I am just starting to play around with SurgeXT, after coming from a metal background and playing mostly with amp sims, drum kits and some orchestral libraries. I feel like I’ve discovered a new world.

Fender Studio does seem like a nice alternative to something like Garageband.

I also switched away from Ableton on Windows a couple years ago. At this point, after working in several of them, I swear by Ardour.

It’s a little ugly, it’s a fair bit to wrap your head around at first, but it does serve every one of my needs. It even recently got a clip launcher much like Ableton’s “Live” view! The only thing I really miss from Ableton is its audio warping engine, but that’s long been one of Ableton’s killer features, even compared to Windows and Mac DAWs.

It kind of depends on your use case though; what are you using the DAW for? Demoing? DJing? Traditional tracking and mixing?

Also about people’s comments about Bitwig and Reaper - yes, they are indeed damned good. If you want a 1:1 parallel with Ableton and don’t mind spending a bit of money, Bitwig is about your best bet.

“Mum, if you really loved me, you’d be able to compile your own kernel”

I tried to use it for admin in a Windows environment, but half the modules I needed wouldn’t work in Linux which made it pretty much useless.

I guess not using it when everyone else is would be another way of fingerprinting too