try Presonus Studio One demo, see if you like it

http://www.presonus.com/products/Sof...?SoftwareId=11

its PC and MAC

I have demoed REAPER many times and tried so so hard to like it. The app is very well priced and has a decent feature-set, but I feel that it is very poorly designed. This probably comes down to the fact that they add a heap of tiny features with extremely quick, un-planned updates.

REAPER now is a pretty big mess when it comes to menus, preferences, general workflow and usability, at least that's how I feel about it. In addition, it lacks good MIDI editing, elastic audio and a few other very important features.

Studio One is a breath of fresh air, and pretty much works just like Cubase in many aspects. Though, it's still a pretty new program and lacks things like Elastic Audio, which are really REALLY useful for music production. I think that this DAW could be a true contender in the near future.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on these 2 DAWs.

I still personally believe that the biggest contenders are Cubase, Logic and possibly Live :)

Cubase 5 has Sidechaining :D

So what does live lack?

If you look at the full version of Cubase 5 you get convolution reverb, auto-tune, a huge number of plugins including synths and samplers, notation editing/printing, far more powerful MIDI editing (Cubase started 25 years ago as a MIDI-only sequencer for the Mac), multicore support (maybe Live 8 has this? Live 7 does not). And it only costs $100 more than Live!

Live excels at real-time rearrangements of short snippets of audio and MIDI...it's a great tool for sketching things out. You can actually jam with Live, recording everything you are doing as you go along. It's still the best DAW to use for live performances (as opposed to studio recording).

I'd say if your needs involve recording lots of audio tracks as well as complex MIDI sequencing, Cubase is definitely worth it.

I tend to agree that Live lacks the depth and ease that Cubase provides for linear sequencing, especially if you are the type to get really deep into automation and editing things to the nth degree.

I picked my copy up as a student so it was 50 percent discount - 500AUD, not a bad score - if you are a student it's definitely worth it.

You can download free trials of Sonar and Live (why not try them) but not Cubase. They've all got aspects that make them better at some things than others. I've got all three programs and its sonar I find has the best workflow for me overall. Nevertheless i'd probably recommend Cubase if you only wanted one program. Live is fantastic at what it does but has less features for traditional tracking of songs but more features for loop triggering

Dual/multi screen support for one :-x

Go with Cubase 5. IMHO it's the best. For a time, I used Sonar besides Cubase because the latter wasn't 64-bit yet. But then I experienced problems with 32-bit VST's. Tried to use the Cakewalk forum to ask for help and I was tarred and feathered not only by the fanboys but also by the Cakewalk people, unable to admit their software was buggy. Obviously it could only have been my fault: yeah, that's how they treat you. Now that Cubase is fully 64 bit, they can really have their buggy cake and eat it too, for all I care. I won't give them a single penny of my money ever again.

Must demonstrate the general IQ required to use this software I guess!?