The Grand DAW Showdown

A digital audio workstation (DAW from now on) is an essential tool to every /prod/ucer out there. Here is a totally not extensive list of the different DAWs you could possibly torrent.

Image Line Fruity Loops/FL Studio
The "that one kid from brazil on your server" of DAWs. A really good place to start, but it has a bad reputation, since every shitty russian hardbass producer uses it.

Pros

>Low learning curve compared to other DAWs

>The UI is fairly straightforward

>Incredibly easy to pirate

>Buying FL Studio entitles you to free lifetime updates from Image-Line

Cons

>Some aspects of it is kind of limiting

>Automation is a hassle

>The built-in effects are kind of meh

Ableton Live
It's like buying a used german car - it may crash on you once or twice, but you can pretty much roll with it.

Pros

>Chaining effects is pretty easy

>Very clean UI

>Automation and sequencing is quick and transparent

Cons

>Kind of a steep learning curve

>The huge instrument library is pretty much useless

>Prone to crashing

Propellerhead Reason
A very solid and usable DAW, if you just really don't want to use something more basic.

Pros

>Incredible built-in synthesizers and samplers

>Very "authentic" UI

>Mixing is really easy

Cons

>No VSTi support

>The UI can be bothersome as it's not self explanatory at all

>Almost impossible to pirate

Renoise
This one is for the old school demoscene cats out there. It's also pretty cheap if you're a buyfag.

Pros

>Bare bones, clean tracker UI

>The best written MIDI interface of any DAW, ever

>Easy on the CPU

Cons

>Bare bones, clean tracker UI

>Sequencing can get pretty messy

>The linux port is really unstable