DAWs

[GOA]

Which would be the best for psytrance? And where can I get some decent VSTs for cheap/free?

[weaselknot]

dammit, I hate to do this... but Fruityloops has never steered me wrong. If you have any music background- you'll have to forget some of the shit you think is right, I'm a classically trained piano major (way back when) and a serious guitar player at that- fruity loops looks stupid at first, but if you forget things like time signature and other sundry stuff, you really can't go wrong, especially for psytrance.. there's some intuitive controls for filters, panning, modulation etc (backbone, I feel for psytrance) that just can't really be beat. plus, the demo is free. I've got pro tools and hardly use it unless I need to record really fast guitar or vocals... fruity loops does the rest.

And I just bought a version of sony acidpro and it doesn't do anything that FL or pro tools can't do.

[Bali Muncher Jim]

I use Reason, u can pick up older versions quite cheap now. There's loads of free stuff for it out there, google "Reason Refills". I got Ableton as well but never really learned how to use it properly, but it can do what u want it to as well.

[GOA]

Thanks guys. Btw, I tried FL Studio awhile ago, but deleted it because so many people knocked on it. Apparently it isn't like traditional studio software and it has a lot of shortcuts. I am actually looking into studying some audio engineering, so I don't really want to develop any bad habits. I'm looking into getting Cubase 5 right now, and I hear it's quite good except a little difficult to get used to the interface. I'm a beginner, so any online tutorials for either FL studio or Cubase would be great. I'll probably get FL Studio again to compare, but otherwise I think Cubase is a plus.

I'll check out Reason as well, though I never heard about it. Saw some youtube vids with people's productions, not too shabby.

[introverted]

you need to look in to reason, and anything native instruments offers

if you can afford it, get kontakt, and you'll never look back, it's not easy though, fruity loops and cubase have their place, but when you need higher quality sampling, and better sounding instruments, get some NI shit, and some fuckin hardware(not that they're the end all be all)but it's what separates the good from the awesome.

[weaselknot]

anybody have any luck with linux DAWs? I'm figuring out rosegarden but getting sound from my keystudio to the midi controllers to the speakers is not user friendly. Latency issues are a problem too. I'm thinking about switching back to windows just for better DAWs unless someone can point me in a good direction.