I can't think of a single popular commercial DAW that's worse to use. Pretty much the only people I see use it are all aspiring rappers. I guess it has hip hop cred.
Tangentially, I can't think of a single piece of Avid software that isn't a flaming piece of shit.
Unfortunately, there are no DAW applications that are really reliable, not buggy, and lightweight. The Open Source attempts are largely laughable, even though JACK represents the most sophisticated audio connection suite/API out there.
Pro Tools is shit, I agree, but because of Avid's dominance in the film/TV worlds, Pro Tools is the "professional" choice for audio in support of these industries. I imagine that most music houses have moved on to the Apple or Steinberg offerings. Personally, I've always really liked Steinberg's products, especially WaveLab and Cubase.
As bad as Pro Tools is, don't even get me started on Ableton Live. It's like someone just barely made it out of their first Code Academy lesson alive, and then attempted to reverse engineer Nuendo. Utterly horrifying application development standards over at Ableton.
I don't really know much about Nuendo, but it looks like it's more of a traditional DAW and has specific features aimed at post production, which doesn't seem to be Ableton Live's goal. I might try to get you started on Ableton Live, why do you think Ableton has such "horrifying application development standards"?
Pro Tools is still pretty much _the_ standard for audio recording, mixing and AV post-production.
If you're just producing electronic music, want VSTs, and/or just using a few live tracks, then yeah; you're probably far better off using something else.
Yup, used Cubase extensively back in the day, was pretty much my go-to for a number of years. I've the opposite experience to you with seeing it in use at studios though.
I can't think of a single popular commercial DAW that's worse to use. Pretty much the only people I see use it are all aspiring rappers. I guess it has hip hop cred.
Tangentially, I can't think of a single piece of Avid software that isn't a flaming piece of shit.
Full disclosure: I used to have to support Avid.