DAW / Recording Software

Take the plunge, choose the recording software that will suit your style and workflow. Featuring Major DAWs like Avid Technology's Pro Tools, Steinberg's Cubase, Ableton Live and Reason from Reason Studios. The Choice is yours!

All of the Major DAW's have most of the same overall features that can get you to a finished track. However they all work differently and have something unique to add to your recording process, so it's worth researching what each one offers before you make your decision. 

What's the Best DAW? 

So unfortunately, as you might have guessed, there's no real silver bullet or "best DAW". However if you have an idea on the type of music you want to create, or the way you like to create music, you'll have a much better time at deciding what's the best DAW for you!

Pro Tools

For classic recording with microphones, you can't go wrong with Avid Technology's Pro Tools. Self proclaimed as the "industry standard" in recording, you will find Pro Tools systems present in many of the top recording studios. Built on it's long heritage in the business, Pro Tools is well regarded as one of the best DAWs on the market.

Cubase

Steinberg's Cubase is another classic DAW that's got a long history. Whilst Pro Tools has it's roots in Recording and Mixing audio, Cubase's early roots come from MIDI and creating music with Virtual Instruments & Softsynths. As a result, this DAW package is more suited to Songwriters and Composers, featuring a wide range of creative tools to help you get a song from idea to a finished track. Cubase is particularly loved by composers for film & tv as they can easily work with midi sound libraries to get realistic tracks from sample based instruments whilst using comprehensive scoring and notation features.

Ableton Live

Ableton Live came onto the DAW market attempting to offer something completely different. As the name suggests it was originally designed as a live tool so that you could trigger sounds and loops Live in a set, as well as record parts live to stack on top of existing tracks. Since then, the Ableton community has grown, with many electronic music producers turning to Ableton to create their beat based tracks. It's loop based environment lends itself to a completely different workflow to a regular arranger window - which is still an option in Ableton Live. When used with hardware like Ableton's Push hardware, Native Instrument Maschine Controllers, the Novation Launchpad Controllers or compatible Akai Professional hardware you have a hands-on way of building tracks from small ideas. 

Reason

Reason, from Reason Studios, is a unique DAW that works more like a virtual rack of hardware instruments and effects that you wire up to create the sounds you're looking for. You can even use all of it's effects and instruments as a plugin in another DAW. Of course this is still a fully featured DAW with recording, sequencing, mixing etc. If you have some experience with hardware effects and instruments, or are just looking for a unique and inspiring approach to making music on a computer then Reason might be the DAW for you!