Which DAW For PA600

[Roy.hewa]

Need an advice please.

I am thinking of buying a DAW to work with my PA600. At the moment I use Anvil Studio, which is free. I purchased the patch library for PA600 from them and I can select PA sounds when editing MIDI files.

Basically my requirements are below.

I am not an expert of playing the keyborad yet and still learning. I'll be using the DAW to create MIDI files and use them on PA.

1. I should be able to output MIDI to PA so that I can hear PA sounds, which I believe is available in every DAW

2. Need a patch library for DAW, then I can select PA sounds in DAW.


3. Really like the Chord Track in Cubase, so something similar would be helpful

4. Of course the the price should be reasonable as I will use DAW just to create/edit MIDI files

4. Are there built-in styles in DAWs as well similar to PAs?

Your thoughts, experience and advice is highly appreciated. Which DAWs should I consider and compare.

Thanks Guys

[Sam CA]

Roy,
DAWs do NOT come with Styles. Also you do NOT need to buy sounds either. You can simply midi your DAW to the keyboard and use your keyboard as a sound module.

Check out Reaper. Looks like a lot of people are happy with it. I think it has a demo/trial version too.

[Roy.hewa]

Roy,
DAWs do NOT come with Styles. Also you do NOT need to buy sounds either. You can simply midi your DAW to the keyboard and use your keyboard as a sound module.

Check out Reaper. Looks like a lot of people are happy with it. I think it has a demo/trial version too.

Thanks Sam,

Do you know if there is a Patch Library for PA600 that works with Reaper, basically I would like to assign a midi track a sound from PA600.

[Sam CA]

Roy,
DAWs do NOT come with Styles. Also you do NOT need to buy sounds either. You can simply midi your DAW to the keyboard and use your keyboard as a sound module.

Check out Reaper. Looks like a lot of people are happy with it. I think it has a demo/trial version too.

Thanks Sam,

Do you know if there is a Patch Library for PA600 that works with Reaper, basically I would like to assign a midi track a sound from PA600.

I don't but Rick (ThoraldUS) might know. Hopefully he'll let you know.

[tacman7]

I think you need to think about how you want to use a DAW and arranger keyboard together.

Like if you're thinking of performing or composing etc.

I use it to compose with.

There's different ways to go about it. Like if I need a bass part I will sync the keyboard(slave) to the DAW(master). Then I play my song, send a midi track with the chord changes (whole note chords) to the keyboard to guide the style play. I mute everything but the bass and just start going through the styles until I find a bass line I like (how it sounds with my song). I then record the audio generated by the bass part and put it in my song and I'm done with that setup.
I name the part with the style and instrument used in case I need to change it later. etc.

I use the pa600 as an input device playing the keyboard and I sometimes use the keyboard as a sound module.


I'm a DAWcoholic, I have Sonar, Cubase and Studio One, and I used to use logic before it went exclusively mac.

If it's only for midi you could buy an old version of cubase pretty cheap, excellent midi functions.


You might look into all you can do with a modern DAW setup though, it's pretty amazing. I'm pretty much a Studio One fan, combined with melodyne that can run inside it. It can be very intuitive and easy to work with.

Good article:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep15/articles/s1v3.htm

and

http://www.celemony.com/en/melodyne/new-in-melodyne-4

[Roy.hewa]

Thank you all for the advice.

Considering my requirements, I'll go with Cubase Elements 8.

[Thoraldus]

Roy,
DAWs do NOT come with Styles. Also you do NOT need to buy sounds either. You can simply midi your DAW to the keyboard and use your keyboard as a sound module.

Check out Reaper. Looks like a lot of people are happy with it. I think it has a demo/trial version too.

Thanks Sam,

Do you know if there is a Patch Library for PA600 that works with Reaper, basically I would like to assign a midi track a sound from PA600.

I don't but Rick (ThoraldUS) might know. Hopefully he'll let you know.

Missed this.

I would say that Reaper overall is not MIDI oriented. I prefer Sonar Artist --- it knows both my PA600 and Kronos instrument addressing using INS files.