Popular, Trusted Digital-Audio Workstation Systems

There are many choices when it comes to recording and sequencing audio and MIDI tracks at the professional level. In recent years, recording studios have turned away from purely hardware-based recording systems to those that require a computer. The pro audio market has evolved to maturity, but the many digital-audio, workstation-software choices can leave the neophyte confused and overwhelmed.

Here is a rundown of some of the most popular and trusted names when it comes to pro audio software. Each digital audio workstation occupies a unique niche market, and has its own devotees.

There are several factors that will come into play for your decision, such as whether you need to manipulate both audio and MIDI tracks within the same project, the amount of money you have to spend, whether you are going to do any serious audio mastering, and how much time you have to devote to learning to use a pro audio digital workstation.

Propellerhead REASON
REASON is the one sequencer most popular with producers of hip hop and electronic music, and for a few good reasons. Despite a steep learning curve, REASON rewards its user with an insane amount of functionality when it comes to manipulating drum, VSTi and synth sounds.

There is a great software drum machine included with REASON, titled Redrum. Redrum has the advantage of showing you a graphical representation of the beat, with as many subdivisions as you would like, in any time signature. Propellerhead REASON also has support for any VST plugins you may have, and can serve as a ReWire master or slave software device.

On the downside, any live instrument tracks, vocal tracks, etc. that you wish to include in your finished product cannot be directly recorded into the program. So, you will likely need another piece of software to cut and prepare your samples.