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Softwares You Need in a Music Studio
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Its not new anymore that most home and professional recording studios are computer based, the computers are used to capture recordings, editing audio and midi, mixing and mastering, so the question here is what softwares you need in a music studio?
I have put together 5 software’s to have a fully functioning pc for music production.
DAW (digital audio workstation)
These are the most popular softwares, in some cases owning a DAW is just about enough, but professionals know that this is never the case.
A DAW is used for capturing audio and midi performance, it records your audio tracks from your audio interface and midi tracks from your midi controllers and saves the files to your hard disk.
Benefits:
Daws are also used have for:
- recording audio
- playing and recording instruments
- editing audio and midi files
- mixing and mastering.
Examples of DAWS i recommend:
Fl Studio
Perfect for loop based recordings, the step sequencer makes beat making extremely easy to use for beginners. one of my favorites but beware of frequent crashes and bugs
Cubase
Easy to use and friendly interface, the simplicity of this software makes capturing audio really easy. not one of my favorites when it comes to making beats
pro tools
advanced music production software, i personally like the 5D surround sound i can create especially when working on movies
Audio Editors
They can be stand alone(work on their own) or integrated into a DAW. Audio editors are powerful software’s that can help with audio restoration and advanced editing, they usually have more features that the editors found in DAWS.
people who want to specialize on producing radio commercials, editing voice overs, narrations, audio books and radio programs should have a stand alone audio editor.
Benefits:
- Simpler interface than DAWs
- edit long hours of audio recordings
- restore old or damaged audio files
- edit batches of audio files in a single project
Examples of Editors
Sony Soundforge
Smooth interface, personally love its simple layout of noise gates and compressors.
WavLab
Popular among audio professionals
Izotope RX 7
Advance audio editing and restoration software, the feature that displays frequencies and volume on its timeline is quite good
VSt Instruments
seriously considering making professional beats for studio and live recordings? then you must get VST instruments.
Benefits:
- They come with unique instruments and voices
- They can be installed on all DAWS.
They are various VST instruments in the market with unique sounds based on different genre of music. having a VST instrument gives u the flexibility to transfer your sounds across various DAWs and still retain the original voice you use. because stand alone VSTS can be installed on almost all DAWS.
Here are 3 VST Instruments I use:
Ample Guitar Lp
models the sound of an electric guitar with effects. has over 20 realistic sounds
Hypersonic 2
has a huge library of piano, strings, pads and drums. love its ability to combine and mix sounds.
Nexus
Love the arpeggios on this Plugin. a nice blend of piano, Brass, leads and pads makes this a must have for any serious producer
VSt effects
This is the most powerful set of tools to have for any professional mixing and mastering engineer.
Vst effects are signal processors(reverbs, Delays, Equalizers,Compressors e.t.c) that can sometimes stand alone or integrated into your DAWs.
Having your own set of VST effects help you to mix on any DAW, most engineers go about with an hard-drive of their own Effects, so regardless of whatever DAW, they can get their hands dirty.
Best way to get VST effects is to know which signal processor you need and then decide which one to purchase. Some VSt effects are designed to simulate and look like hardware or analog processors while others are purely digital and designed to look more friendly on a pc.
Benefits:
- Installed on all DAWs
Some popular Vst Effects
Autotune
Most popular pitch correcting software, the name sells itself, besides 90% of all vocal recordings now have it on them.
Image Line Juice Pack
So FL studio released its effects as a vst plugins bundle. so you can us fl effects in any DAW, this has being quite the live saver for some of us who are quite used to mixing on fl studio
Valhalla Plugins pack
this effect pack is quite affordable and it contains some really nice Reverb and delay processors
Mastering Softwares
Stand alone softwares for mastering your music, they contain mastering processors embedded in them.
Using mastering softwares helps to reduce work load on your pc ram due to heavy processing thereby increasing sytem performance, giving more room for masterng processors to be more effective.
Benefits:
- Simple Interface
- focus on Mastering processors
- Less System RAM usage
Izotope Ozone
one of the most powerful mastering processors in the market. its intuitive ability to listen and suggest automatic masters makes it a must have for mastering beginners
Wavlab
It is popularly used for mastering audio, but also facilitates basic usage such as editing podcasts.
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