On the other side of the soundtrack: composing our own music.
Part 5
Hello friends!
It is time to talk about the software in which we will create our masterpieces.
This article is based on my thoughts that have formed during twenty years of studying and using a huge number of different music programs. I will recommend a few great software options with which you will work in the future.
DAW - Digital Audio Workstation. This is the general name for such software programs. All of them are similar in general terms and are intended to capture your musical ideas and produce finished tracks. Although, there are some differences between them that distinguish them from each other.
A bit of a history ... In the analog era, music were made, roughly, as follows: a music band came to the studio and recorded the part of each instrument on a separate track of the studio tape recorder. They usually did several takes. Then, a specially trained person would choose the best takes or the best parts from each take and painstakingly edit these records. Further, all the recorded tracks were fed to the mixing console, with the sound engineer in charge. He, through the manipulation of the mixing console and external processing devices, created those masterpieces that we still admire to this day. Long and hard work ...
A DAW is essentially the same multi-track microphone plus a mixing console. Having a computer and DAW, we perform all the same manipulations as before in the studio, only this is done much faster and easier!
Now you can combine the creation process with mixing, e.g. be a musician and a sound engineer at once. This is often the case with many producers. Separation of recording and mixing processes has blurred due to the development of technology. However, after years of studying these programs, I concluded that not all DAWs allow you to fully create a comfortable environment for this combined process. And in the end, I returned to the old scheme - in one DAW I produce the composition, because this DAW was created as an environment for production, and in the second, after importing all the tracks, I do the final mixing.
Why is that? I will give you a three reasons why I returned to the classic scheme.
First, the programs are not perfect! What is convenient in one is not well developed in the second and vice versa. Believe me, I would love to work in one program, if it had everything I need, but I have not found such a software yet.
Second, all the plugins that we will use in these programs, create a load on the central processor and highly consumes RAM. Since production and mixing are different processes, different plugins are involved. Virtual instruments and creative plugins – for production part, and audio processing plugins – for mixing.
Separating processes gives me an opportunity to fully use the resources of my computer, without thinking about slowing down, overloading or even freezing the system.
Third, pure psychological moment. When the production stage is over and all instrument tracks have been exported to sound files, there comes to a point of no return. This means that everything in this stage is over and you need to move on. Believe me, you can write and refine one composition forever. You will see it for yourself in the future.
Do not misunderstand me, what I described above is not a panacea, it is one of the many methods of work that I have chosen for myself because I find it to be the fastest and most optimal for my projects. Perhaps you will choose the other way for your projects. This is normal, the main thing to remember is that the result is more important than the way you achieve it.
There are many DAWs for every taste and work style. From an expensive professional systems like ProTools and Digital Performer to free programs that can deliver a great result.
Of the free ones, I would recommend two software options that allow you to make a finished product from start to finish:
These are complete DAWs with a small set of virtual instruments and processing plugins. You can create a finished composition without any additional plugins on both of those softs.
I also, would like to recommend paid DAWs based on their price/performance ratio:
1. Reaper
3. Bitwig
I personally work with Bitwig (production) and Reaper (mixing)
Hope this article helps you to quickly choose a suitable DAW for your first project. There are many of the factors you should consider when you are choosing a DAW, but each of the mentioned above programs are self-sufficient and will allow you to create a finished music track.
There is an eternal question popular all over the Internet - Which DAW is the best? My answer would be – The one you know and understand perfectly!
In the next article, I will introduce you to virtual instruments.
Stay tuned…
Andru (Namaste) Shaitar
webdisweb@gmail.com
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