 Welcome back fellow techies and today's video is something different with the tech talks. Episode number one and today we're going to be talking about Digital Audio Workstations or DAWs for short. But which ones should we use? There's so many out there and so many do all sorts of different things. Well we're here to have a discussion about them today. Well we have some free ones, we have some expensive ones and we have some ones that just do some basic editing and some basic techniques. Some that work on PC, some that work on Mac, some that work on both. I'm also going to recommend which one works best for recording and which one works best for editing and I'll also give my opinions on which one I prefer the most and which ones I disagree about using. So first of all we're going to start off with just Audacity really. Audacity is the basic free one. It allows you to edit on Mac and PC. It allows you to do basic editing. It allows you to cut out beginning and end. It allows you to edit out silences. It allows you to combine all tracks together. It allows you to export as individual tracks and as multiple tracks, MP3s, DAWs. But when it comes down to adding effects to it, it's pretty basic. Well you can't listen to the track as it plays free. You can only listen to the track during previews as they call it. Play it, exit the effect and then rejoin it again. It's just a bit basic really but it's free and we can't complain because it's free on PC and on Mac. The next software we're going to talk about is Adobe Audition. Now again Adobe Audition works both on PC and on Mac but it is quite expensive depending if you're looking at buying the full Adobe package, the creative cloud as they call it or just the software license. You can still find yourself copying out about 15 to 25 pound per month just on Adobe Audition alone. Now it's a very good bit of software. It does everything a DAW does. It allows you to edit, allows you to cut and paste, it allows you to do a multitrack recording. I find it more useful for editing. I haven't used it for recording. I just don't feel it. It's a suitable software for recording. I would prefer to using other softwares listed below but for a Adobe package, Adobe have got a good name. It's a good bit of software and the effects it's a step up from Audacity. It allows you to edit the effects whilst listening back to the track so you can get a more precise edit. It's better. I'm not sure of the plugins of the effects are the greatest but they're better than Audacity's plugins so we are moving up in the chain. They are better but if you are wanting to spend a little per month maybe I would recommend buying it but if you don't want to spend anything then we could look elsewhere at a general purchase for a software instead because this is again a monthly subscription or you can pay a yearly subscription but again you're paying every year for a bit of software where you could buy one outright which we're going to talk about later on. The next DAW you're going to be talking about is GarageBand. GarageBand is free for Mac only but works on all other Apple devices iPhone, iPads, Mac Pros, iMacs etc. Any product that you buy from Apple should come with GarageBand. Now GarageBand allows you to have Apple Loops which is a bonus and they're free copyright loops so you can make those of drum loops or orchestral pieces etc. using the loop system. It's also quite good at recording it's not the greatest you can do basic recordings if you have an audio interface. It's not the greatest like I said but it allows you to do the editing. It is a as the industry called it's like the little sister to Logic Pro X. It allows you to do the editing like Logic does. It's layout is the same as Logic and it works just as well. It's like the beginner's guide to audio recording. The plugins are okay. The software is free but you have to buy the Apple product so in a sense you are buying a thousand pound worth of product for a bit of free software so some would say it's not free. The plugins for the effects again aren't the greatest. It allows you to do the editing, the cues and the compressions and allows you to do it whilst listening back to the track which is better than audacity which you can't listen back to the track as you're editing. It allows you to split the windows so you can have your mixer appear, you can have your effects appear, you can do all automation. It gives you all that little bit more advanced skills but still using a bit of beginner software. The next DAW we're going to be looking at is Logic Pro X. Logic Pro X is now going into the industry standard DAW. So there's about three at the moment industry standard DAWs. You've got Logic, you've got Pro Tools and you've got Cubase for the potential PC users. Logic is an Apple only software. It's quite expensive at $199.99. Now for $199.99 you get that full product. You get all the Apple loops. You get updates. Logic is brilliant for recording, mixing, mastering, adding effects, panning, all sorts. It is the simple industry standard software. The plugins are good, are really good and the layout of the software is really easy to use. In a sense you could say Logic is quite logical. It automatically creates your stereo output and your master channel so everything is already patched to the outputs. The mixer is really simple to use. The mute, solo and record buttons are really easy to use. Logic's basic functionality can also become more advanced with adding oscillators and voice changes and all sorts of different effects into it. It's quite good at removing the hum from our backgrounds. As we said before it is a industry standard bitter software but it's very logical to use and it's used in quite a lot of schools and colleges to teach music technology or even music. It's very good for composing on. You can draw MIDI notes. You can play MIDI notes into the program using a keyboard. It is definitely an easy bitter software to use. The next DAW we're going to be talking about is Cubase. Cubase works on Mac and PC. Cubase has come on a long way since I last used it. Cubase can be known to be industry standard. It can be used in live sound. It can be used in filmmaking just like Logic and Pro Tools. Originally Cubase was built for Windows machines and now it works on Windows and Mac. Giving it the versatility and the same weightage to work against Logic and Pro Tools. Cubase has a sound library just like Logic and Pro Tools. It allows you to add MIDI and create MIDI events just like Logic and Pro Tools and it's a very good bitter software. It allows you to edit all sorts. It's designed by Steinberg which is the music company that makes instruments. It's a DJ award-winning software and was originally designed to sequence MIDI. So is Cubase good? Yes, yes it is. Now you have to use Cubase. You have to buy Cubase just like you have to buy Logic and Pro Tools and this is not cheap unfortunately. It is quite expensive at £500 price including 20% VAT but again you'll have to buy a e-licencer required which is an extra £20 on top of that. It is just expensive but you get the full package, the full license but it is a good bitter software and it does everything you need to do. It's perfect for drawing in MIDI and sequencing. It works really well with a MIDI keyboard. Now on to the final DAW we're going to be talking about Pro Tools. Pro Tools is for Mac and PC but this product is very expensive. It can range from £598 for the full package so you're basically paying £598 near enough £600 upfront for the full product with the years, upgrades and support line or if you wanted to you could pay £30 a month for one year subscription downloadable product. This product is brilliant for recording and mixing so if you have your own audio interface which you're really happy with the preamps it's brilliant for recording straight into it. It's basically the industry standard, the top-end industry standard of recording device. If you record into it all the effects are mixed in the box these days so the effects and plugins are brilliant to do mixing and mastering. It allows you to export in the CD format and then allows you to master to the highest level possible. The external plugins which you can download, off-site plugins are brilliant that work with Pro Tools. Pro Tools also is cost compatible with Sabadius so you can do a lot of notation in Pro Tools and it will reopen in Sabadius because they're both run by Avid. It's a bit more difficult to do that in Logic but it works just the same but Pro Tools makes it a lot more easier. Now unfortunately Pro Tools makes you think when you're recording. Unlike Logic, what creates your submasters and your master outputs with Pro Tools you have to create your subs and your masters and direct all your tracks in the correct order after you've created it. Shortcuts, there's a complete keyboard shortcut guide online to do the shortcuts to do with Pro Tools. There's just so many it's unreal. Like Logic you can do 5.1 mixing. It is a big step up from Logic. It makes it very worthwhile purchasing if you are looking at pying a very high-end bit of software. In my opinion I've organised the DAWs we've spoken about in order from one to five one being the best and five being the worst. Pro Tools and Logic I would say are joint first. They both have the capabilities of doing industry standard work. Adobe Audition is second and GarageBand is third and Cubase is fourth with Audacity being fifth. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to like the video if you enjoyed it and subscribe for more and also ding dong that notification bell to get further updates. Thanks again. Goodbye.