Your first DAW !

[sysrqer]

Cubase VST is the first I remember using in the early 2000s

I forgot about that one!

[dan_flash]

Early 2000s; couple of guitars + SM58 + keyboard + 4 track tape -> Fostex digital 8 track (absolutely loved this setup, made so much music) -> Yamaha AW1600.

Went to college in 2005 and had to use Cubase SX 2 I think plus Logic (plus a bunch of hardware in various setups). At this time I got a copy of Magix Samplitude Music Studio (or whatever it was called) and made a lot of music with it but it was horrific.

Went to Uni in 2007 and there they had us using Sony Vegas as a DAW plus SoundForge for audio editing and stuff like that. Good stuff could be done like that because anything MIDI-related was done using hardware.

Around 2008 I tried a bunch of Linux distros and did a song or two using Ardour 2 but it constantly crashed and didn't have MIDI so I went back to Windows and found Reaper 2 (think Reaper 3 came out shortly after). Stayed with Reaper on Windows for a long time after that, tested MuLab (OK) and Ableton (hated it) and a couple others as time went on but always reverted to Reaper.

Got into Reason 9, 10 and 11 some years later. Thought Reason Suite 11 was the bomb.

Then my partner became pregnant and I started looking at trimming the fat and simplifying my setup and axing the shite. Sold or gave away a lot of stuff, upgraded some components on my aging laptop, put Lubuntu on it, got Renoise, Reaper, some Linux plugs like Airwindows and pure loved it.

Now I'm still using the same old laptop but with Linux Mint as OS, Reaper, Renoise, Redux, Ugritone, Speedrum 2, Audio Assault, Guitarix, Airwindows and ACMT plugs.

I sometimes get fed up of Reaper and then get into Ardour (which is amazing) but usually something happens or something is missing and I end up going back to Reaper. Think the most recent issue was the cleanup project directory bug that left me unable to open some boss projects I had going on (it was fixed in 8.2 or 8.4 I think but I was so pissed off and gutted, not really done anything in Ardour since... Nevertheless I'd love to switch 100% to Ardour).