available to me for every orchestral section. And even though I work with articulation switching, I end up with hundreds of virtual instruments and tracks. My main criteria is to be able to efficiently manage my ability to change sounds for instruments, for example to replace a horn, to bring in a bass flute, etc. I work with a base template (Berlin and other Teldex libraries), and I layer on top from Synchron and others.
I have looked into Logic Pro, Cubase, Studio One and Digital Perfomer, both with VEP and without. I am concerned with CPU in idle mode, while playing and at RAM usage. And here my main learnings:
* Logic Pro with its dynamic plugin loading makes it excellent for medium sized templates (400-1000 tracks). Custom instrument patches makes it possible to have empty tracks, pre-routed, and simply swap instruments. I find navigation and visibility are a bit behind, but otherwise Logic is the best at this: idle CPU is almost zero by switching the audio off for not engaged tracks, and playback CPU is optimal for avoiding dropouts, particularly in Apple silicon where it avoids the efficiency cores and only loads performance cores (something important for plugins such as the Synchron Player). Finally, Logic Pro and VEP are a bit of a challenge, and even though one can get a multi-timbral setup working, Logic steers you into the one track per instrument, and in fact one VEP project per instrument. This yields the best resource (CPU and RAM) utilisation possible given Logic’s audio system.
* Cubase 12 and 13 has the best support for running large template, and navigation and visibility are excellent. The issue is that idle CPU with VST3s VIs becomes high as soon as you have 150 instruments on, which is not unusual for me in an orchestral track. This might be different in Windows, but at least in MacOS, switching 150 tracks with VSTi plugins, brings my CPU to 50% just on idle. Cubase support for VEP is excellent and makes Cubase a completely different program at high track count. Unlike Logic, Cubase only puts VST effects to nap, not instruments, which continue consuming CPU on idle and play whether there is audio or not present, which makes using VEP a requirement as soon as you cross the 100 active tracks (M1 Max).
* Studio One is not yet there in order to manage large templates, and only works well in the 100-500 tracks. The tracks preset is very neat, and almost as good as Logic Pro, except in Logic you can decide whether to merge the routing or not when you bring a custom patch, whereas in Studio One it brings everything along, whether you like it or not. I also find that adding track presets to a large template is painfully slow and therefore not very practical, hence you need a template with 100s of tracks which makes visibility operations sluggish. Navigation is better than Logic but not as good as Cubase. Finally, VST3 performance is identical to Cubase on idle, and a bit worse on play, whereas with AU it is able to shutdown the plugins and idle performance is very good, whereas stability is not (I assume because most AUs are not tested with Studio One). Studio One has most of the MIDI capabilities of Cubase, but the use of AU makes it more CPU friendly. The project saving plugin cache is also very neat and makes saves instantaneous.
* Digital Performer is a strange beast. Pre-gen works surprisingly well, and with AU or MAS plugins idle CPU is very low. Visibility, navigation are however super hard, and I can’t find my way around it. And once you had chunks and VEP, you lose pre-gen in AUX channels, so performance quickly goes down the drain. Articulation management is ahead of the pack of delay per art. But altogether, the package is not well thought.
To sum it up, in 2024 all these DAWs are phenomenal (this is not meant to be a DAW war post), but each excels in different applications:
1. For a local only template, Logic Pro is the clear winner.
2. For a VEP based template, Cubase is the clear winner.
3. If you want Cubase-like MIDI editing in a mid-sized locally disabled template, Studio One is the winner.
4. For a large locally disabled template, I did not find a good option.
Personally, I had been using Cubase/VEP, but I became tired of managing VEP. After a brief period of trying to get Logic Pro to work for me, I finally have given up for Studio One, as I miss the Cubase-like MIDI editing capabilities. This is totally personal preference. I only wish Cubase would support AU ...
I hope this helps others in their own quest. But perhaps others have different conclusions?
I have been on this quest to find the perfect DAW for me, and learnt a few things along the way. I work with orchestral samples, and I like to have two or three choices available to me for every orchestral section. And even though I work with articulation switching, I end up with hundreds of virtual instruments and tracks. My main criteria is to be able to efficiently manage my ability to change sounds for instruments, for example to replace a horn, to bring in a bass flute, etc. I work with a base template (Berlin and other Teldex libraries), and I layer on top from Synchron and others.
I have looked into Logic Pro, Cubase, Studio One and Digital Perfomer, both with VEP and without. I am concerned with CPU in idle mode, while playing and at RAM usage. And here my main learnings:
* Logic Pro with its dynamic plugin loading makes it excellent for medium sized templates (400-1000 tracks). Custom instrument patches makes it possible to have empty tracks, pre-routed, and simply swap instruments. I find navigation and visibility are a bit behind, but otherwise Logic is the best at this: idle CPU is almost zero by switching the audio off for not engaged tracks, and playback CPU is optimal for avoiding dropouts, particularly in Apple silicon where it avoids the efficiency cores and only loads performance cores (something important for plugins such as the Synchron Player). Finally, Logic Pro and VEP are a bit of a challenge, and even though one can get a multi-timbral setup working, Logic steers you into the one track per instrument, and in fact one VEP project per instrument. This yields the best resource (CPU and RAM) utilisation possible given Logic’s audio system.
* Cubase 12 and 13 has the best support for running large template, and navigation and visibility are excellent. The issue is that idle CPU with VST3s VIs becomes high as soon as you have 150 instruments on, which is not unusual for me in an orchestral track. This might be different in Windows, but at least in MacOS, switching 150 tracks with VSTi plugins, brings my CPU to 50% just on idle. Cubase support for VEP is excellent and makes Cubase a completely different program at high track count. Unlike Logic, Cubase only puts VST effects to nap, not instruments, which continue consuming CPU on idle and play whether there is audio or not present, which makes using VEP a requirement as soon as you cross the 100 active tracks (M1 Max).
* Studio One is not yet there in order to manage large templates, and only works well in the 100-500 tracks. The tracks preset is very neat, and almost as good as Logic Pro, except in Logic you can decide whether to merge the routing or not when you bring a custom patch, whereas in Studio One it brings everything along, whether you like it or not. I also find that adding track presets to a large template is painfully slow and therefore not very practical, hence you need a template with 100s of tracks which makes visibility operations sluggish. Navigation is better than Logic but not as good as Cubase. Finally, VST3 performance is identical to Cubase on idle, and a bit worse on play, whereas with AU it is able to shutdown the plugins and idle performance is very good, whereas stability is not (I assume because most AUs are not tested with Studio One). Studio One has most of the MIDI capabilities of Cubase, but the use of AU makes it more CPU friendly. The project saving plugin cache is also very neat and makes saves instantaneous.
* Digital Performer is a strange beast. Pre-gen works surprisingly well, and with AU or MAS plugins idle CPU is very low. Visibility, navigation are however super hard, and I can’t find my way around it. And once you had chunks and VEP, you lose pre-gen in AUX channels, so performance quickly goes down the drain. Articulation management is ahead of the pack of delay per art. But altogether, the package is not well thought.
To sum it up, in 2024 all these DAWs are phenomenal (this is not meant to be a DAW war post), but each excels in different applications:
1. For a local only template, Logic Pro is the clear winner.
2. For a VEP based template, Cubase is the clear winner.
3. If you want Cubase-like MIDI editing in a mid-sized locally disabled template, Studio One is the winner.
4. For a large locally disabled template, I did not find a good option.
Personally, I had been using Cubase/VEP, but I became tired of managing VEP. After a brief period of trying to get Logic Pro to work for me, I finally have given up for Studio One, as I miss the Cubase-like MIDI editing capabilities. This is totally personal preference. I only wish Cubase would support AU ...
I hope this helps others in their own quest. But perhaps others have different conclusions?
hahahaha! I read a scientific article that clearly stipulated "surprised" face works in enticing views, particularly sensitive composers. 
