Digital Audio Workstations

Every music creator that decides to work digitally ends up asking himself, “what DAW should I use best?” and oftentimes finds it hard to answer. Have a look at the DAW that I work with and why I do so. It might help you find your way through the software jungle a little better.

Ableton Live: At the moment Ableton Live is my go to DAW. I use it to write and produce music or record voice overs. I really like how Ableton designed basic functionality like editing, cutting, fading, zooming and file browsing to enable a smooth workflow. Ableton is a mulitpurpose tool especially useful for DJ’s, live performers and modern music creators. Additionally, Max for Live makes it possible to build your own plugins, tools or setups for music installations. The only downside for me is that Ableton lacks the functionality to handle OMF files. Price: 80-600 €

Pro Tools: I use Pro Tools when working with OMF files, for complex mixes and multitrack recordings. Pro Tools is the one of the most used DAW’s in recording studios and often called the professional standard for audio engineers. In my experience Pro Tools is stable, reliable and leaves most decisions to you rather than pre-programming settings that the makers found “handy”. Avid also produces hardware solely for Pro Tools like the Avid HDX 16×16 Analog/Digital converter for low latency conversion and the Avid HDX PCIe card that brings more computing power purely for audio. So, if you are planning to become a professional audio engineer working in a big studio Pro Tools is the place to be. Even though I know composers that work in Pro Tools I never felt that it’s the best solution for composing, especially not when working with MIDI. Price: 300-12.000$

Logic Pro: I used Logic a lot in the beginning of my music career. It has great functionalities for media composers like superb sounding and easy to use presets for instruments as well as smooth video implementation. Logic X has some pretty awesome features like a build in pitch-correction tool and great time stretching algorithms. Logic is also the professional version of Garage Band and therefore easy to adapt for people who already worked in Garage Band. I am often annoyed by the basic functions of Logic which like to kill my workflow. Lastly I have to add, Logic, as we are used to by Apple products, makes lots of decisions for you by their design which can be quite confusing. Price:  300€

Sell Your Music

Audiojungle: You probably have already noticed that I sell my music on audiojungle. It is a cool platform for composers of every kind to sell their music to people who would like to use them in media projects. Their slogan is “royalty free stock music” which doesn’t mean that the music is free but that buyers don’t have to pay royalties. For you, the composer, no costs are involved. Even though all kinds of music are sold on Audiojungle, through looking at the popular files it becomes clear that simple, catchy tunes for commercial and business related purposes bring in most sales. Check it out for yourself. Price: 0€