What is a DAW?

[Dave2002]

OK - let's get the basics out of the way - acronym DAW = Digital Audio Workstation. So what!

Here's a link to a page about DAWs - http://music.tutsplus.com/articles/w...s--audio-11773

What I really want to know is why any of those tools should be better than Audacity, which for those of us who sometimes make and edit recordings generally does the job, and usually does a pretty good job too.

[MrGongGong]

OK - let's get the basics out of the way - acronym DAW = Digital Audio Workstation. So what!

Here's a link to a page about DAWs - http://music.tutsplus.com/articles/w...s--audio-11773

What I really want to know is why any of those tools should be better than Audacity, which for those of us who sometimes make and edit recordings generally does the job, and usually does a pretty good job too.

Audacity is a very simple DAW
If you want something more sophisticated for free this will do the trick http://ardour.org
If you want to pay a little then Reaper is excellent

Audacity is just about OK
but very clunky and not very accurate compared to other tools.

You do get what you pay for.

Garage band is the work of Satan IMV

[Lordgeous]

Audacity is fine for your needs. More 'professional' programmes will have features that you don't really need. For example DSP-Quattro (which I use for stereo work) enables me to make professional CD masters, with embedded ISRC and PQ codes to 'red book' standard, required by major duplication plants and record companies. Logic, pro-tools etc are fully formed multitrack recorders with sophisticated editing features that you'll probably never need. Audacity is excellent and I use it regularily for simple jobs.

[Dave2002]

One always learns new things ....

ISRC - http://www.ppluk.com/I-Make-Music/Wh...at-is-an-ISRC/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Recording_Code

PQ - https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mast...pq-coding.html

(I had no idea that there were/are 8 subcode channels on a CD ....)

http://www.soundrecordingtechnology.com/faq/mastering/faq_mastering2.htm

http://www.a1cds.co.uk/cd-pressing/cd-audio-pq-sheet

So maybe this is stuff that hardly any of us need to know, unless we want to make CDs or other music artefacts for commercial publication.
I'm guessing that Blu Ray and DVDs will have similar codes - but perhaps not the same ones. Do Downloads also need such codes?

[Serial_Apologist]

It's what it is when it's not ajar.

[ahinton]

It's what it is when it's not ajar.

DAW! I mean "Duh"...

[Richard Barrett]

Your answer Dave in my humble opinion is REAPER: http://www.reaper.fm/

I use this software almost every day, for applications ranging from editing and mastering acoustic recordings to assembling dozens of tracks of electronic sounds into compositions. I used the long-time industry standard (for MacOS at least) ProTools from its very beginnings, from 1993 to 2010 or so I think, but eventually I was persuaded that REAPER (which costs $60 for a non-commercial licence) can do everything that any other professional-standard DAW can do at a fraction of the cost. Almost all my students use it and so do an increasing number of engineers and sound designers. As Lordgeous says, Audacity is OK for simple stuff, but REAPER is just as easy, so much better and the cost of it is basically negligible. And with a licence you get a massive number of free updates, which come relatively often although most in my experience can be ignored. Do give it a try.

(I am not connected in any way with the manufacturers!)

[Dave2002]

richard

Thanks for your comments. I have briefly looked at ardour - mentioned earlier by mrgg - the trial is free, but otherwise it now seems to cost (effectively) a minimum of 1$ (big deal!). There seem to have been several recommendations for Reaper, so if I decide I want one I'll probably get that. Ardour seems to require a change in the audio for Mac OS - an aggregate audio "device" - not really sure why at this stage, but then I haven't been too sure what these DAWs are for anyway.

For creating "synthetic" music, then having multiple channels is very useful - that looks more like Garageband to me, and most of the tools seem to do that kind of thing. For editing/recording live music it has been less obvious to me. However, thinking about this, if multiple takes are made, with multi-mic techniques (several microphone channels - possibly many) then assembling the whole together into an appropriate end product might be simpler. It looks as though some of these tools have non destructive editing, so it's possible to try out something, then "rewind" and change it etc. I am used to this kind of thing in photo retouching, using tools such as Photoshop or Gimp, and that kind of interface is certainly useful there. I also have been gaining experience with video editing - e.g Premiere and Final Cut Pro X, though without having a very expensive computer system, I think having a history which can be undone/redone can be very hard work - as those tools are just so compute intensive. Audio is, or should be, much simpler.

Some of the features of video NLEs seem to have potential - though may be of more use for some particular applications. For example, a radio play scenario might have different characters on each microphone, and handling each by name on a time line might be very convenient. It looks as though some (most?) DAWs may have the same types of capabiliies for audio only projects, though are they also useful for video/multimedia projects? Probably - though if a video NLE is used is there a need to use DAWs as well?

Things could get more complicated if the intention is to make a soundtrack to go with video - it'd be important to decide which would dominate - whether the video timing would trump the sound track, or vice versa. These are not issues I've faced up to now, as I'm not doing anything commercial, and I have only so far had an interest in recording live concerts with fairly minimal editing afterwards. What has been slightly taxing is syncing video and audio precisely, though I can now do that quite easily using FCPX, and even with lesser tools it's not too difficult to get approximate results by more careful "manual" adjustments.

Where I expect the better DAWs may have significant advantages - now I'm thinking about this - perhaps purely for audio - is in splicing in different takes - for example patching in a bit of a rehearsal sound track to cover up a flaw in the (mostly) final performance. Presumably with a good DAW it is relatively easy to get precise timing, and also to get good balance of levels - maybe even the overall ambience - of the inserted section. (Here I think of one Decca recording - Háry János (suite) with Istvan Kertesz - which has a glaring "error" when listened to on headphones - there is a section with horns and piano which just sounds as though it was done in a completely different acoustic from the rest of the orchestra. Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't even recorded at the same time, or in the same location, though perhaps more likely is that it was done all at once, but that those sections were close miked ....).

It does seem that there is some merit in DAWs - but I wasn't really aware of these before as I never had occasion to use one. I might start trying these instead of Audacity from now on, though.

Have many people round here used them, and if so, what for?

[Richard Barrett]

For creating "synthetic" music, then having multiple channels is very useful - that looks more like Garageband to me, and most of the tools seem to do that kind of thing. For editing/recording live music it has been less obvious to me. However, thinking about this, if multiple takes are made, with multi-mic techniques (several microphone channels - possibly many) then assembling the whole together into an appropriate end product might be simpler.

Bear in mind that Garage Band is basically a toy!

If you are recording (acoustic) music with multiple microphones to multiple tracks, then I don't really see how you could use anything but a DAW to mix, edit and master the result. Or am I misunderstanding you?

[Dave2002]

Bear in mind that Garage Band is basically a toy!

If you are recording (acoustic) music with multiple microphones to multiple tracks, then I don't really see how you could use anything but a DAW to mix, edit and master the result. Or am I misunderstanding you?

There was an "if" in your question. Although I have used several microphones in one recording they were largely for backup purposes, and one track was, IMO, better, and used as the soundtrack to go with the video. I haven't used multi-track muti-mike techniques so far.

I am not certain that I ever even looked at GarageBand -as you say - "a toy". It's on my machines, as they are (mostly) Macs.

[Richard Barrett]

It's on my machines, as they are (mostly) Macs.

First thing I did when I acquired my last two machines was to take it off!

I don't do very much with video, but on a couple of occasions I've stripped the audio out from a video recording and replaced it with a properly mixed version of the audio from the performance. Since I'm much more fluent with editing audio than video, I then trimmed the video to fit the soundtrack, but it could just as easily be done the other way around.

I would imagine that once you have the kind of software under discussion here you'll find all kinds of interesting ways to use it in your recording work.

[MrGongGong]

If you are using Premiere for video editing then I would get Audition, it used to be called "Cooledit" then Adobe bought the whole thing and repackaged it.
It is my audio editor of choice for precise work and simple and stable to use, will also integrate with Premiere seamlessly.

[Dave2002]

First thing I did when I acquired my last two machines was to take it off!

I really can't be bothered to take it off - does it take up much space?

I don't do very much with video, but on a couple of occasions I've stripped the audio out from a video recording and replaced it with a properly mixed version of the audio from the performance. Since I'm much more fluent with editing audio than video, I then trimmed the video to fit the soundtrack, but it could just as easily be done the other way around.

I think it depends what the video is. For my purposes the sound track (which is music) is more important, so the video has to be synced to that. However, it is important to keep things pretty much in sync, which is not the case with many films which are not of live concerts. I think that FCPX does work a bit like a DAW, though my suspicion is that with more inputs a DAW would give better control over the audio side. Things could get complex with a lot of video and a lot of audio inputs. There may be some DAWs which work cooperatively with video NLEs.

I think that workflow issues might be important for making a high quality video+audio project. Things also get worse (better?) if there are many different people working on a project I believe. I have seen it written that sometimes video people tinker with the audio tracks, which makes it hard for the sound people to get a good final result. I think it's important to know who's doing what, when and in what order. I believe that some media projects have lots of people all working slightly independently, in theory towards a common goal.

I would imagine that once you have the kind of software under discussion here you'll find all kinds of interesting ways to use it in your recording work.

Definitely worth looking into, which was why I asked the question in the first place. Thanks to all who have made suggestions so far.

[Richard Barrett]

If you are using Premiere for video editing then I would get Audition, it used to be called "Cooledit" then Adobe bought the whole thing and repackaged it.

Yes, that seems pretty good too from my limited acquaintance with it, I got it as a package with a load of other Adobe stuff that I did actually need, and had a look around, but saw no reason to change.

[Richard Barrett]

I really can't be bothered to take it off - does it take up much space?

Probably not, but usually my first act on getting a new machine is to get rid of everything I won't need, I guess it's a habit going back to when it mattered more than it does now!