Our favorite sequencers for music production - What are the best DAWs?

Price: €50 to €200, depending on the version you choose
PC – 32 and 64 bits

Sonic Foundry developed Acid upon the concept of the loop sequencer invented by Magix in 1994. It then took it to the next level and added pitch shifting and time stretching capabilities. This very effective and intuitive tool won many musicians and beginners in spite of its poor GUI. When Sony bought it to turn it into the foundations of its video editing suite Vega, Acid became progressively a more comprehensive tool, but it lost many of its advantages in terms of design and it never did catch up with the competition.

Live was a revolution when it came out because it took the sequencer from the studio (where it had historically lived) to the world of live music. Ableton’s sequencer quickly became a real institution and the favorite sequencer of numerous DJs and electronic musicians who use it both on stage and in the studio, alone or as a complement to their setup. Its main advantage? The pad matrix and the features allowing you to compose and arrange a song in real time, but also the integration of Max4Live, an effects and instruments bundle created with MaxMSP and conceived especially to increase greatly the software’s possibilities. Another advantage is that you can find many controllers (from Akai and Novation, for example) and iPad apps dedicated to Live. Its disadvantage? A strong predisposition to binary rhythms and music styles. Plus, it’s not the best tool to write symphonic or jazz music…

Since it was bought by Apple (who sells Logic at a very low price to market Mac computers), Logic certainly has one the best quality/performance/price ratios in the market — under the condition that you have a Mac and that you are wishing to make do with a product that has had no updates in two years (with Apple showing no sign of trying to reassure its users). Its advantages? A very accurate management of complex audio/MIDI setups in the Environment window, the Mainstage utility for live performances and recording, a powerful score editor and some quality plug-ins, especially delay effects. Its disadvantages? A very uncertain future, which is an open invitation to not spend your money in a platform that could end as Garageband Pro or iLogic and losing many of its features. This wouldn’t come as a surprise considering the general outcry caused by Final Cut Pro version X…

Cakewalk Music Creator Touch

Price: $50
PC – 32 and 64 bits

Magix Music Maker

Price: €60 to €100
PC – 32 and 64 bits

 

Developed by Winamp’s author and the Gnutella network, Reaper is not only one of the most affordable sequencers on the market, it’s also (and above all) the most customizable in terms of GUI and features. It enjoys an extremely active community and many modules, skins and add-ons to cater to the taste and needs of every user. It misses no major feature and it includes the excellent Reaplugs bundle. Moreover, Reaper comes with an extremely versatile audio engine — for example audio and MIDI can coexist on a single track, and the routing options can easily compete with what others have to offer. Some users will certainly miss a score editor and a bunch of virtual instruments, while the complex aspect might confuse beginners, but all these disadvantages are easily compensated by an amazing value for money and an honest sales strategy: a fully functional demo version and no limited light nor studio version. Regardless of the license you purchase, the program always offers the same features. But where is the difference? Your moral commitment to pay the developers of the software depending on your use of it. If you’re using Reaper in professional projects, you’ll have to pay $250. If you’re an amateur user, you’ll pay only $60. And when it comes to the demo version, the developers trust your moral commitment and a small pop-up window opens to encourage you to buy the product. Such an open sales strategy will be hard to find elsewhere, regardless of the performance and price of the product.

 

Limited to audio processing for a long period, Samplitude has been including MIDI sequencing since versions 8–9. What sets it apart from the rest is the concept of audio object, which proves to be very powerful and has a great impact on the way you record, edit and mix music: apart from standard channel and bus features, each audio clip has its own inserts, sends, automation data, and non-destructive processing. Besides this, the software is also quite original in its offer of effects and instruments bundles, which are far ahead of most competitors in terms of audio quality. What’s not to like about the integration of the Independence sampler and the excellent Yellow Tools sound banks or the plentiful and really powerful plug-ins included? If that weren’t enough, you also get spectral editing, restoration and mastering/authoring functions, which put the software on another level. Samplitude is reliable and powerful, even though somewhat too technical in its design and approach. Taking that into consideration, it serves better experienced engineers than music newbies. Final note: the most interesting version, including Independence, a 70GB sound library, Vandal and the Analogue Modelling Suite Plus plug-ins) is sold for €949, which is quite a bit higher compared to other options.

Called Magix Music Studio or Samplitude Music Studio, it’s sort of Samplitude for the poor. But still a good option to be considered as a first sequencer because it includes all essential production tools (among which are a pitch editor with formant-protection function, quite rare in this price category) and the famous object-based editing from Samplitude’s audio engine. The product has a lot of good features and a consistent bundle considering the price. However, the GUI and overall design might seem a bit too complex for beginners.

Sequel is Steinberg’s answer to Apple’s GarageBand. It includes everything to fulfill the needs of the mass-market. Plus, it adds some interesting features in terms of instruments (besides the ROM-player Halion Sonic SE, you also get the drum sampler Groove Agent One, both taken directly from Cubase), sequencing tools (Beat Designer for rhythm editing, Step Envelopes for automation editing) and live performance features (Quick Control panels and pad matrix to trigger arrangement parts in real-time, like in Ableton Live). Bundled with many loops, Sequel’s main drawbacks are its much too basic effects and that it supports third-party plug-ins in VST3 format only. But, considering that most of them support only VST2, the question of whether Steinberg was afraid that Sequel would get in the way of Cubase’s light version keeps ringing in our heads… Without VST2 support, we can hardly recommend Sequel, even if it only costs €75…