Best Music Production Software for the Recording Studio

The music industry can seem impenetrable from the outside. It can appear opaque and difficult to understand. Where do you start? Where do you find out how to get your foot in the door? How do you approach building a music production career for yourself when you don’t even have your skillset fully built up.

For up-and-coming audio engineers and music producers, it is essential to have a good working knowledge of common software programs. That’s step one. Before you worry about building your contacts base or developing a music production portfolio, you need to worry about honing your craft. And you need to make sure you’re developing knowledge of a program that’s going to benefit you in the long run.

Because the rise of digital technology has given audio engineers the ability to do more things for less money, recording studios are relying more and more on computer software programs for their recording, signal processing, and mixing of music. Believe it or not, they usually all use digital audio workstations (DAW).

This is essential for any engineer or producer to know how to use, along with an array of plug-ins, according to the engineers’ preferences. The more you know about these software programs, the more versatile and useful you’re going to be in the studio. This has also made it simpler than ever to build your own studio or rent a studio to record music.

6 Best Music Production Software for your Studio

Here are the six best software for music production:

1. Pro Tools
2. Logic Pro
3. Reason
4. Ableton Live
5. FL Studio
6. Sonar

Here is a quick overview of some of the more common software programs you’ll find in the typical recording studio:

1. PRO TOOLS

If you’re going to learn any DAW, learn this one. Pro Tools is the current industry standard, in modern recording studios.  It essentially packs all the functions of recording, editing, signal processing, and mixing into one highly versatile computer program. In the vast majority of recording studios, you won’t be able to find your way around the workflow without having a good understanding of this powerful tool. This is why the Recording Connection integrates Pro Tools training into the curriculum.

2. LOGIC PRO

Designed exclusively for Mac users, this powerful DAW is rapidly becoming a competitor for the Pro Tools user. It not only has the same basic capabilities as Pro Tools but also integrates a huge library of virtual instruments and plug-ins, for composing and producing music “in the box” via MIDI. Logic Pro is highly popular with electronic musicians, sound designers, and self-producing composers and songwriters. Recording studios that lean toward these disciplines are more likely to have a version of Logic Pro, in addition to Pro Tools.

3. REASON

Another popular DAW, Reason offers many of the same recording/mixing features of Pro Tools, but its specialty is the display of a “virtual rack” which simulates the components of the hardware rack mounts in the studio. It comes complete with a “toggle rack” function that allows the engineer to configure the virtual connections between the components all via computer. Engineers who are especially partial to rack-mounted gear particularly enjoy this software.

4. ABLETON LIVE

This DAW caters especially to the electronic musician and performer, offering in-the-box recording, mixing, and signal processing along with an impressive array of onboard synths, samplers, and drum machines. Ableton’s particular advantage is that it gives the producer, engineer, or musician to do some elaborate arranging, beat matching, mixing, and editing in real-time or on-the-fly through its Session View workspace.

This makes it not only powerful for quick mixing, looping, and arranging, but also for live performance. You’re most likely to see this software in recording studios that are frequently inhabited by electronic music producers and club DJs.

5. FL STUDIO (formerly “FRUITY LOOPS”)

This is another popular software program with electronic musicians and DJs who use it for the creation of loops and sample-based tracks, either in tandem with or in lieu of Ableton Live. It has a huge following on YouTube and in electronic music forums. People in those subcultures swear by it. They claim it has the most intuitive and easy-to-use functionality of any DAW.

6. SONAR

Produced by Cakewalk, SONAR is an all-purpose DAW that is essentially a competitor with Pro Tools. While some studio engineers prefer it over Pro Tools for its ease of use, the disadvantage is that it is currently a Windows-only program, so only studios who use PC computers will have any use for it.

UNDERSTANDING PLUG-INS

For any of the DAWs mentioned above—or any others we didn’t mention—having an understanding of plug-ins is essential. A plug-in is an additional sub-program that runs inside a DAW and is applied to tracks or buses as needed by the engineer.

Many DAWs come equipped with a set of plug-ins, while many developers (such as Waves and Native Instruments) create third-party plug-ins that can be integrated with the DAW software. In a recording studio, plug-ins are primarily used for effects or signal processing (e.g., reverb, compression, delay, chorusing, EQ).

They also include MIDI-controlled virtual instrument libraries and a wide range of other specialized functions. Each audio engineer will have a favorite set of plug-ins that he/she uses regularly, and again, the more you know about the different plug-ins available, the more versatile you’ll be in the studio, and the more tools you’ll have to work with as you learn to craft your own mixes.

These days, audio engineering involves much more than microphone placement, signal flow, and working with gear.  It also involves a good working knowledge of the common software programs in the studio. If you have an interest in learning a skill and craft in the recording industry, learning one of these DAWs is essential.

You absolutely have to have the ability to record music and edit digitally if you’re hoping to build a career for yourself in the industry. If this sounds interesting to you the Recording Connection can place you with a Music Production mentor who is skilled with that software and can show you the ropes. There’s no better way than getting to know the industry from the inside. Learning how things really work in the studio by being in the actual studio.