I am not a scientist, pollster, mathematician or statistician. This was not a scientific survey, I just wanted to see roughly how people are using their DAWs, and if that differs between different communities. There are probably enormous mistakes, and yes there's probably a dozen different ways I could have done this better. So please, don't take any of this too seriously :)
The music industry is unlike any other I can think of. There's a huge variety of people who participate at some level within it, ranging from absolute beginners in their 60's, 5 year old children in classes, bands who play purely for social reasons, and hobbyists who just enjoy tinkering with software, all the way to true pioneers in their field, academics, people who have honed their skills over decades and earn a living from it, or even make an absolute fortune. Plumbers don't fix taps in their spare time for enjoyment, and accountants don't meet up with friends in the evening to count numbers for the vibe. But in the music industry, this is completely normal.
The fascinating thing about that situation is that, for the most part, the same tools are available to everyone. I can use the same guitar as the bands I love, a pianist can play with the same tools as Beethoven, we can all pick up a microphone, load up some software and try to do the same things as our heros and idols. So I was curious to know how people are using their DAW, and if there's a difference between various communities. I wanted to know who is using their DAW beyond the amateur level, who was using it professionally?
I understand that using the word "professionally" may cause some irritation and frustration. There are many, many people in this industry who have spent decades building their knowledge and businesses around their skills who categorize themselves as "professional" in order to convey a level of technical skill and business conduct. I am in no way comparing an amateur to a professional in that sense, I was not asking if you are, or consider yourself to be a highly skilled or trained person. I was simply using the word to distinguish between amateurs and professionals in the following ways.
Amateur : one who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than as a profession 1
Professional : engaged in by persons receiving financial return 2
There are always going to be a huge variety of situations and grey areas, but I chose to make the distinction between an amateur and a professional for DAW users by asking if people met either of two criteria, and stipulating that you must have completed either of them at least once.
- That work you do in the DAW will eventually be sold or licensed for money, or
- You are paid for your time, which includes using the DAW for a task.
I know this isn't perfect, and there's probably many ways it could be improved, but it's how I chose to do it. Again, apologies if this frustrated anybody.
I posted the question in the following subs and left the poll open for 3 days in each.
In hindsight I should probably have included r/nuendo or at least separated out Cubase or Nuendo as although they are incredibly similar, Nuendo is definitely aimed at a different audience. But as there are currently only 48 members I left them out as I didn't think the responses would be beneficial and included those users in the Cubase sub as there is a large overlap of users.
Apologies if your DAW wasn't in the list, I tried to ask around and see if there were others that should be included (this is how Ardour made the list, but I think it's good to have an open source DAW on the list too) but either nobody made a suggestion for it, the Reddit sub didn't exist or had so little members I didn't feel I could get any useful information there, or I wouldn't classify the software as a DAW.
As the situation in the world right now is a little "abnormal", added to the fact that there's a wide range of situations where you may or may not be earning money with a DAW, I wanted to try and capture that with the answers that were presented, and as there are only 6 options available in Reddit polls, these were the answers I settled on. What value this actually provides is questionable, but I thought it was worth exploring.
A1: Yes, and I AM currently being paid for it.
A2: Yes, but I am NOT currently being paid for it
A3: No, I have done in the past, but my work no longer requires it
A4: No, I have to use it as part of my education
A5: No, it's just a tool I use for my hobby
A6: Other
There are obviously going to be errors in this data, some people will drift between the categories, and some may have answered in one category, when perhaps they should've answered in another. So please take the following information with the pinch of salt it deserves.
I grouped the answers into 3 categories. The first included everyone who answered yes to A1 and A2, this is effectively everybody who is currently working in their DAW with the intention of earning money, I'll call this the "Professional" users. The second category included everyone who answered yes to A3, A4 and A5, this is effectively everybody who is using their DAW but is not doing it with the intention of earning money, I'll call this group the "Amateur". The last group is those from the A6 Other category who could fall on both sides but we can't tell, or may even be people who just want to view the result of the poll without picking one of the other answers, so I'm not including these.
Again, the terms "Professional" and "Amateur" are purely relating to if you have met the criteria above, or not, nothing more.
Taking all DAWs into account, and using the classification mentioned above.
Using the same classification as above, "Professional" and "Amateur", broken down and ranked per DAW.
Interestingly, even though Pro Tools is an industry standard in certain areas, it doesn't look like people want to use it for their hobby unless they have to. I'd be interested to hear why people think that might be.
| Position | . | DAW | Professional % | Amateur % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  |
Pro Tools | 71.53% | 28.47% |
| 2 |  |
Cubase & Nuendo | 47.54% | 52.46% |
| 3 |  |
Logic | 39.90% | 60.10% |
| 4 |  |
Studio One | 38.64% | 61.36% |
| 5 |  |
Reaper | 35.11% | 64.89% |
| 6 |  |
FL Studio | 33.33% | 66.67% |
| 7 |  |
Ableton Live | 29.36% | 70.64% |
| 8 |  |
Ardour | 28.95% | 71.05% |
| 9 |  |
Bitwig | 16.67% | 83.33% |
This is perhaps a categorically that reveals users who are using a DAW on a daily basis, rather than users who occasionally receive payment, but this is just my hunch.
| Position | . | DAW | Percentage of users |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Pro Tools | 52.87% |
| 2 | |
Cubase & Nuendo | 32.54% |
| 3 | |
Logic | 22.55% |
| 4 | |
Reaper | 19.32% |
| 5 | |
Studio One | 18.78% |
| 6 | |
Ableton Live | 15.65% |
| 7 | |
FL Studio | 12.86% |
| 8 | |
Bitwig | 5.08% |
| 9 | |
Ardour | 2.56% |
| Position | . | DAW | Percentage of users |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Ardour | 25.64% |
| 2 | |
FL Studio | 18.57% |
| 3 | |
Studio One | 18.34% |
| 4 | |
Pro Tools | 16.27% |
| 5 | |
Logic | 16.18% |
| 6 | |
Reaper | 14.55% |
| 7 | |
Cubase & Nuendo | 13.49% |
| 8 | |
Ableton Live | 12.17% |
| 9 | |
Bitwig | 10.17% |
Generally low across the board...
| Position | . | DAW | Percentage of users |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Pro Tools | 5.02% |
| 2 | |
Cubase & Nuendo | 4.76% |
| 3 | |
Ableton Live | 2.61% |
| 4 | |
Ardour | 2.56% |
| 5 | |
Bitwig | 2.54% |
| 6 | |
Studio One | 2.18% |
| 7 | |
Logic Studio | 1.96% |
| 8 | |
Reaper | 1.38% |
| 9 | |
FL Studio | 0.00% |
I can understand Pro Tools being ahead here as it's an industry standard, but I'd love to know the reason for Logic being second in this classification?
I think Bitwig gets ranked highly here as because of the modular tools, and how they can be a great way to teach sound design and synthesis basics. Ardour doesn't seem to be used in education (from these responses anyway), which is a shame as it's a perfectly capable bit of software that wouldn't cost institutions any money to use. But of course, both of these arguments could also be explained by low response numbers skewing the results.
| Position | . | DAW | Percentage of users |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Pro Tools | 9.81% |
| 2 | |
Logic | 4.41% |
| 3 | |
Bitwig | 2.54% |
| 4 | |
Studio One | 1.75% |
| 5 | |
Ableton Live | 1.74% |
| 6 | |
Cubase & Nuendo | 1.59% |
| 7 | |
FL Studio | 1.43% |
| 8 | |
Reaper | 0.75% |
| 9 | |
Ardour | 0.00% |
I think it should be mentioned that a post in Reddit can gain traction and upvotes for any number of reasons, just because some communities were more active and participated in the poll shouldn't reflect anything other than for some reason, it resonated at that particular time. The only reason I am posting them here is for transparency as low numbers might mean that it's not a true reflection for each DAW.
It should also be noted that because the data was collected purely from Reddit polls, there is a very good chance that if the survey was done across multiple platforms there might be different results. Another reason why this is definitely not scientific and you shouldn't place too much importance on it :)
| . | DAW / Sub | Members | Responses | A1 | A2 | A3 | A4 | A5 | A6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Ableton Live | 163000 | 115 | 18 | 14 | 3 | 2 | 72 | 6 |
|
Ardour | 616 | 39 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 26 | 1 |
|
Bitwig | 5000 | 118 | 6 | 12 | 3 | 3 | 84 | 10 |
|
Cubase & Nuendo | 7100 | 126 | 41 | 17 | 6 | 2 | 56 | 4 |
|
FL Studio | 166000 | 140 | 18 | 26 | 0 | 2 | 86 | 8 |
|
Logic Studio | 34600 | 204 | 46 | 33 | 4 | 9 | 106 | 6 |
|
Pro Tools | 21500 | 418 | 221 | 68 | 21 | 41 | 53 | 14 |
|
Reaper | 24400 | 797 | 154 | 116 | 11 | 6 | 482 | 28 |
|
StudioOne | 5700 | 229 | 43 | 42 | 5 | 4 | 126 | 9 |
I'm reluctant to call this section "Conclusion" because I think it should be a starting point for more discussion about how we label ourselves within the industry, what does it mean to be a "professional" in your specific field in 2020? Is it literally just someone whose full time job is working with audio, or is it more than that? What level is it universally accepted amongst your peers that someone has to achieve in order to accurately describe themselves as a professional etc, so I've chosen observations instead.
Even though this has been in no way scientific, I think it's obvious to say that there a lot of users who are using their DAWs to make money in some way. What they do and how they do it varies enormously. I also think it's fair to say this has only increased over the last two decades as technology allows more users access to better tools, with greater ease. Whether this is a positive or negative thing depends on your perspective - if your livelihood depends on a reputation of being a "professional", and there's an element of scarcity for the talents and standards of work you provide, then a larger pool of people claiming to do the same thing with the same tools can only be seen as competition, and perhaps less capital to go around. This doesn't necessarily mean you automatically think "more people = bad", but it does explain how some people might hold these views.
Ask most people who do make a living in this industry and they'll tell you that you have to diversify in order to survive. With so many people having access to high grade tools and free education than ever before, it's an incredibly competitive area. Other industries combat this through qualification and certification, which is a great tool when it comes making factual choices - is this person qualified to deal with gas plumbing? Should we hire this student after they complete the specific course they're on? - but when it comes to emotions and perception, are these tools any use? Perhaps there should be more focus in our industry on qualifications and certification to distinguish between the levels of work and understanding someone is able to provide, or perhaps that's an outdated perspective as well?
Oh, and for the record, I have an audio degree from a couple of decades ago, and I answered A3 in the Cubase sub :)
Peace, Andy.
There's been a few suggestions for other DAWs and their communities that it would've been interesting to hear from, and add to the list. I think I'll just keep them in mind if I do something like this again. But if there are some not listed, let me know!
- Sonar / Cakewalk
- Propellerheads Reason
- Sequoia
- Sadie
- Harrison MixBus
Thank you all for your kind comments and positive feedback, it's genuinely warmed my heart.