3 tips to help you choose the right DAW
1 - Are you going to record live instruments?
If your answer is yes, you will have to choose a DAW that has an algorithm capable of capturing the sound in the most accurate way possible. It is a difficult choice indeed. Most of the DAWs out there have very accurate algorithms and normally the choice is influenced by the cost of such DAW. The ones that I normally use are Protools, Logic Pro X, and Ableton Live.
If your answer is no, you still have a very wide palette of DAWs available for you.
In this case, it is very important to select a Digital Audio Workstation capable of manipulating the sound without corrupting its frequency spectrum, a software that is simple enough to allow you to have a natural workflow. Again the choice can be influenced by the costs of it.
I suggest going for the one that has the most intuitive interface and offers a wide choice of factory plugins.
2 - Protools vs Logic Pro X vs Ableton Live….
Why do I use 3 DAWs for my audio productions? In my personal opinion, these are the most reliable DAWs out in the market. I’ve been using other Digital Audio Workstations during my career, but I sometimes found some issues like aliasing, software crash, and updating issues among others, which definitely slow down your workflow.
I finally landed my choice on these 3 DAWS and I feel comfortable working on a daily basis with them.
I use PROTOOLS for Instrumental recordings. The algorithm used by Avid is probably the most accurate when capturing live instruments' audio. You only need some decent microphones as well as a sound card able to support the Avid technology. And of course, some knowledge of recording techniques is also required.
LOGIC PRO X is the one that I use the most for my Mastering and Mixing sessions.
The algorithm is very stable and the workflow is very intuitive. It has also to consider the huge amount of stock plugins that came with the software itself. All of them are very accurate, from equalizers to compressors, from synthesizers to drum machines, and from amplifiers emulations to guitar pedals emulations. All of them sound great and are very useful when sculpting your personal sound.
Last but not least is ABLETON LIVE. I use it for all my productions.
When I compose my music I want to use software that it’s fast and intuitive, and I found myself very comfortable working on this DAW.
There are different options when purchasing this DAW and I went for the SUITE version of it, a bit more expensive but full of stock plugins that help a lot with the production workflow. The software has also a little INFO VIEW window that can be opened in order to understand the basic functions of each part of the DAW.
3 - Is the one you choose really the right one for you?
Now a day we tend to purchase software basing our election on market tendencies.
We see the artist we love using it and so we buy it. We see a nice advertisement when reading an audio article and we buy that software.
So before getting tricked by the marketing advertisements you should really think about what is your target, what you want to achieve, and most importantly how much time you’ll need to learn that DAW.
The choice that I personally done for my studio is the outcome of years of work, mistakes, tests and again work.
If you are spending most of the time of your studio sessions understanding how to do a certain thing, probably the DAW that you are using is not the best one for you.
I definitely suggest trying the demo version of the DAW you decided to use.
In this way you have all the time needed to test it out, to check how it captures audio recordings or how fast and intuitive is the workflow.
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