www.MarkTAW.com/recording/HomeStudio/BuildaHomeStudiononaBudget/DAWSoftwareTheHeartofyour.html (printable version)

DAW Software: The Heart of your Home Studio
A few months ago, Electronic Musician had an article "Build a Home Studio on Any Budget" but their bottom budget was my top budget. This is my answer to that column.

This and the soundcard are what turn your computer into a home studio.

Free

$100 - $600

Re Cakewalk Home Studio: I've been using it. Haven't pushed it very hard, but so far it's been fairly straightforward. Early versions were limited to recording 2 channels at a time; I believe the current version has lifted that limit. It accepts industry standard plug-ins.

One possible advantage, for folks who care about this, is that since Cakewalk is from the same folks who sell Sonar there's a discounted upgrade price from Cakewalk to Sonar, and you *may* save some retraining time versus moving from another package. They're also the same folks publishing Finale, and there are occasionally discount offers across those two product lines, which may be of interest if you want to produce high-quality printed scores.

(I believe there are also "competetive upgrades" to Sonar -- if you own another pro package, they'll give you a price break to encourage you to move over.)

I haven't used the other packages enough to do a proper comparison of Cakewalk Home Studio, and as I say I haven't pushed it hard enough to really do a proper review... but if you've got specific questions I can try to come up with answers.

What To Get?

Even more than with a sound card, this is where it really pays to be able to try before you buy. Download demo's of anything you're interested in, or find a friend who has it and sit down with it... don't let them help you too much, see how well you can figure it out on your own. Download any manuals that are available and see which ones make sense to you.

Of course, that's more work than I did, I just bought the Digi001 with ProTools LE so I'd know I'd have something to fall back on if nothing else worked. Plus I knew people who were happy with it, and I could record drums at the studio down the block and bring them home to mix. On the other hand, I spend a lot more time in Cubase because it works with Reason (see sequencers), so I paid for software twice. ProTools, on the other hand, is easier to use and works with all the channels of the Digi001, so I'd rather use that. ProTools also has Kontakt, which is supposed to be good, so I may have taken a shorter route by buying Kontakt and using it with ProTools....

As you can see, this is a tough decision. Again, talk to users and be very explicit about your needs. I needed sequenced audio editable in realtime with live audio, which, I think, is one of the more difficult question to answer because the technology to do it in software realm is relatively new.

Digidesign & Steinberg run demo's of their products all the time, especially at places like Sam Ash & Guitar Center. Check the website of your local music store and see if they're running one near you. Just realize you're going to a sales event and they're going to try to sell you on their product.

On January 15, 2003, David Lemire sent to me:

In regard to DAW software, here are some inexpensive and/or free candidates I've come across in my searches that I didn't see on your page.  I've not personally tried any of these other than a coupla minutes playing with n-Track.

For Linux Users:

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page first created on Sunday, December 08, 2002

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