Recording Studio Software – What Kind is Right For You?
Recording studio software today gives you an entire recording studio in your computer. What comes on many computers for free these days I’ve personally paid thousands of dollars for the functionality of years ago. Each year as software is updated I’m amazed at how much it does!
A friend of mine calls me up every time a new update comes out to tell me «Man, people don’t know how good they’ve got it these days. Remember what we had to go through, and what we had to pay?!» I certainly do! My laptop now does what I used to have racks and racks of gear for, it’s mind boggling!
The beginners however are more baffled than ever, and are often lost in a software setting somewhere. The software I used to use just for music notation, now is the same software that I mix records on, get my entire guitar amp sound from, edit voice over, and on and on. It slices, it dices, it EQs and compresses!
When you are faced with 5 options at the music store for your software, how do you decide?
Well, I can tell you this– you can pick ANY ONE of the major recording studio software packages, and you will be able to do what you want to do. It doesn’t matter, these days they do it ALL.
So again, how do you decide? In my experience there are only 2 criteria that matter.
- Your preferred workflow
- What do your friends use
Looking at number one, (preferred workflow) this you may not even know yet. You may have never recorded anything, or you did record something and got frustrated. So, to solve this for yourself, we’re going to do an exercise:
Imagine recording. How are you doing it? Is it just one take straight through, or are you doing multiple takes? Is it just one part at a time, or is everyone playing together? Do you write your song all the way through and then record it, or do you like to make a little part to loop over and add to that?
Get a good concept of how you like to lay down your ideas.
Now with that in mind I break DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software into two categories: The kind that operates like a tape machine & the kind that operates as a music sequencer.
Software Category #1: Tape Machine
The tape machine kind (Pro Tools, Nuendo) operate from the viewpoint of the recording engineer and generally work like you’d record your tracks straight through. These programs do of course allow looping, and punch-ins and so forth, but they are really optimized for straight ahead recording.
Software Category #2: Music Sequencer
The music sequencer kind (Logic, Cubase) operate from the viewpoint of the songwriter. They work like you’re going to lay in different parts and then sequence them after the fact. Of course you can record straight through with these too, however they have a lot of bells and whistles on the top level meant for the songwriter experimenting with ideas.
Now, point number two (what do your friends use) is super important. Collaboration is such an essential part of making music, having software that is incompatible with your friends can put a stop on the whole show.
Also, using software that your friends use helps in your learning, because it’s easier when you have someone to go to with questions– you’ll learn from each other.
Even if you don’t have friends immediately who use any recording software, there are plenty of discussion forums that you can go on where you can meet users of the different programs. Get a feel for the vibe of the users on the discussion forums. That right there will give you a sense of the type of people that use each program and can help guide you into the one that’s right for you.
With such powerful recording studio software these days, you really can’t go wrong, but you will find that one or another is just a bit more right for you!