Recommended DAW for Keylab?

[hondobro]

Hello all, is there a particular DAW that most easily integrates with the keylab88?  I would appreciate any recommendations for someone who is replacing an all-in-one workstation keyboard with a controller+laptop and hasnt invested in any DAW yet.

[stuey]

Ask 3 people and they will give you 3 different answers.

Personally I prefer Pro Tools, the next guy may prefer Logic or Cubase, the next Digital Performer, Live or Reason etc etc

Best thing you can do is use them and make a decision based on that. Midi controllers will work in all of them, it just comes down to what you feel comfortable with. Perhaps if you've used an old desk for mixing, Pro Tools would suit you as it's set out very much like a desk. Logic and cubase are a little different. Logic is better for midi in my opinion, Pro Tools for tracking, but It's also about budget.

Happy hunting

Thanks, Stuart
 

[hondobro]

Thanks so much for your reply.  It's great to hear that there are many viable solution.  I wanted to make sure there wasn't an obvious choice with which the keylab88 and Analog Lab worked most easily before I bought.  I will take a close look at each software and go from there. Thanks again!

[maranite88]

Allow me to be one of those three people then....

I've tried Reaper and Bitwig so far, and Bitwig is hands-down better in terms of use with the Keylab. Bitwig "understands" the keylab and verything pretty much works without needing you to co figure it. Bitwig even supports categorized preset browsing (a-la AnalogLab) - and I'm shocked that Bitwig and Arturia aren't trumpeting this fact to the market.

Reaper, despite being my preferred DAW, is shocking. I've wasted weeks trying to get it to play nicely with the Keylab, with poor results. The folksover on  the cockos forum blame Arturia for not integrating with Reaper, but I've gone through the Reaper SDK and none of the features that Arturia would have needed are present (or, at least, visible and documented).

Your mileage may vary. Keyboard mag seem to think that Ableton trumps Bitwig, though I've yet to see any suggestion of integration between keylab and ableton. Logic apparently  works well to.

If you're using windows, start off trying bitwig!