Bitwig
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Music

10 digital audio workstations perfect for your home studio

Want to make beats but not sure where to get started? Here's a guide to affordable DAWs that'll get you producing in no time.
Written by Graeme Bateman
6 min readPublished on
In order to make music, you need somewhere to do it. These places and spaces used to be expensive recording studios or windowless basements for storing equipment and making noise. Today, some of the world’s most exciting music is being made with nothing but a laptop, a pair of headphones and a digital audio workstation. DAWs perform a multitude of functions, and whether it’s recording, editing, producing or arranging, you’ll find them at the heart of almost every producer’s setup.
Below we list 10 popular DAWs with approximate prices – although it's well worth shopping around. Then read on to find out more info about a few stand-out workstations suited to the beginner producer.
  1. Ableton Live Standard (Intro €79, Standard €325)
  2. Bitwig Studio (Studio V2 €379)
  3. FL Studio (Producer edition €185)
  4. Logic Pro (X €230)
  5. Reason (Version 11 €315)
  6. Pro Tools (one-year subscription €279)
  7. Cubase (Pro 10, €520)
  8. GarageBand (free on Apple IOS products)
  9. Reaper (personal licence €55)
  10. Studio One (4 Professional €229)

Choosing a DAW

There are many options out there, and luckily, it’s hard to make a wrong choice. Some DAWs do things better than others, some have features that others don’t and some are arguably more suited to certain genres or styles – but when it comes down to it, they’ll all enable you to make the music you want to make. Whichever one you end up going with, try to stick with it. Learning the quirks, concepts and keyboard shortcuts of a new DAW is arduous enough, and doubly so when it also involves unlearning what you picked up the first time around. All the DAWs mentioned in this article offer free trials, so it couldn’t be easier to give each one a spin and see what fits.
Tessela, one half of UK production duo, Overmono, agrees: “All the programs largely do the same thing but each excel in different ways, so it’s often a case of trying a few out and seeing which one lines up best with your way of thinking.” While Tessela favours Ableton for its “immediacy and creativity,” he rightly points out that in most cases, the differences between DAWs are minimal: “If you feel as though your music doesn’t sound as good as other people’s, chances are it’s got nothing to do with the summing or audio engine. A lot of great records have been made on all of them!”
Ableton Live
Created by Gerhard Behles and Monolake's Robert Henke, Ableton Live's novel approach to music production is informed by live performance. Launched in 2001, it was initially met with some skepticism by the industry, as its unique Session View – a fluid, grid-like approach to launching and manipulating loops – was at odds with the linear, left-to-right structure favoured by other DAWs (it does, however, also offer this traditional mode, calling it "the Arrangement View"). Today, Ableton is often regarded by many as the standard when it comes to electronic music production. Its powerful MIDI sequencing, overall simplicity and focus on loops means it’s well suited for dance music genres such as house and techno.
Bitwig
A more recent contender to Ableton’s throne is Bitwig. Started by former Ableton employees, it expands on the Session View idea with a strong emphasis on modularity and experimentation. Taking influence from the resurgence of the Eurorack synthesiser format, its range of Modulators can be drag-and-dropped almost anywhere and used to affect instruments, effects, third-party plugins and hardware. Although Bitwig may seem a little cluttered and complicated when compared to Ableton, its playful approach to music and sound creation shouldn’t be ignored.
FL Studio
Not many DAWs can claim at least some responsibility for spawning whole new genres, but without FruityLoops, grime and dubstep might never have happened in quite the way it did. Easily available as cracked software, it was pounced upon by young beatmakers looking for a step up from PlayStation games like Music 2000. Legendary producers such as Wiley, Skream and Benga instantly felt at home with the software, while it’s preset tempo of 140 BPM unintentionally defined the limits of this new sound. Now named FL Studio – you can thank Kelloggs for the name change – it remains at its core an incredibly easy to use DAW, and its intuitive, lightning-fast step sequencer might still be the quickest way out there to get a beat off the ground.
Reason
While the DAWs mentioned previously fully embrace the limitless possibilities of the computer, one piece of software takes a slightly different approach. Reason, from developers Propellerhead, offers a bright, tactile interface based on the classic rack format found in studios around the world, complete with a spiderweb of cables to route audio through its devices. Though Reason does a great job of predefining routing when inserting new devices into the rack, for someone with no experience of music hardware it could easily be quite a daunting experience. Until recently an entirely closed-off system, latest updates have seen Reason align itself with the norms of other DAWs, allowing direct audio recording and support for external plugins, as well as simplifying the arrangement process. If the use and manipulation of physical instruments and hardware has ever appealed to you, Reason could prove an exciting option.
Garagband + Logic
It’s also worth mentioning Garageband and Logic, both by Apple. While Garageband does come for free on Mac computers, many will quickly find its limits and move onto something els. Logic is undoubtedly a tried and tested bit of software and has been for many years, but the last few updates have seen its focus wander somewhat. It also doesn’t offer any way of trying it out for free before hitting the ‘buy’ button. The fact that both applications only work on Apple computers also puts them out of reach of many by default.
It’s not really possible to make a bad choice when choosing a DAW these days, especially when considering those mentioned here. The most important thing is comfort and familiarity – play around, and you’ll inevitably find one works for you more than the others. From there it’s just a case of delving deeper in, learning all the ins and outs so that keyboard shortcuts, editing and arrangement techniques become second nature. The aim is to lower the barrier between what you want to achieve and the speed at which you can achieve it before the idea is lost. With enough time, practice and patience you’ll be capable of that with any piece of software you choose.
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