Lookin' For A Good FREE DAW

A look a some free Windows DAWs, and the surprising reasons why it's so difficult to make a free DAW. (links below)

0:00 - Intro
2:35 - Soundbridge
3:40 - Ardour
5:33 - LMMS (and ASIO licensing rant)
9:55 - Cakewalk
12:47 - Cakewalk NEXT
13:18 - Bandlab
14:07 - RANT
17:17 - Amazing Kinda DAWs
19:00 - Balancing incense burners on my head

[RIPITIR]

Certainly I'm not the only person that thinks requiring an internet sign-in is absolutely a no-go? edit to clarify: In order to load a locally stored DAW session or a plugin effect on a track

[CatoNoise]

I'm in your BandLab section right now and just figured I'd add this: mini DAWs in the browser are used by music teachers in k12 classrooms a lot. That's the primary use case in my mind.

[JownMusic]

I have a screenshot of the Reaper pop-up saying both that "REAPER IS NOT FREE" and that I had 'evaluated' it for 1000 hours, right on the dot. I probably 'evaluated' it for another 500 hours before I honestly just felt bad about it and paid up the 60 bux. An amazing price for an amazing DAW.

[cshguy]

FINALLY someone mentions linux support in a music production software video, thanks benn :)

[xard]

As someone who funds the Ardour development thank you for covering the "underground" side of audio software.

[sabofx]

@Ben Jordan: Thank you for giving Cakewalk a go. I really cannot think of any feature missing when compared to commercial equivalent DAWs! ♥♥♥

[ignominoussidereus]

Switched to Reaper in 2016 after years of Ableton and Cubase on my laptop and Logic on the studio's computer. Needless to say it is by far the best DAW I've ever had the pleasure of putting my hands on.

[euleausberlin]

I love LMMS, the website now also has the nightly builds with many new features.

[SkremoMcThrftsto]

I downloaded BandLab's Cakewalk and I was able to import all of my old Cakewalk projects from like 2007 and the projects were still flawlessly intact. I was pumped. I was able to remix some stuff and export an MP3 in the matter of 30 minutes or so.

[moorestreetfootscraytrucks]

Hey Ben, I like how your lens bokeh creates a red heart shape out of an LED on one of your modules in the rack over your left shoulder. Cute ❤

[arthurpizza]

I was completely unaware of the ASIO situation. I've heard Windows users say that Audacity was sluggish on their systems, and now I know why.

[sionjones]

It's no surprise that Cakewalk kicks arse. Sonar, which is where it came from, was always way ahead of the curve. it had it's own version of Beat Detective, with elastic audio years before anything else. It was the only DAW that really worked fluidly with big I/O count into an analog recording console when that workflow was still relevant. It had the first 64-bit dsp engine, it was the first 64-bit DAW software that made use of the AMD x64 chips and windows x64 - it had bitbridge so you could still use 32-bit plugins (nbody else was doing 64 bit software back then remember!).
It was a beast. It's developers under Cakewalk were incredible, and very receptive to its users.
Let's hope it continues, good lord knows it deserves to.

[TerenceKearns]

Tracktion Waveform free edition was surely worth a mention. It's been around for a long long time and the free version is very sophisticated and support all the 3rd party plugins.

[BennJordan]

Re: Comments about Tracktion Waveform Free: As mentioned in the video, I intentionally didn't cover "free" versions of paid DAWs (including Live Lite, Bitwig Free, etc).
Whether they're powerful or not, they exist as marketing tools to get you to eventually upgrade. The purpose of making the "free" version is not to supply you with a complete solution to make music, but to generate sales. While I don't find anything ethically problematic with this type of marketing, it is not a free DAW.
With that being said, check Waveform Free out if you're curious! A lot of people seem to like it.

[leander]

I started out on LMMS and for beginners I think its just fine to start out and find out if producing music really is a thing you like and enjoy. Of course if you find you do like it, you should move on to something like FL or ableton or what have you. But still, its fine as a starting point

[Miqkiclique]

DUDE, I like how the dynamic of this video is constantly shifting and carries substance haha. It's so easy to understand everything while simultaneously not. The video is so balanced between light, sound, yes!

[SlightlyNasty]

Hey Benn, Ardour does step-sequencing too! Just right-click any of the track record buttons to bring up the step entry window.

[dansmoothback]

Ardour is a great DAW and I've been using it for years now. The workflow is sometimes a bit manual (or maybe I'm too lazy to learn the hotkeys), and midi sequencing has always been a bit clunky. But when I got used to using it, things just make sense. There's just a shitton of under-the-hood stuff that makes using it a blast.

I've used it in windows a little bit just to show my friend, but working with it in Linux just feels like home. Using JACK to pipe anything to anything inside and outside the daw is extremely powerful as well. Thanks for giving open source some time to shine!

[andyembranco]

about Ardour, if you use Linux its available in every repository you dont have to build or pay, those restriction are only for windows version

[danwentz]

I’m a lifelong Cakewalk/Sonar user, most memorable era was with the Roland VS-700… which lost support without hacking. Long live whatever comes next!