The Best DAW for Beginners: Picking What’s Ideal for You

If you’re just getting started in home studio music production, you might be wondering what the best off is for beginners. You may have come across the question, “What’s the easiest DAW?”

Digital Audio Workstation, abbreviated as DAW, is essential for any musician, audio engineer, or producer. Therefore, it is reasonable to know that the digital audio workstation (DAW) is the backbone of every modern music production essential. Today’s digital audio workstations are hailed as supercomputers for their versatility and ability to provide high-quality content. All DAWs are equipped with audio editing, recording, MIDI programming, arrangement, multiple track capabilities, merging and refining a completed mix, and numerous more functions. This lets you get creative across all boundaries of music.

With that, no matter what kind of music you want to compose in the future, using your DAW and understanding its capabilities is crucial. However, there are a wide variety of digital audio workstations to choose from, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. This might make it tough for newbies to choose an ideal DAW for you. With its multi-functionality, it’s only fair to be intimidated by so many options at first. But fortunately, we have professionals who summarize the best digital DAWs you may choose as a beginner in the field of music creation. You can read them all below for reference.

FL Studio

If there is a single DAW that should be on every starter’s radar, it should be FL Studio. This 23-year-old software package, known to some as Fruity Loops, has given numerous people their first taste of music composition. The needs of fresh producers are ideally matched by FL Studio’s user-friendly interface and high-quality software synths. This led to the program’s widespread adoption by musicians working in electronic dance music (EDM) and hip-hop. Musicians the likes of Avicii, Deadmau5, and Martin Garrix are just a few of the big-name artists that have used FL. But, trap greats such as Metro Boomin, Wheezy, Pi’erre Bourne, and Mie Will Made It have also been known to use this.

Ableton Live 11 Intro

Ableton Live 11 Intro is arguably the most popular digital audio workstation among DJs and dance music producers due to its renowned quick and easy workflow. The way it lives up to its hype can be shown during live performances by famous musicians. With that, the Live Intro is a full-fledged workspace with more than enough power to create a finished track from the beginning, so you will not get a typical DAW system. There are approximately 1,500 sounds available, as well as four software instruments, twenty-one audio effects, eleven MIDI effects, and over five gigabytes of content and presets in the sound library.

Presonus Studio One

The Presonus Studio One is considered by many as the holy grail for each aspiring composer. With all the basic features of DAW, Studio One has the ability to record live instruments and use VST plugins, but its strongest suit is in music notation. You may easily transform your MIDI files into sheet music with the help of the free Presonus Notion program. You can explore the boundless number of audio tracks, instrument tracks, virtual instrument tracks, bus channels, and FX channels guaranteed to satisfy your fantasies. As mentioned, you may drag samples, effects, virtual instruments, and so on with just a click of your fingers. Furthermore, the program created a drag-and-drop style workflow used by most DAWs, so it’s easy to fit in if you enjoy this musical technique. Those who are used to working with analog audio and are transitioning into digital will find Studio One quite comfortable.

Akai MPC Beats

Proven and tested, the Akai Beats is a standard in the vast world of hip-hop and electronic music creation. With its sample-based drum machine and sequencing process it is dubbed by many as one of the best in the DAW market. Because of its popularity, Akai company released a free software version of the iconic sampler, dubbed MPC Beats recently. MPC Beats is a no-brainer for any aspiring trap star or boom-bap genius, due to a plethora of audio effects and two channels of recording for laying down a voice track or guitar. The conventional sample-based approach can be of a huge deal for starters, who want a great but user-friendly DAW.

Apple GarageBand

Trust us when we say that GarageBand is a must for beginners because it is a standard for every Mac. But GarageBand should not be dismissed as a simplified version of Apple’s premier DAW, Logic Pro. In fact, GarageBand is a fully capable DAW, supporting up to 255 audio tracks with full automation, a Drummer track, guitar, bass amp, pedalboard emulations, and a massive library of hundreds of synth sounds and Apple loops. Before Logic Pro’s update, GarageBand has already been equipped with Live Loops. It is easily hailed as the best beginner’s DAW – and for experienced musicians as well.

Steinberg Cubase Elements 11

Steinberg’s Cubase has been proven and tested in the digital audio workstation field. They were the first to implement the now-standard region-based arrange window, which is proof of their greatness and ability as DAWs. From the creators of VST technology that delivered the product for its low price, it significantly offers a substantial amount of material. Cubase Elements 11 includes more than 1,000 instrument sounds, 64 MIDI and 48 audio tracks, and approximately 50 VST effect plugins. Cubase, in contrast to more expensive versions, does not require an e-licenser USB dongle which can be pretty annoying. Furthermore, it has a broad variety of more desirable features, like the MixConsole, sampler track, chord pads, chord track, chord and scale aides, and a simple score editor.

Conclusion

In the end, you should make music for the sake of having fun at first. If you feel like you’re ready to hone your craft to the next level, you can then begin to pump it up. Don’t overanalyze; rather, consider your options, select one, and get to work. Remember that with your chosen DAW, you can now freely choose whatever you want to do with your music – guaranteed of course that you’ll deliver the best. We hope you’ll have fun creating!

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[…] descriptions of each. In case you do not know yet, Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation (DAW) created by German company Ableton. It is among one of the most in-demand DAWs of professionals in […]