How To Choose The Right Digital Audio Workstation For You, Part 2

Hopefully you read yesterday’s Part 1, and you started thinking about what you actually want to be able to do with your DAW and what kind of music you want to make.

If you didn’t catch it, you can find Part 1 here:

How To Choose The Right Digital Audio Workstation For You, Part 1

So now we know a little better what we’re looking for, it’s time to survey the field. It’s quite a big subject, so buckle up! I’ll break it down as simply as I can. I’ve resisted including all of the specifics about each program – if you want to know more about any of the DAWs mentioned, I’ve provided links to the official websites.

Where prices are given, these are more for comparison purposes, so don’t take them as definitive. Shop around!

Hobby / Introductory Level DAWs

The DAWs in this range often look as much like console games as they do music-making tools. And in a way, that’s what they are, which is a great way to be introduced to the basic concepts of computer music-making. If you don’t want to spend more on your music than you would on computer games or any other pastime (at least to begin with), these are the DAWs for you.

Garageband

Apple Garageband

Possibly the reason that you’re reading this – Garageband is bundled with every recent Mac computer, so millions of people have played around with the included loops, and maybe recorded their guitar, and realised how fun it is. Which gets us all hooked…

Website: http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/

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Sequel 2

Steinberg Sequel ($120)

Basically Sequel is to Cubase what Garageband is to Logic. Its easy to get to grips with, and is designed for ‘first-time computer music enthusiasts’. If you’re on a PC and want to see what the Garageband fuss is about, this would be one to look into.

Website: http://www.steinberg.net/…

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FL Studio

FL Studio (Express Version, $49)

The FL stands for ‘Fruity Loops’, which the program used to be called, but they seem to have abbreviated it to something a bit less uncool now. They’ve also jazzed up the feature set and overall look of the interface, so I’d now consider comparing it to Reason as an entry-level all-in-one virtual studio package.

Website: http://flstudio.image-line.com/documents/what.html

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Reason 4 - an example of one of the modules, this is the Thor synth

Propellerhead Reason ($380)

Reason is a little bit different to some of it’s competitors, ad almost deserves it’s own category – for some things it will certainly compete with the bigger DAWs in the next category (including the price). It’s sold as a ‘virtual studio rack’, which means that the interface literally looks like a big stack of analogue and digital hardware. You can ‘turn the rack around’ and look at the back of all your modules, and connect the different parts together with virtual patch cables. Very flexible and great fun to use.

It doesn’t use third-party plug-ins, because it’s ‘rack unit’ effects and processors do an equivalent job. So you have synths, samplers, a drum machine, sequencer, arpeggiator and all the rest, all built in. It’s a good way to begin understanding the main tools involved in music production.

+ PLUS everything you need for electronic music included in one package

- MINUS not easy to upgrade or add to

Reason looks a lot like a toy, but the sounds you can get from it (with experience) can be pretty serious. Liam Howlett of The Prodigy famously endorsed Reason when he was making the Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned album. However, do remember that after he made his beats in bed on his laptop, they were then taken to a proper studio where a lot of effects and analogue processing were added, and then the whole thing was professionally mastered – so if you go for Reason, don’t expect to sound like The Prodigy right away…

Propellerhead Reason website: http://www.propellerheads.se/products/reason/

If you want to know more about The Prodigy’s recording methods (and who doesn’t frankly), check out this very in-depth interview with Howlett about the making of Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned from Sound On Sound magazine.

That’s probably enough for one post – in Part 3 I’ll finally get into the ‘studio’ level DAWs – Cubase, Logic and the mother of them all, Pro Tools… see you there.