Pro Tools is the industry standard and it's what I use everyday at my job. That said it's not perfect and it's geared more towards classical recording studio workflows so a lot of its design is based on that assumption and can be cumbersome to newer modes of music production if that's the mindset one is coming from. For instance the midi in PT is fucking ABYSMAL and I refuse to use it 99 times out of 100
As a lot of people said, Ableton is really good and when I'm being creative, i.e. arranging or producing music it's my go-to. It has a lot of very advanced and current features that makes producing contemporary music really simple. Like simple rendering of midi to audio and really advanced time compression/expansion algorithms. It's got a steep learning curve but it can do anything. However, the stock plugins and Virtual Instruments definitely leave something to be desired. You'll want to accrue a list of 3rd party plugins, if you want I can give you a list of ones I use professionally
I recommend Logic to ppl a lot, especially if their beginners, bc it's relatively cheap and is the most "all inclusive" daw there is. It does everything reasonably well (has good enough level effects, tools, and virtual instruments) though tbh I'm not a huge fan. I keep it around just to print stems from my clients' logic sessions if they bring me one to bring them into Pro Tools.
You could also look into FL Studio, lots of people use it, it was my first daw back in middle school.
If you're recording more than producing there's Cubase, Reaper, or Nuendo. You can produce in these but they're generally not as popular
Edit for bonus points:
Pro tools:
guaranteed that if I'm working with another studio or a label i'll probably get a PT session so it helps with that but this isn't a widespread concern
if you're aware of fundamentals of recording the layout is really logical and it has a lot of good features for running in a pro environment
PLAYLISTS. Idk if avid/digidesign had this patented but PT is the only daw i've used with real per track playlisting and if so, copyright is a fuck. But it is VITALLY important to my workflow and keeps me from having to make 30 tracks just to different takes/versions of a recording. You can consolidate all that into one track
Ableton:
-audio to midi helps a lot with remixes, sampling but changing it so you can't really see what it came from, or when people pay me to remake a track because they want the stems but the og producer doesn't have it available
-the Time compression/expansion algos can be almost imperceptible or if you're going for a warped sound they can be "bad" which is cool. most other daws just sound bad.
Pro Tools is the industry standard and it's what I use everyday at my job. That said it's not perfect and it's geared more towards classical recording studio workflows so a lot of its design is based on that assumption and can be cumbersome to newer modes of music production if that's the mindset one is coming from. For instance the midi in PT is fucking ABYSMAL and I refuse to use it 99 times out of 100
As a lot of people said, Ableton is really good and when I'm being creative, i.e. arranging or producing music it's my go-to. It has a lot of very advanced and current features that makes producing contemporary music really simple. Like simple rendering of midi to audio and really advanced time compression/expansion algorithms. It's got a steep learning curve but it can do anything. However, the stock plugins and Virtual Instruments definitely leave something to be desired. You'll want to accrue a list of 3rd party plugins, if you want I can give you a list of ones I use professionally
I recommend Logic to ppl a lot, especially if their beginners, bc it's relatively cheap and is the most "all inclusive" daw there is. It does everything reasonably well (has good enough level effects, tools, and virtual instruments) though tbh I'm not a huge fan. I keep it around just to print stems from my clients' logic sessions if they bring me one to bring them into Pro Tools.
You could also look into FL Studio, lots of people use it, it was my first daw back in middle school. If you're recording more than producing there's Cubase, Reaper, or Nuendo. You can produce in these but they're generally not as popular
Edit for bonus points:
Pro tools:
Ableton:
-audio to midi helps a lot with remixes, sampling but changing it so you can't really see what it came from, or when people pay me to remake a track because they want the stems but the og producer doesn't have it available
-the Time compression/expansion algos can be almost imperceptible or if you're going for a warped sound they can be "bad" which is cool. most other daws just sound bad.