Reaper
If you want to do a quick and complete music project, then I will tell you nothing beats Reaper, at the time of writing Reaper is at version 7.10, nothing beats the speed, resource management, workflow of Reaper DAW, and the whole package is just under 20 MB, that's the beauty of coding, Reaper comes as a 60 day trial version, and can be used even after the tiral period ends. one can buy Reaper DAW for just $60 (discounted fee) and it includes free upgrades through REAPER version 8.99. if your annual gross revenue exceeds USD 20,000, then you should purchase full commercial licence at $225
Only negative I find in Reaper is it doesn't come with any decent (or any at all) Instruments for get going, but just few mins in websites like bedroomproducersblog com will equip you with all the stuffs you need (for free) to make a track in any musical genre
Bitwig Studio
Though kind of feels like Ableton live (Both has Two Views/Workflow for arranging/mixing/scenes/using clips), I like bitwig because of it's layout, it has got bigger windows for MIDI editing and other stuffs which ableton is missing, at the time of writing bitwig is version 2.1, priced at $399 it's costly and the licence offers free 1 year upgrades
Ableton live
Well, for the Audio to MIDI feature which no other DAW's has featured yet, Ableton is good, and ofcourse for live performance with Push or any other controllers, what I don't like is non detachable windows, everything is taking up space and theres only less room to edit properly, those who have 22 inch full HD screen will be happy with the interface but in lapptops and all the interface becomes clumsy, I will say give bitwig a go, both offers free trials so feel free to try and find the one which suits your workflow, Ableton (9.7.2) Intro is $99, Standard is for $449 and the Suite version is for $749
F L Studio 12
Again Different workflow, the easisest DAW in the world for Electronic music produciton, you can make perfectly timed patters just by clicking buttons and paste those pattern perfectly in a timeline, this is as easy as it will get, (the free LMMS DAW kinda resembles FL Studio so one can give that also a try ) fruity edition costs $99.00, producer edition costs $199.00, signature bundle costs $299.00 Fl Studio all plugins costs $899.00, on the plus side Fl Studio offers free lifetime updates
Reason
The best news of 2017 is that Reason is going to roll out version 9.5 with VST support, and that's a big step forward, given the unique workflow and with the support of VST, this is going to be a beast in electronic music production, Reason costs $399 and the Reason essenial $69, both has VST support from version 9.5
Protools First
Free version of protools, try if you want to check what's the fuzz about protools, please do remember protools doesn't support VST plugins, it uses RTAS or AAX formats
Logic Pro
I don't own mac, so never tried, so can't comment, thanks. :)
Totally Free DAW's
Soon to review Cubase, Samplitude, Sonar etc
