Popular Programs for Recording Home Music
When setting up a recording system, it’s important to start by exploring the music software you want to use, and you can choose from several music production software, including the ones in the following list:
Apple (www.apple.com): manufactures Logic Pro Audio and Logic Express. These programs only work on Mac systems. Logic Pro Audio has been around for a while and is one of the best software out there. The downside is that it’s only for Mac computers. Like all software, Logic has its way of working – some people love it while others have a hard time understanding the way the user interface works.
Cakewalk (www.cakewalk.com): Makes SONAR and SONAR XL, among other software. It is designed to run on both PCs and Macs. SONAR does a great job of recording (and editing and mixing) both audio and MIDI.
Avid (www.avid.com): Makes Pro Tools, Pro Tools LE, and Pro Tools M-Powered. These programs work on Mac and PC systems. Digidesign’s Pro Tools TDM systems (the company offers several versions) are arguably the standard for digital audio in professional studios, although many professional studios use any one (or more) of the other software listed here.
Unicorn Brand (www.motu.com): Makes a digital performer. This program only works on a Mac. Digital Performer is a powerful software that plays MIDI and audio well. One feature of this software is that MOTU makes very good audio interfaces designed to work well with its software. You end up with a better chance of owning a stable system.
Sony Creative Software (www.sonycreativesoftware.com): Makes Sound Forge, Vegas Audio, and ACID. These programs only work on Windows computers. ACID is a very popular program for hip-hop and techno artists due to its strength in loop-based recording.
Steinberg (www.steinberg.net): Makes Nuendo, Cubase, WaveLab and Cubasis. These programs work on both Mac and PC operating systems. Nuendo is Steinberg’s best program, excellent for audio recording. Nuendo isn’t very powerful at MIDI sequencing, so if this feature is important to you, this might not be the best program to use.
In that case, if you like Steinberg’s font, you might want to try Cubase, a great program on par with SONAR, Logic, and others and more powerful in MIDI sequencing than Nuendo.
Most of these manufacturers offer software demos that you can download for free to see if you like them. These demos work just like the full versions except that you generally cannot save or print your work.
Some of these manufacturers also make audio interface/sound card hardware optimized for their systems; This device can generally work on other systems (check with the manufacturer to be sure). You may find an easy and great solution by choosing to setup software and hardware from one manufacturer. If you do this, you will likely have fewer compatibility issues.