When it comes to making music in this digital age, there has been a huge levelling of the playing field when it comes to access to recording and production. What would have cost thousand of dollars in recording studio charges, can now be accomplished in the comfort of your home. If you don't believe me, ask multiple grammy award winning, over achiever Billie Eilish and her producer brother Finneas. They have managed to churn out hit after hit, album after album, from the comfort of their childhood bedroom.
I'm going to list out some free options and some paid options for software that will help you record and produce your music. All of the listed software below are capable of recording industry quality audio. They just differ in workflow methodology and have certain quirks that could help with the style of music you're going for.
FREE OPTIONS:
1.Audacity:
Audacity is an open source, fully free digital audio work station. It's workflow is very basic and easy to grasp. It's a great starting point for one to understand how audio production software works.
It is exclusively an audio recording software, which means that you can't host MIDI and virtual instrumentation. It is thus not a great option if you're into electronic music. However if you're a singer song writer and your main goal is to record acoustic instruments and your voice, it's a great tool for even multi track recording.
Pros: Very simple and easy to understand interface, multi platform support (Mac, PC, Linux)
Cons: Limited functionality for electronic music producers.
2.Garage Band:
Garage band is a free software that comes with apple computers. It's a ridiculously powerful piece of software, definitely one of the best free options. It has a beautiful interface that is very easy to understand. Garage band supports both audio and MIDI recording. It has a huge library of high quality virtual instrumentation that rivals most paid audio software.
You have a track limit of around 255 tracks, which is plenty. It works seamlessly on even the most basic macbook. If you're in the apple ecosystem and own an iphone or ipad, you can get the garage band app and make music on the go, and then send the session to your mac for further editing.
Pros: Great interface, Range of creative virtual instruments, great for multiple styles of music.
Cons: Apple only support, Setting levels and mixing is not very comprehensive.
3.Tracktion Waveform free:
Tracktion waveform has a very unique functionality. It doesn't really try to limit you with the number of tracks you could use. It can support third party plugins for your virtual instrumentation and sound effects. It also works on multiple platforms and operating systems.
The user experience is very unique and unlike other Software, this might be a problem for someone who's used to using a traditional audio production software. For new users it shouldn't really be a problem as you will have to put in the work to learn how to use it anyways.
Pros: No track limits, supports third party software plug-ins.
Cons: Steep learning curve because of wide feature set.
PAID OPTIONS
1.Ableton Live
Live by Ableton is a brilliant piece of software. It's made for live performance, electronic music producers and everyone in between. It has a very unique workflow. It has a traditional arrangement and sequencer view thats similar to other Production software, but then it has another type of workflow where you can turn your computer into a loop section with an infinite amount of channels and clips. It can be customized and setup in multiple ways that can be both useful in studio and live.
It provides a seamless interface to produce and write music while being able to translate it to a live setting too. Live has a plethora of effects and virtual instruments to choose from. These come build in and integrate very efficiently.
Pros: Extremely versatile interface, can be used live and for studio application.
Cons: On the more expensive side, doesn't integrate with large mixing boards in traditional studios.
2.Pro Tools
Pro tools is the industry standard digital audio work station. It's almost a staple in most commercial studio setups. The interface is setup for productivity and professional use. There are a million ways to do everything and no option is spared. The feature set is wide and overwhelming at points.
Avid, the company that developed protools has a wide a range of hardware supplementation for pro tools. This means that you can have physical CPU extensions that broaden the capacity and power of your existing computer. This is really useful when you have to record an orchestra and other large setups, where you would need 100s of tracks that are recording live simultaneously. This is why protools is the heart of most scoring and sound editing studios for film too.
Pros: Extremely vast amount of features, industry standard so you can walk into any big studio and feel right at home, if you know the software.
Cons: Steep learning curve, not very beginner friendly.
3.Presonus Studio one :
Studio one is a good middle ground between ableton Live and Pro Tools. It is a very capable piece of software. The interface is well laid out and is all in one page. This helps with the learning curve. You can pick up the software and get going pretty quick.
The buttons and icons are well designed and self-explanatory, where they usually do what you guess they would do by looking at their appearance. This seems trivial but once you start using multiple software to produce, This can take a lot of the guess work out of it and get you on your way.
Pros: Simple yet powerful interface, great subscription model so it's easy on your wallet.
Cons: Not many people use it so collaboration might be an issue.
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