Honestly, if you're a total beginner, you almost can't go wrong with DAWs these days. All the mainstream ones are superb. After awhile, you may well find that

Honestly, if you're a total beginner, you almost can't go wrong with DAWs these days. All the mainstream ones are superb. After awhile, you may well find that one or another is more to your taste, but that's the kind of thing that can only reveal itself gradually over time. You'll hear lots (and lots) of talk about which DAWs are best suited to which types of music, but honestly, I've written symphonies using Ableton Live and electronica using REAPER (and I'm hardly alone). It's true that some communities of composers/producers gravitate toward certain DAWs, but -- especially if you're starting out -- that fact isn't as important as it might seem. Here's my advice on the matter: Pick a DAW (Bitwig is amazing), and commit to not buying a single third-party plugin for at least a year. The problem beginners have is that they think there's something wrong with their software, when the reality is that they don't yet understand how compressors, and EQs, and reverbs, and delays, and filters (and all that stuff) work. And they think that if they drop a fortune on fancy third-party versions of those things, all their problems will disappear. They won't. Truth is, the "stock" versions of these things that come with DAWs nowadays are absolutely fantastic. I have close to 300 third-party plugins in my plugin folder. That gives me all kinds of shades of color and nuance that I can use to create certain kinds of sounds and moods. But if someone asked me to make a record using only the stock plugins in Live, or Logic, or Studio One, or REAPER, that wouldn't bother me in the slightest. Wait until you really understand how those components work before you start chasing down "that sound." And remember that some of the best records ever made were made using equipment that is startlingly primitive in comparison to the audio facilities of your phone. Everything on the internet says otherwise, but it's all about the music and your knowledge. It is almost never, in the end, about the gear.