Alright, so you’ve determined that your computer is up to snuff for recording music. Congratulations! The computer is oftentimes the most expensive piece of the whole studio (especially starting out).
You’re creating a DAW, a Digital Audio Workstation. Now that you have a computer, you need some recording software.
“What should I get?” you ask.
Free Software
There are a ton of options, and many of them are free. If you’re not sure how serious you are about recording, you may need to start with one of the free programs. I’ve found Reaper to work well on the PC. If you’ve got a relatively new Mac, then you’re already off to the races with GarageBand, which is included for free.
Don’t let the studio snobs intimidate you, there is good music to be made with free software. A good friend of mine in Nashville has made some very good-sounding recordings with GarageBand and a cheap little audio interface. (I’ll cover interfaces in the next article.)
Free software is, however, free, so you will most likely run into limitations before long. At that point, you may be ready to spend a little money on some good software.
The Major Players
There are several major players on the market vying for your attention (and your money). They are as follows:
- Digidesign Pro Tools (Mac & PC)
- Apple Logic Studio (Mac only)
- MOTU Digital Performer (Mac only)
- Steinberg Cubase (Mac & PC)
- Cakewalk Sonar (PC only)
- Ableton Live (Mac & PC)
Now there are hundreds of users who swear by each of these platforms, and I’m not here to make a definitive statement about which one is “best.” As a consumer, I’ve used most of them. Having sold music equipment for years, I’ve sold them all to various customers, and I’ve developed differing opinions on each.
Here are my picks:
If you’re on a PC – Pro Tools
If you’re on a Mac – Pro Tools or Logic
Why? Well, for one, I own them. You’ll hear it all over the web, but Pro Tools really is the “industry standard.” If you think there’s ever a chance you’ll want to work in a studio, or send your files to a studio to be mixed, you’ll need to have Pro Tools.
Also, Pro Tools has a simple layout, which is helpful for beginners. There aren’t a million buttons all over the screen to confuse you. And you don’t have to deal with a bunch of different windows. You only have two – the Mix Window and the Edit Window.
Another added benefit is that Pro Tools LE is a an exceptional value. You simply buy one of their audio interfaces (Mbox family or 003 family), and Pro Tools LE software is included. That’s huge.
My brother-in-law recently got into Pro Tools. He spent around $300, and that covered both his audio interface (Mbox 2 Mini) and his recording software (Pro Tools LE).
I love Apple’s Logic Studio as well. It’s a very creative platform. In fact, GarageBand and Logic both share the same audio engine. If you have songs you recorded in GarageBand, you can simply buy Logic, open up the songs inside Logic, and continue working on them.
Logic includes a lot of virtual instruments (such as orchestra sounds, keyboard sounds, etc.). It’s great for songwriting and composing.
The other benefit is that Logic works with pretty much any audio interface. What that means is you can choose your interface, whereas with Pro Tools you have to use Digidesign’s interfaces, which limits your selection.
The truth is that all of these programs will do the same thing. The difference lies simply in how they do it. If I told ten guitarists to play an E minor chord, I bet they wouldn’t all play it the same way, but none of them would be wrong.
Do yourself a favor, do a little research, but don’t make it a 6-month process. For every month you wait around for the “perfect” solution, that’s one less month that you could’ve been making music.
And that’s what it’s all about after all, right?
* This article is part 3 of a 13-article series - 12 Home Studio Necessities.
Reaper is a staple for me too, there is a Mac version in beta right now too. However, it’s not free. Neither does it have all the limitations you’re bound to run into with the other cut-down options you list.
I haven’t spent a lot of time with Reaper, but it seems to be pretty ridiculously full-featured for a free program.
… and it’s still not free.
http://www.reaper.fm/purchase.php?l=1 $225 but you can get it for $50 for non-commercial uses.
I still think it stands up against the competition, especially with some of the plugins that are included.
Nice article, great website.
Just wanted to offer one more perspective for Mac users, and offer a small plug for DP.
If it wasn’t for Digidesign locking in Pro Tools to their own hardware, I would probably be a Pro Tools user. But the vendor lock-in is something I really don’t like.
I found Logic to have a very steep learning curve and the interface not very intuitive. It does have a TON of included plugins and loops, VIs, etc., though.
So I discovered Digital Performer. Its actually one of the oldest DAWs, and it has been refined and enhanced over many, many years. It’s always been a native Mac application and runs very smoothly. MOTU, the maker of DP, also sells a range of very nice, feature-packed audio interfaces. Even though DP sports a high level of integration with MOTU’s own interfaces, it isn’t locked in in any way and works perfectly with other brands as well.
I’ve found DP to be very intuitive, and it also has an excellent manual. It really works well I think for musicians, composers, arrangers, etc.; it excels at the creative side of “making music”, more so than other programs which are designed mainly for recording or some other specific task. It does many things well with a nice balance between MIDI, scoring, notation editing, multitrack recording, mixing, and mastering.
So if you’re on a Mac, be sure to give it a look. You can get a significant discount on it too if you own or buy one of MOTU’s excellent audio interfaces. They also have an excellent user community over at motunation.com. So far I’m very happy with it.
Great plug, Kevin. I’m certainly not a DP hater. I love MOTU, great company.
Pro Tools 8 is a little better but a little difficult getting used to esp. if you havent learned 7.4.2 completely yet. Logic is a lot like garageband but better. I love Logic its really good for programming midi if your going to record do not do it on Logic though. Pro tools would be best for recording. In Pro Tools 8 they have 3 different key board focus buttons (A-Z) one for groups, tracks and regions beware of that. I dont use Reason much but it is good if you want to put a click into Pro Tools for a drummer. =]
Generally speaking, Pro Tools caters more towards recording, and Logic caters more towards MIDI and composing. However, with Logic 8 and Pro Tools 7 & 8, they’ve both really begun to close that gap.
Yes they have.
Ah… Reaper! We were using Reaper in my studio before we switched over to Pro Tools M-Powered. The difference? Pro Tools sounded so much more creamier and warm than Reaper. The Reaper tracks we made were really cold and edgy compared to the tracks we made in Pro Tools.
Make no mistake though… Reaper IS a full DAW for pennies on the dollar. Initially, Cockos stated that if you made money using it, they wanted you to pay for it, but you could still use it for free. I thought this was still the case, with heavy emphasis on the pay part. Either way, you can use it to your hearts content, every feature. It’s pretty technical too. It helps to be pretty fluent with PC computers for setting up file organization and it’s extremely helpful to know a good bit of recording terminology when going through the preferences and file setup options.
So yeah, it’s the real deal and they’ve got great support for their product too. Constant updates and a good user forum on their website. If you need a place to start recording on the PC but can’t afford one of the pay-for options (the “big boys”), it’s a great way to go. You do need to know more than the basics of recording to really understand the manual though. It’s not going to teach you how to record. It will only teach you how to implement what they expect you to already know using Reaper.
The effects, as well as most things in Reaper, are modular too! You can chain them in any order you want, sort of like the ultimate guitar effects rig. Pretty slick.
I haven’t used Reaper in-depth. Thanks for the quick review! That’s helpful. There are a lot of happy Reaper users out there.
I recently purchased Pro Tools 8 (unopened) and currently use my Digi 001 for my productions. TOTALLY PROFESSIONAL GEAR that if used properly, can provide the best audio works ever! If you are a novice composer, I would suggest using Cakewalk (PC) or Logic (MAC) until you understand the power of “PRO” DAW’s.
Don’t spend alot of $$ until you READ and find which setup is right for what you specialize in (recording, composition, songwriting, video apps.) because it can get costly….but don’t be afraid to try several computer and analog gigs to see what works best for you.
Thanks Irv. It’s near impossible these days to buy equipment that doesn’t sound decent. Like you said, it really comes down to getting into a DAW and learning it.
You might consider Ardour. It’s basically as capable as Pro Tools, but Free software (GPL licensed, like Linux) and runs on Linux and Macs
http://www.ardour.org
I wrote an (admittedly outdated) tutorial on Ardour here http://www.out-of-order.ca/tutorials/ardour/
Cheers
B
Yeah, I’ve heard good things about Ardour. Nice tutorial, Ben!
Well, I for one use Cakewalk Sonar because it sounds 20-40% better (sorry – inside joke). Actually, most of these packages can put together professional grade recordings.
Although the equipment and performance are important, don’t discount your room acoustics. A few hundred dollars and some clever do it yourself work can make dramatic differences in the quality of your room. There’s some great reading on the subject at Ethan Winer’s site: http://www.realtraps.com/info.htm I’ve used some of his articles to help me design some bass traps that are amazingly effective. I’m also a fan of this place: http://www.readyacoustics.com/. Good people all.
By the way, I really do use Sonar – I’ve been using it for years and am very happy with its features and quality. Protools is not bad, but it’s not cheap; and for this extra money, you really only get a name and a lock into their hardware.
I also know people who use Logic, Reaper, DP, Cubase, etc. It all works – find the one you like and make some music.
“find the one you like and make some music.” I couldn’t agree more, Mike. Thanks for visiting!
I think you should check out Ableton Live a bit more…I noticed you barely mentioned it in passing, but, for many users, it’s a much better interface. If you are prone to ‘playing around’ to get your sound, if you want a DAW that you can take into the studio as easily as you take it on the road, and if you want a clean and highly customizable interface – then I’d highly recommend it. The session view alone was a big seller for me, allowing you to save off tons of little clips and piece them back together in a loose, jam type workflow. I agree Pro Tools is very powerful and definitely the current industry standard, but for some types of musicians, myself included, nothing beats Live for flexibility and dive-right-in workflow. Hook it to Reason as a Rewire slave and you have a whole orchestra of sounds at your fingertips with one of the easiest interfaces I’ve ever used
.
I noticed that most of the comments are centered around Pro Tools, because of the fact it is industry standard, be cause I believe people got locked in to it from the beginning.
I used to use Pro Tools and after doing recordings with Cakewalk Sonar at some of my friends studios, I went with Cakewalk Sonar 8.5 Producer Edition, which is loaded to the hilt with plugins. I fell in love with Sonar, there is really so much you can do with this DAW, Audio and MIDI. Granted the learning curve is not easy, but, once you learn it, its great, so don’t knock the other DAWs. They all can do great things, It’s really up to you, the engineer.
Hey Ron! Good to hear from you, man. You’re right, HSC leans pretty heavily towards Pro Tools. I have nothing against the other DAWs, though.
»If you’re on a Mac – Pro Tools or Logic
Why? Well, for one, I own them. You’ll hear it all over the web, but Pro Tools really is the “industry standard.” If you think there’s ever a chance you’ll want to work in a studio, or send your files to a studio to be mixed, you’ll need to have Pro Tools [...] Another added benefit is that Pro Tools LE is a an exceptional value. You simply buy one of their audio interfaces (Mbox family or 003 family), and Pro Tools LE software is included. That’s huge.«
Hi Joe,
First of all great blog!
Your statements above persuaded me to go out and buy a Mbox2 Mini for my Macbook Pro.
Well, I shouldn’t have done that! It set me back $ 400 and practically rendered my whole system useless in the process. Only solution was to uninstall Pro Tools LE and disconnect the Mbox soundcard for good. So now I’m back to Logic and saving for an Apogee One sound card instead of diving into Pro Tools!
I have now researched the matter and found out that Digidesign apparently are selling products that are supposed to be mac compatible but aren’t in reality! [http://duc.digidesign.com/showthread.php?t=194592]. Also, the tech-support at Digidesign is non-existing!
Obviously, I can not recommend the Mbox2 Mini/Pro Tools LE combo for any Mac user. Seriously, you’ll regret it…
Hi Ben. If you’re on the very latest Mac OS (Snow Leopard), then yes, I don’t believe Pro Tools is compatible. I’m sorry you had issues, but compatibility is something we should always research before buying software. Also, if you buy from Sweetwater, you get FREE tech support directly from them. They’re amazing.
Sorry you had issues! Enjoy Logic!!
Hi Joe,
Yes, I know I should have researched the OS compatibility a little better, but I did ask at the store and every other major software product (Photoshop CS4, Lightroom 2, Logic, Ableton Live 8, Guitar Rig 4 and other NI-products) has been running on Snow Leopard for months now without any issues whatsoever! I guess you’re still using Leopard then?
Unfortunately, I can’t buy my music gear from Sweetwater because I’m living in Denmark. I just hope that Digidesign will work hard to make Pro Tools 8 LE and the Mbox2 Mini sound card compatible with Snow Leopard in the near future. They really need to make this a priority since every new Mac comes with Snow Leopard installed…
Anyway, I really enjoy your site. Thank you!…
I think you’re a shill for Sweetwater, Pro Tools, and Mac.
I could probably grab any project in a proprietary format or not and import it into Ardour and get everything I need done efficiently for no cost but my time. Yes, I am a die-hard linux user. I use it for everything. Sure, some of the things aren’t set up perfectly from the start – but at least as a user you have the opportunity and free tools to get the machine to do exactly what you want.
You know what else? I can export any ardour project to work with any of your proprietary softwares. Because guess what, all of these systems work with a published standard.
You know why? Because I have talent in knowing how things work and affecting how machines communicate both internally and among other machines.
All of these software things you suggest are really for people that don’t understand how to get their machine to do what they want beyond clicking on pre-programmed functions.
I understand your logic and why you have come to the conclusion that you get what you pay for. That is any simple-minded persons conclusion. I was drawing similar conclusions in grade school. But now, I’ve realized you also pay for what you get. And more often than not, it’s frustration, and an inability to just fix a problem yourself. What do you do when your Mac stops working? You can’t fix it, so you have to pay someone. Or purchase a replacement part that is not commoditized.
Thanks for the comment, Sam. I’m really glad Linux works so well for you.
I created this website because I genuinely like recording with Pro Tools on a Mac, and there are thousands of people who enjoy using that same setup. I’ve learned how to use it. I love it, and I want to share with others how to use that system. I worked for Sweetwater for 3 years, so I’m a big fan of them as well. Also, I’m not sure what “shill” means.
From the free (you get what you pay for) encyclopedia:
“A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer. The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage others unaware of the set-up to purchase said goods or services or support the political group’s ideological claims. Shills are often employed by confidence artists. The term plant is also used.”
And as one who knows Joe on a non-online level, Sam: you are wrong about him.
“I could probably grab any project in a proprietary format or not and import it into Ardour and get everything I need done efficiently for no cost but my time.” Tells me you haven’t actually ever tried it. Which also means you have probably never worked on any project of any significance. Ardour doesn’t even support importing of OMF sessions. But really, lets face it Sam, music production is less about the inner bowels of an operating system, and more about having a good ear. If you took time to listen to any of Joe’s work, instead of flaming a post with your tinfoil hat on, you’d probably realize he’s pretty good at what he does, regardless of what he uses.
from Wikipedia:
A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer.
*Cough* BS *cough*. I can tell you right now that Joe gets absolutely ZERO benefit from Sweetwater for mentioning them here. Who knows, maybe Digi and Apple sponsor him, but I can say with most certainty that Sweetwater does not.
As for Sam’s comment – point well taken but Sam needs to realize that this article and really, this website is geared toward people who have no desire to explore the inner workings of an operating system (or a DAW or a web browser, etc) to the extent that he is suggesting.
Good for you, Sam, for bending these machines to your will. Not everyone has the expertise that you indicate or the desire to obtain it.
SFB
I just finished a 2 hour video tutorial on Ardour2/Harrison Mixbus, so i can empathize with both sides. It’s a good looking product that does a lot of things right.
It’s also essentially a 1.0 product. Has some Great sounds, & Great features, and really outstanding customizability, but still, compared to the stability of the Pro Tools/Sonar level software, it’s not there for daily recording purposes yet.
Mixing though? For $80, it’s outstanding.
And Sam doesn’t seem to understand what a shill is. Shills get paid for promoting something, under the guise of an ordinary user. Joe is pretty open about the fact that he once worked for Sweetwater (they pay no commissions on referrals, no company does. I should know, i refer *lots* of people to them), and here in the States, Pro Tools is the industry standard, whether we like it or not.
And a linux mind operates not-at-all like a mac mind. Mac people enjoy machines that just work. Linux people enjoy making their machines work. I’ve used both. I haven’t the daily time to bend the latest linux distro to my will.
Hey, guys, sorry for the flame-bait. I was tired and drunk and pissed off at the world that night. I need to write blues songs when I’m in that mood, not troll random, respected forums.
My sincerest apologies.
As far as this whole Ardour thing goes – I like to use it for re-mastering already bounced stereo tracks, in which it is really flexible and unbelievably accurate at metering everything.
Sorry that I am an arse.
-Sam
No worries Sam. We all get that way at times.
Seriously though, give Mixbus a look if you’re a big Ardour fan. Ardour 3 looks pretty sweet, and Mixbus is basically Ardour with the Harrison Mix engine & DSP.
Cheers
Adan
Thanks for making that right, Sam
SFB
Good call on putting that right Sam.
Hey Sam,
I think we’ve all been there at one point or another. No worries here.
I’m glad to have a do-it-yourself-er on the site. You’ll bring a unique perspective to the discussion that I know next to nothing about. (Linux what?)
Welcome.
Hi there
May I add Audio Audition 3.0 by Adobe… This program is not often mensioned, but the fact is that this program is great…
Many know the old Cool Edit, and actualy Audio Audition is the same program, but with a totally new and up to standard mixing console…
In my book Audio Audition 3.0 is the best audio editing program out there, and when everything is edited, why not mix it in the same program… Is has a very nice mixing layout, with easy to use effect racks, busses, master bus, automation and everything… And it supports VST and DirectX…
I run a large Waves bundle on it and it works great…
And a very nice thing in this program is that you can freeze a track if out run out of CPU
) Simple click freeze on a track you how already adjusted all the plug-in on and the track renders a wave wet, and free's all the CPU this track took up… You can always un-freeze it again if you need to do adjustments anyway… This is very nice if you are not running on super computers…
And I winder why so few talk about this peace of software… I also run ProTools, but most projects I do in Audio Audition, simply because it's easier…
I've heard good things about Audition. I have no doubt it's great. I
just think Adobe doesn't market it all that well to the studio folks
out there. They seem to focus mainly on radio stations.
That's my guess. People don't use it because they haven't heard of it.
Everyone's heard of Pro Tools. I know it may not be logical, but
that's probably what's going on.
You're probably right about the marketing from Adobe… Maybe they found it was easier to promote to radios etc, instead of a market rule by ProTools, Cubase, Logic and so on…
Anyway you can see some nice videos here http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/
) very nice…
This program is just the killer for editing
I recently purchased Propellerhead Record and enjoy it thoroughly. But to make my band’s previous recording, I used Kristal Audio Engine which is a pretty basic DAW. (Although this might belong under the Audio Interface section, I use Line 6 Toneport with Pod Farm software.)
.
I know most folks on here will probably look down on my choices because it’s not “professional enough”, but I don’t have the money to splurge on a lot of stuff and Kristal and Line 6 was sufficient enough for me
Pro tools without a doubt is the flagship software for PC users, but its limited in the sound designing sense.
Ableton live fills this void well with its no fuss, quick approach to audio manipulation.
Personally I prefer Ableton live.
Definitely. If your eye is on sound design, Ableton is almost a no-brainer. If you like Ableton, you REALLY need to check out Nick’s Tutorials. Great Ableton and sound design tutorials.