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)
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www.soundbridge.io/
ardour.org/
lmms.io/lsp/
legacy.cakewalk.com/
www.cakewalk.com/
www.bandlab.com/
www.bespokesynth.com/
cardinal.kx.studio/
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?

[@jjptech]

Yeah, totally right. That counts as Not Free... Looks like free, but you are the product instead

[@knockriobeats]

A couple weeks ago I lost internet in my studio here in Rio. Apparently the box burned out. Then, they were laying new fiber optic cable so I was down 7 days. The only thing I could do was produce in Cakewalk. With an internet sign in I would have been completely dead in the water.

[@tmw3489]

Have a burner phone with data and Tether. It really isnt hard. ​@@knockriobeats

[@krispysox]

Absolutely, I've had a few "free" plugins present me with logins, instant uninstall.

[@jeffreyhanc1711]

Agreed. When I make music on a computer - as if there’s any other way for many of us - I want to forget the internet exists. If only for a moment.

[@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.

[@shinrin_ju]

Real.

[@s.sradon9782]

How the fuck did you get that Piece of shit to run? I've been trying for an hour edit: had to sudo alsa force-unload sudo alsactl restore redownload a bunch of alsa packages and disable all already disabled audio devices but my speakers, the fact it doesn't let you set your audio device is a great start.

[@jwright8838]

Yeah, Reaper gets my vote for best DAW.

[@cadriver2570]

This is what everyone should do. Pay for it when you can.

[@kravatapraimuu]

I am still evaluating it, but I intend to pay for it once the next major version gets released. Unless I end up feeling bad, as you did, earlier. Reaper is worth it.

[@xard64]

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

[@pedrofayolle]

Ditto.

[@POKker1996]

Ardour backer, and I use it for music and sound design in films professionally! It has a learning curve, and it definitely requires a little bit of themeig. Though I have taught a couple of friends on it, and I've found with just a little guidance people find it intuitive. Also the Ardour Manual is by far the best manual in the DAW world. I really wish other DAWs would learn from that.

[@ryan_nstuff]

as soon as I saw the title of this video I hoped it would be mostly about ardour, but I also forgot that it's a paid binary on windows. It's so much nicer just in general to do music recording on linux.

[@heitor5998]

I started with Audacity on Linux and it was terrible even for just editing single audio tracks for KZbin videos. Later I came across Ardour and it was perfect for what I was doing and I feel like I barely scratch the surface of it. Very powerful and lightweight software. Better than reaper and it's .png filled interface IMHO.

[@johnbruhling8018]

Its included in Ubuntu Studio so thats easy enough.

[@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.

[@tetris2300]

I use bandlab edu in my 7/8 classroom for so much. Podcasts, book discussions, audio production, in almost every class.

[@arkfish]

Yeah i used bandlab for a few years back in middle school for learning music prod. it was really fun but unfortunately all my old projects got wiped

[@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.

[@nickwallette6201]

I didn't know that either. The fact that this is a problem at all is a serious oversight from Microsoft and/or the audio community in general. ASIO is nothing special. It's just a gentleman's agreement between vendors. If that particular product is licensed out of reach, then just... get together, devise a new standard, and start using that instead. It would take all of an afternoon for everyone involved to duplicate that functionality in something brand new.

[@unduloid]

It would already help if Audacity would support Jack on Windows, but they refuse to do that for some reason. Same is true for LMMS.

[@f3rny_66]

@@nickwallette6201 Microsoft has already a solution for real time audio, called Real-Time Work Queue API aka WASAPI, but for some reason that probably involves corporate politics is barely used in the audio industry so far

[@snowwsquire]

@@nickwallette6201 Microsofts audio is good now, wasapi works great, its just that nothing uses it natively

[@Metapharsical]

I use a Win program called ASIO4ALL, it is free. I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned

[@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.

[@boxodrive]

It's never mentioned in these and I love it. But I don't use any instruments in it just record and mix.

[@RyanHarris77]

That’s what I use because I haven’t bothered to switch to Reaper because Dan Worrall told me to.

[@royaltyfreemusiccollective8662]

He said he wasn't reviewing cut down versions of paid products

[@boxodrive]

@@royaltyfreemusiccollective8662 there's a paid waveform but the free version doesn't really seem cut down, there's no track limit I'm not even clear what paid has that free doesn't. I don't even use the newest version and I don't have any problems.

[@TheGodExperiments]

@@royaltyfreemusiccollective8662 And a quick look at the comparison between the free and paid versions makes it obvious that it's really only worth using if you're pretty sure you will eventually go paid - so much missing from the free version.

[@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.

[@sabofx]

For those who do experience issues when opening really old projects in Cakewalk: Hold down SHIFT while opening a project will load the track in 'safe-mode'. This will give you the option to confirm loading each plugin that is used in the project.

[@SkremoMcThrftsto]

@@sabofx I didn't know that. Very cool!

[@jozefsoucik3115]

not able to download :-(

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

I was using Sonar's Cakewalk back in the early 90's, (Band Lab bought it). I made a goofy song with it when first learning how to use it and MIDI... "Walking on cake". 😁

[@sajohnson09]

Before I get my hopes up again, cakewalk is windows only isn't it?

[@SlightlyNasty]

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

[@ignominoussidereus4103]

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.

[@RichCochrane]

I did the same around the same time and agree 100%, it's a delight. I've done half a dozen album-length projects with it and it's been very smooth sailing. I guess it might be a bit cryptic as a first DAW but a learning curve is probably unavoidable...

[@modellking]

It's really hard to get into it, due to the small community - The time it took me to just get a Midi keyboard playing _a_ sound was ... discouraging. Still the best DAW by far! There was a feature missing in a Plugin and I just sent a Pull request and voila next releases had the fix rolled out :D

[@thepauloapo]

The 5 second nag screen is a huge upgrade from ableton's.

[@UseYourBrain930]

I switched to Reaper as well. Out of the box it's pretty terrible i have to say. After a lot of tweaking it's the best DAW i've ever used.

[@LexSimakas]

I love Reaper for audio editing/mixing, but I use Ableton for compositon/sound design/MIDI stuff. How does Reaper perform on those fronts (especially regarding MIDI)?

[@c4shguy224]

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

[@PulpHerb]

As an FL Studio user, I'm surprised you didn't address LMMS's history as Linux Music Machine which was really an attempt to duplicate Fruity Loops on Linux. As for your rant on rent seeking in the music industry, which seems to be one of the test beds before introducing to the broader economy in "we provide billing that is nearly impossible to cancel while providing decreasing if any value" schemes I hear you. The best I can say is while I may not live to see it cleaned out, you probably will. What cannot go on forever will not and the "rock star dream" the music industry relies on was a much easier sell in the 70s-90s than it has been this century.

[@euleausberlin]

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

[@robinHobin]

Just waiting on a new update for vst3 After that, it will be the perfect DAW Element is good for vst3 in LMMS for now Amazing DAW

[@kznack]

@@robinHobin can you explain asio? I'm very confused of what it is still, all i want is to make beats 🥲

[@segfault-berlin]

I love how much of this works on linux.

[@ad1340yt]

no one cares about linux here buddy

[@ww4102]

@@ad1340yt judging by the comments, a lot of people care.

[@neithere]

​@@ad1340ytuhh of course we care. FYI, Windows is a commonly pre-installed downloader for your favourite Linux distro.

[@Tom_Het]

​@@ad1340yt I don't care about Linux, I care about planned obsolescence, canned hardware, needing to replace my entire computer because one piece broke, waking up to find that my computer turned itself on and "upgraded" my OS to a new release, bloat taking up my processing power, etc.

[@OpenGL4ever]

@@ad1340yt You have no clue. Windows does use ASIO, but Linux does use JACK Audio Connection Kit and Jack does have a much lower latency than ASIO and offers much more freedom and does have much less limits.

[@moorestreetfootscraytrucks2909]

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 ❤

[@sionjones1675]

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.

[@sabofx]

100% agreed! I've been using Cakewalk over 20+ years professionally for producing all kinds of genres. For example: pop, house, trance, classic, rock (Btw all music on my KZbin channel is produced in Cakewalk) Cakewalk can easily take on the commercial equivalents in both features and overall quality! 🎵🎶🎹🎤 I'm super happy 😃 that Cakewalk (soon Sonar) is still actively developed with the last update being from just 5 months ago. For those having a hard time finding the free version: downloads.bandlab.com/cakewalk/setup/CakewalkSetup.exe

[@Cadmeus]

I'll never forgive Gibson for trying to kill off Sonar. Moved on to Studio One only to see them get bought out by Fender recently! Who knows what that means for the future. Maybe it's time to pick up Bitwig Studio...

[@OLLiGoldeaux]

....this is the Reason i don't buy Gibson Guitars 😊

[@sabofx]

@@OLLiGoldeaux 😆😅🤣

[@stanb1455]

As closed as a welded together box though

[@megadjc192]

I love Ardour and use it with virtual instruments nearly every day. In linux you can actually combine multiple DAWs and connect between them if you use JACK as a backend. I currently have a JACK setup that is sub 10ms latency round trip. Tuning though can be challenging. I honestly figured out that on linux you need to disable usb auto suspend to prevent linux from occasionally turning the device stream on and off and causing a latency spike. I really strongly recommend interfaces that have a class compliant mode. As they will offer the best compatibility. Ardour is probably the best if you want to render to multichannel formats, as it has matrix panners built in. -Ardour was based on Harrison Mixbus- (I flipped it around). They use the same engine at their heart. The ACE plugins are effectively free versions of the Harrison XT plugins. Fun fact is that Harrison Consoles are used to mix a lot of movies and TV shows. One of the notable examples is the Simpsons. I appreciate your content. You are thoughtful and insightful on your experience. Keep up the good work! 🙂

[@_DRMR_]

It's the other way around: Harrison Mixbus is based on Ardour engine :)

[@pauldavisthefirst]

You have the relationship between Mixbus and Ardour backwards. Mixbus was based on Ardour. The two projects collaborate closely to this day.

[@megadjc192]

@@pauldavisthefirstMy apologies. I mixed up the order. I just knew that they were similar and shared many of the same components. It's nice hearing from the lead developer of the Ardour project. That software for what I do is simply amazing. I come from a live sound reinforcement background so the interface and routing are very intuitive for me to use. I think the only thing that needs work is perhaps a better interface for midi sequencing. But, most of what I use Ardour for is for live recording of both real and virtual instruments. Cheers.

[@vudejavudeja]

[@baris-icin-savas]

I using waveform, Ardour seems like it is better. I'll think on it. I'm kinda free software guy.

[@krowus3833]

Mannn Benn, I really appreciate your content and how real you are with us. A channel like yours is a very important thing in the age where everyone is non-stop trying to sell us something. It's a big shame that you don't have the same outreach as all the scummy channels! I genuinely think that you are doing very important work for our community, so good luck and keep doing it!

[@leander1642]

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

[@kurtjanssen3887]

I would say reaper is the most powerful and for 60 euros/dollars an incredibly good deal, it is therefore my primary DAW; Cakewalk is very powerful and a top free Daw, too bad it won't be updated anymore... Waveform Free is also a top free choice, with no restrictions for making pro music (and if you want the Pro, wait until Black Friday where you can probably get it for about 79 bucks). Especially now that version 13 is coming, which will also introduce a clip launcher, definitely worth it. A very underrated Daw in my opinion.

[@prodthedirtybunny]

waveform is amazing so good that when I upgraded to the pro it didn't even feel necessary but it was nice really underrated

[@baris-icin-savas]

I'm using waveform on Linux, but I'm thinking to switch ardour or LMMS. Waveform is too OP for a free DAW, but I'm kinda free software guy.

[@dansmoothback9644]

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!

[@DCPImages]

Tracktion waveform is one of my favourites and they have very unique synths too.

[@andyembranco3049]

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

[@Mik3l24]

Some distros (Ubuntu Studio and some spin of Fedora I think) even include it by default. Though I don't think that it is the Ardour team distributing those packages, but rather its community (though it is perfectly lawful to do it).

[@kamkamkamkamkamkamkamkam]

@@Mik3l24the version in Ubuntu Studio is actually the official build of Ardour, the creator of Ardour said it himself on Discord

[@0LoneTech]

​@@Mik3l24It is permitted and expected. I find it fair to ask a price for the work to build a Windows version, considering how that is not just extra effort (Linux distributions build their own) but Windows costs for both developers and end users.

[@mikehughes2183]

I decided to pay $5 for Ardour 8 on Windows and it gets updated for free until version 9. I like it a lot.

[@Mik3l24]

@@mikehughes2183 I had a mind lag and briefly thought you meant till Windows 9, not Ardour 9 :P

[@michaeloverfield7198]

Been using Ardour professionally now for a little while. Absolutely agree it's the best way to pull stems at FOH, or a lot of live recording applications. Plus with something like the Calf plugin suite it is amazingly powerful. Plus a full build is free if you're on Linux, so pretty much instant ROI on that

[@profjb58]

So glad I found this channel. Your content is so unique and high effort it's always worth watching.

[@neqkk]

Things I heard that could be corrected: - The standard driver on Windows nowadays would be Wasapi, which has about 10ms latency stock - Ableton definitely still supports VST2

[@igmusicandflying]

Yeah, I am suddenly concerned if that's an Ableton Live 12 thing (I would suspect Benn has an advance copy) because I'm running the latest and greatest Live 11 and I have no trouble with VST2. I have a couple older plug-ins that are VST2 only that I love and would hate to give them up. There's neat new things coming in 12 I'm interested in though!

[@kb1337]

You can get even lower with Wasapi, but as a developer, be warned that it will suck any will to live out of you (source: I tried :) )

[@TheBiggerNoise]

@@kb1337is that the kernel streaming audio that gets you under 10ms?

[@Kevhuman]

I'm on live 12 and can confirm there is no issue using vst2

[@ChronOfTheMeguh]

@@Kevhuman ableton technically dont support vst2, but support like vst2.7, which isnt really a big deal as most plugins aren't just flat 2.0 but im sure its possible to run into that problem.

[@silvernode]

Hey thanks for making this video. I have been looking for a high quality video like this for years. The way you break down the details and include licenses with open source stuff for Linux is exactly what has been hard for me to find. I subscribed and liked the video while also sharing it to an audio nerd of mine who is this thinking of getting into Linux. Thanks again!

[@Brumata]

Great video! Great information! The incense burner was particularly helpful. Thank you.

[@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.

[@adamshatwell]

Waveform free is superb, no need to upgrade as it's full functional for ever, just need to use your own vst's

[@spacekid5609]

And yet you mention Soundbridge, where you have to pay if you want to use more than 10 tracks? Oh Benn 😀😀

[@andre-cmyk]

​@@adamshatwell exactly! i dont consider it marketing at all since the daw itself doesn't even mention the pro version anywhere

[@lucadipaolo1997]

@@adamshatwell I used it for a while and it's truly amazing. I only migrated to Studio One because Waveform for some reason wouldn't properly export or import MIDIs with mixed time signatures, and since I play in a progressive metal band, that meant it became unusable for me. But other than that, it was awesome and I miss it a little bit at times lol; not sure if they even fixed those issues, but I'm liking Studio One a lot as well.

[@alguem5996]

And yet Reaper was mentioned...

[@mxmilkiib]

Zrythm is an up and coming DAW. Radium is a Buzz/Bespoke/Sunvox/Renoise alike modular tracker/DAW. seq66 for MIDI pattern sequencer.

[@lotepamera9271]

can there be an episode 2 of this? it’s not only informative, I sincerely enjoyed it!

[@rbingraham]

Oppps you forgot that Cakewalk (the company) started out as 12 Tone Systems and Cakewalk was the product, then (probably because almost no one remembered they were called 12 tone systems) they just called themselves Cakewalk and changed the product name to Sonar. Then Roland bought them, etc, etc, etc.

[@VisionsMusicGroup]

Oh man, I loved OG Cakewalk. Discovered it in 1992 or so (I still have .wrk files dated 1992+) though I never used Audio, only MIDI Sequencing. This was my next evolution after Sonus Glasstracks on the C64 in the 80s 🥰 My last version of Cakewalk was Pro Audio 8, and I used it literally until 2011 when I graduated to Pro Tools 9.

[@Euthymia]

@@VisionsMusicGroup the currently shipping Cakewalk by BandLab should open those old Pro Audio 8 files....

[@fenrirwulf9266]

Return to tradition, Return to trackers :) Seriously, i would love to see your take on some of the modern trackers still around, OpenMPT, MilkyTracker, Jeskola Buzz, SunVox, Psycle, and maybe even Renoise (or even the ports of Fasttracker II or Protracker)

[@calebmicklus7224]

SunVox is a really fun modern take on trackers and is super lightweight and can run on literally anything. I use it on an old Surface to sequence external gear to take the place of a Polyend Tracker.

[@samcarswell9890]

SunVox is incredible

[@riddim7774]

Currently learning it. Love it! Some of the tracks on the ‘best of SunVox’ playlist are crazy!

[@superultrathanksmom3845]

Its amazing, so much sound design potential, so much fun!

[@tmw3489]

As someone who has used Sunvox for over ten years, Sunvox is not a replacement for Polyend Tracker. It is just a tracker based sequencer, no reason to bring in Polyend Tracker in the mix.

[@FEO]

Big ups to Sunvox! 🤖

[@chrishillery]

Gotta add my voice to those saying Tracktion Waveform deserved a mention. You did say you weren't covering cut-down versions of commercial tools, understood, but Waveform is way less cut-down than most. In particular, there's unlimited tracks and full plugin support. And it has a unique and pretty easy to get along with UI. And it's fully cross-platform including Linux. If you could bend your own rule to talk about Reaper, Waveform shoulda gotten a shoutout too!

[@dare2liv_nlove]

Adding my endorsement for Tracktion Waveform 12 Free. Am replying to as many of these comments as possible, to help get it the recognition i feel it deserves!

[@Chiko700]

Really bummed he didn't mention it, I absolutely love this software it was my entry to music production. Really unprofessional of him to waste half of the video on Cakewalk which is discontinued and completely irrelevant now, Or reaper which is paid, But not to mention Waveform because "it's a free version of a paid product", although it has more features than any other free daw. 🤦‍♂ It feels like ben is gatekeeping this software.

[@JoslyncraftsLo-Fibeatsfo-hu4ih]

Just getting into creating my own music, your advice is always helpful.

[@GDRhythmic]

Been using fl studio for like 3 years with no regrets of the price, but genuinely it is so cool of you to provide this info to those who need it :3

[@ringsystemmusic]

BespokeSynth mentioned! love that software

[@Sartorious420]

Jack Audio for Windows works great. Used it for multi-client ASIO audio in Windows (running multiple apps all using the ASIO driver for my hardware) for years.

[@AustrianSynthesizerSchool]

No ASIO needed for Wondows Synthsizer Workstation: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pHnHqZqoYphqn8k

[@alexeypolevoybass]

I know some fellow mixers who use JACK on Windows to do inter-app routing.

[@thebat2785]

Brilliant and super helpful, so refreshing to find 100% honesty in a you tube video , cheers

[@MYPSYAI]

Gotta say i love your videos man. Ive been making edm for over 20 years and most youtube content on music is made by people who dont really know very much, so its great to have a real pro's opinion. Your advice actually transformed my approach to my studio, and u pickup some great ideas from your content. Much love bro

[@wolframwagner9999]

I am really amazed by Ardour. I use IT almost exklusively for - I guess- more than a decade. There are No limitations built in that would Stop me from doing what I need. I love The Plugins that concentrate in doing one thing right, e.g. EQ that does Not Mix The base function with saturation, etc. As keyboard player I am amazed by the setBfree plugin. For reverb I use a convolution plugin and compute the IR with a program I wrote myself. I should publish it some time.🤔 Before I forget: great Channel! 👍

[@fuzzix]

Good overview, cheers! It's a bit painful, but I believe Jack for Windows can act as a relatively low-latency gateway to ASIO drivers / devices for those who want to use LMMS or the like. I also use Jack for Windows as an ASIO router in most circumstances - it shines there. That Cakewalk news is annoying - definitely a powerful option.

[@PulpHerb]

I did not know Jack was available for Windows. I may get it a turn.

[@baris-icin-savas]

I'm using jack on Linux too. LMMS, Waveform, Ardour… Anything works great and latencyless.

[@DarkMoonFox123]

I love so much cakewalk's analog-console-like way to mix, like, if you insert a new track, it comes with all the basic effects you need automatically

[@lolroflstomp]

Love your videos. I legit clicked on the cakewalk link at the point you told me to and I thought the silence was a nice touch.

[@MFKitten]

The free version of Studio One is very nice. It's limited, but for a lot of people it's all they need, and it's a nuce starting point to learn this stuff because of how user friendly the DAW itself is.

[@pauldavisthefirst]

I guess Benn missed step recording in Ardour too (right click on the rec-enable button for a track). 100% modelled on the Logic implementation. Also, there are 10 different color themes if you find the default one "not very attractive" (they are very different from each other).

[@_DRMR_]

I really like the Xcolors theme!

[@eriktrips]

The themes can also be edited from within the Preferences > Interface tab. Or copy an *-ardour.colors file and roll your own, if that's your thing.

[@pipeliner8969]

I requested this topic to many DAW and music youtubers in the past. You covered it great, thanks a lot! The music production landscape is so propriety it's so frustrating

[@jamesbond339]

OMG the Polyend plays in the background are the best constant middle finger I ever seen in a while. This “senioritis” version of Benn is great and what we all deserve.

[@DiegoValenzuelamusic]

My first DAW was Sonar, I think it was owned by cakewalk or was cakewalk, idk, and I gotta say I feel as if I was spoiled by having that be my first daw. It kicked ass. It had such great intro vsts, I think it even had like a vocal tuner. Happy to hear it's still great

[@KairosRich]

I use Cakewalk. It being free made it a great choice for a beginner like myself. I was so happy to see him review it because I truly feel it isn't talked about enough! Very powerful, I get great results and while I am sad to see it phasing out, I will be paying for Sonar. It is just too good!

[@incognitiveincognito]

I love cakewalk, it's been the DAW I've used since I started learning and I'm still learning new features every day. Going to be upgrading to Cubase soon but I'll be keeping my copy of cakewalk as long as it runs.

[@minecraftmondays]

what made you choose Cubase?

[@LeprechaunKoala]

I was just sent this video after mentioning to a friend that I wanted to look into what my options were for reasonable DAWs for personal use, and I have to say that I am really impressed with not only the depth of information presented but also your earnestness. I still have a lot that I have to look into, but I definitely feel like I'm off to a better start than I was prior to watching this video!

[@chrispysaid]

It was really great to get to see Benn your editor, it's nice to get to see the ppl working behind the scenes instead of just the channel's figurehead all the time

[@musicwithbrad]

Been using Reaper after using Ardour, Cubase, FL Studio, Ableton. Than took a tutorial that uses Cubase 13. And, well Cubase 13 is simply incredible. But, for 500 dollars I just can't justify the cost. What a DAW though, for the first time I was kind of bummed to go back to Reaper. EDIT: But Reaper does the same thing Cubase does. That's the thing about Reaper "Does Reaper do that?", the answer is pretty much always either "yes" or "Download this script someone made".

[@xrenynthemusicmage6422]

Yeah, it just blows my mind that there are so many 3rd party scripts available for Reaper that someone has made a goddamn package manager for it (ReaScript). Talk about extensibility

[@julianweller9845]

First time finding your channel, this was great, thanks Benn!

[@4carhur1more]

One that I found to be an awesome free option is traction waveform. It's got an incredible free version and I'd recommend it to anyone. I liked the free version so much that I got a pro license for 75 bucks when it went on sale on black friday. And I honestly don't notice much difference yet but I've used the free version long enough that I can't see myself using anything else.

[@torben2931]

I'm using LMMS on Linux and I love it. 64 bit VST2s mostly work with the 1.3 alpha . VST3 would of course be nice and I hope this will come soon.

[@HoundTakeshi]

I've used an open-source tracker Jeskola Buzz back in the day. I think it's Windows only, at that time software was hella buggy, but stock plugins were out of this world.

[@stefankoopmans2200]

Used it a lot, over 10 years or so, but eventually had to drop it due to all the problems I had getting it up and running again after a clean system install. Lost lots of projects that way but had a lot of fun with it. I started out with trackers as a kid so it fitted my needs very well. The modular system was great. I even built a skin for it years ago, Buzz Brutix.

[@HoundTakeshi]

@@stefankoopmans2200 It was very fun, and unfortunately at that time i've lost a lot of projects as well. They say the creator actually fixed a lot of issues, but i haven't had a chance to see for myself.

[@sn1000k]

Now THAT'S niche

[@HoundTakeshi]

@@sn1000k Pretty much, yeah 😁

[@jonytube]

Buzz plugins were great. I remember using them using the Buzz wrapper on fruity loops many moons ago:)

[@OTOss8]

D'awwww, thanks for puttin' this together for us Benn. You're the best buddy. 🥰

[@angelite6027]

watched till the end, very cool although i hesitated a bit when you said links in description lol, would be nice to see your reaction learning other paid DAWs especially Bitwig.

[@nolyspe]

Also people mentioned it, but as an alternative to DAWs, Trackers can be a great entry point into making music!

[@eggsbox]

as far as i'm concerned, if step recording software and garage band clones are considered a daw by ben's standards, then openmpt should be on this list. the biggest difference between openmpt and other daws really just is the interface.

[@KiR_3d]

Trackers are for oldies ;) If you're not familiar with trackers' approach, this will fear you away.

[@eggsbox]

@@KiR_3d disagree! from experience with friends getting into trackers before traditional daws or even engraving software, trackers are the more intuitive for younger people.

[@AustrianSynthesizerSchool]

Try an "all in one" Synthesizer Workstation ; kzbin.info/www/bejne/pHnHqZqoYphqn8k

[@TB-wvvvw]

​​​@@KiR_3d Trying a different way of doing things here and there like a tracker instead of horizontal DAW is fun and easy enough. Someone with such a fearful attitude that they won't even try something a little different will miss out on some amazing things like Renoise tracker and the M8 tracker (which is very recently developed technology by the way) that are so refreshing and inspirational.

[@royaltyfreemusiccollective8662]

Cakewalk is by far the most powerful totally free DAW, it's been well supported by the Dev team totally gratis for the past 5yrs. I've used it since the mid 90s as an amateur and continue to use it as a semi-pro making a part time income from my music these past 8yrs. I'm a beta tester for the new Sonar which is very similar but will have a vector based GUI that looks better on 4k monitors. The final version of free Cakewalk should last a good while, I previously used Cakewalk 8.5 for a decade with no issues, it still works now but has too many modern creature comforts missing to use seriously. So I think anyone wanting to use the free Cakewalk can still get a lot of mileage from it and at least it's not a dead end if you want to upgrade. I get the impression new Sonar won't be sold at a premium price either so you're not going to be locked into a high end pricing system.

[@Nayah9]

The question is: Will the final version of free Cakewalk still be available once Sonar releases or will they remove it from their website?

[@jbognap]

​@nayah9888 I believe the free Cakewalk by Bandlab will not be available after Sonar is released, so you may want to download it now.

[@royaltyfreemusiccollective8662]

Yes but it won't receive any further updates / support@@Nayah9

[@balsalmalberto8086]

The question is also will the installed version stop working after a period of/ does it have some timebomb/internet checking @@Nayah9

[@sabofx]

@@Nayah9 The current free version will remain available, but without updates. downloads.bandlab.com/cakewalk/setup/CakewalkSetup.exe

[@theelectronicrat]

I started using cakewalk on DOS with a midi card in my PC back in the days. I still love it. And I love the mastering tools, they can really sound great.

[@rustino666]

Great to see Bespoke Synth getting a mention. I really love playing around with it and although it's not strictly a DAW, it does include a device called Song Builder (I think!?) that enables you to build an arrangement. I tend to use Bespoke Synth to create interesting loops that I then export and take over to my DAW of choice, Renoise (I'm running Linux).

[@Cap10NRGMusic]

Want to know a bit of trivia about cakewalk? Cakewalk (the company) which was located in Massachusetts and was originally called “Twelve Tone” (but everyone called them cakewalk or that cakewalk company - thus they changed the name) - I actually got to talk to the developers in the early 90s when I worked at “CompUSA” but that’s a story for another day kids…. :)

[@peterelfman]

Salute to another CompuUSA alumn. I used Kinetic by Cakewalk back in the mid 2000's as my first DAW. I was sad to learn how the company and their products have been battered around the industry.

[@monsirto]

Very fond memories of chatting with the guys in the early 90s, I'm based in Sydney and I think there were 30 users in the entire Country (Aus).

[@poofygoof]

DOS cakewalk is the true cakewalk. (I worked at Computer City...)

[@peterelfman]

@@poofygoofComputer City was superior, for sure. :D

[@Cap10NRGMusic]

@@poofygoof nice!!

[@arcade_mntra]

Tracktion Waveform - Free edition needs to be on this list. It supports external VST plugins and has no track limits.

[@mudi2000a]

yes it is very basic but you can fix that with free VSTs.

[@thomasolson8417]

Waveform is excellent. I've used it for a couple of years. It's amazing. :) One cool feature that not every DAW has is that each VST runs within a sandbox environment meaning that if one misbehaves, it doesn't crash your DAW, it just crashes the sandbox which can be restarted, and you lose no work.

[@minecraftmondays]

@@thomasolson8417the sandboxing and how the piano roll can just be dragged out from any midi clip are very nice in waveform idk what FL does instead of sandboxing, but whenever FL Studio crashes for me, it usually just disables the play button and audio, so i can save what i have before restarting occasionally i have gotten a crash that doesn't even interrupt anything, which is rather confusing

[@volsteh]

I got pro and I love it

[@rbingraham]

I would second this recommendation as well. Yes, Tracktion Waveform Free is trying to sell you a license to Waveform Pro, but it's pretty affordable and even the free version is very usable and I recommend it to all students who are just getting started. It's also cross platform and if memory serves I think that runs in Linux as well? Maybe I forget.

[@Riverwind25]

So happy you are going this route on the new channel Mike

[@ThePhPhoenix]

Thanks for the video, I was dabbling with LMMS, and checking out Cakewalk, I remember cakewalk from way back. I also have to say, as someone first's first introduction to your content, you look like if Negan and Hank Green had a child 😃

[@Akosmo]

Good video! But I was hoping you'd mention Tracktion Waveform. Out of every free DAW I've came across, that one seems to be the best. Would love to hear your thoughts on it

[@dare2liv_nlove]

Seconded, especially for Version 12 Free! Insanely underrated in my opinion.

[@peterelfman]

The crowd is screaming "What About Tracktion Waveform!!!???" so I'll put that particular drum down. MAGIX has Music Maker, which is at base free but has a lot of paid add-ons. My first "real" DAW was Acid Pro - currently published by MAGIX - but I switched to Studio One by Presonus because the Artists' addition of the software came bundled with some Presonus hardware that I bought. The Artists' addition is fully functional with 0 limitations. It lacks some of the native plugins the Pro edition has, as well as the chord finder, music notation, and Mastering capabilities. If you don't need those things, the software is great and relatively stable, and has a great workflow.

[@dare2liv_nlove]

But seriously, "What About Tracktion Waveform!!!???" 😂

[@StaK_1980]

Ben is always a joy to watch and listen to. Even if I can't for the life of me do even a semi-decent track! 🙂

[@ChristopherFreedom]

That was great Ben.. I'm glad I stumbled onto your channel 🙏Subscribed 👍💯

[@Redlabel0]

Finally someone covers Ardour /m/,

[@laurencunningham8312]

Tracktion waveform is the best

[@dare2liv_nlove]

Yup, my fave out of everything else i tested.

[@Dis-Emboweled]

I always watch to the end Ben 😄 For as little as I do with music editing, audacity is fine enough. But I might check out the phone one for times when I'm being silly.

[@jimi689]

I just got back into looking for a DAW after discovering your channel a week ago. What a perfectly timed video ;)

[@soejrd24978]

Running Reaper on my Raspberry Pi, no screen, just midi, audio interface and instruments

[@micindir4213]

How did you configure pi to load up reaper with specific project?

[@soejrd24978]

@@micindir4213 You can set a default template to load.

[@DarkDao]

Sunvox is another digisynth like Bespoke. Old and functional. Still in development. And after telemetry debacle with Audacity, a new fork called Tenacity is now actively developed. And ofc who can forget about chiptune trackers like OpenMPT and Klystrack. Plenty of free software to have some fun with music creation.

[@mystixa]

Tenacity has potential but its a buggy mess. Crashes, fails to close, has changed default keyboard shortcuts, etc. Easier and just as effective to go back to the telemetry free version of audacity at least until Tenacity gets more up to speed.

[@tmw3489]

Those arent daws.

[@VygintasKDG]

Benn , you are awesome! Thanks for the video - a friend of mine just texted today, looking for a free daw to get started recording his guitar jams~

[@johnoestmannmusic]

I went on a similar journey last year, as I make my music project files available for study/reuse/remixing and don't want people to have to pay for software to explore them. I ended up using Renoise with Cardinal, and VCV Rack Free as my main music setup and Reaper for sound design and podcast editing. Even though both DAWs cost money, they both allow the end user to completely explore projects and software itself without time or feature limitation before having to commit to purchase.

[@Chiko700]

I wonder why he didn't mention Traction Waveform? I'm not a professional musician but I feel like this software is almost like any other pro daw, is there something wrong with it?

[@talldarkstrangerpr]

Shoutout to that R2R keygen! lol!

[@synthphilosophy]

A well balanced ending I must say. I learned a couple of new things today and I am intrigued by bespoke. So thank you. Much ❤ from Belgium.

[@pierreschnehage8152]

Great natural presentation. Refreshing. Oh. Great info too.

[@tatv2316]

Using Ardour forever and it s commercial spinoff Harrison Mixbus 32c for almost all my soundwork. It is an amazing software with an amazing forum and you have defs on the irc channel debugging your software in realtime if you really need it. which commercial product does have that?

[@cornerliston]

Imagine a DAW equivalent of Blender.

[@GeorgeNoiseless]

Wholesome. Bless ya, mr Jordan.

[@ZX9RDan]

Thank-you for making this!!

[@RadikAlice]

Funny, LMMS was my first DAW after years of mucking about with pirated versions of FL Studio I had to do so little adjusting, I would've been happy to stay. But the lack of new releases and VST3 support sent me off to search again, and because I'm a free software nerd. I settled with Ardour, thing is so powerful the likes of unfa have even mixed and mastered an entire short film's soundtrack with it. Anyway If there's one reason I'd steer musicians to Linux is, you may be able to trust the DAW company to not screw you over. But the same can't be said about Apple or MS, nobody should be at their mercy. So if you're not gonna outright make that jump like I plan to, crossplatform software is your best friend Not to mention the straight up advantages, JACK used to be _the_ audio system for musicians on Linux But now with Pipewire being a growing default, you have everything under every previous system at your fingertips and able to be routed however you please, not to mention latency control

[@ViewportPlaythrough]

hi, lmms user here wondering if i should jump to fl or other daw.. i would just like to ask, lets say i would be using the same vst on both lmms and fl, would there be a difference of output? would the sound be better or something? i tend to use vst and samples that sounds like real-life instruments and i dont really use sounds outside of that. the only thing i seem to be struggling is finding sounds i could use for the beats and drums. i dont know if its just because i havent find drum packs that really calls out to me or if its lmms? so, for example, if i would be using cakewalk drum vst on lmms then use the same vst on fl, would there be a significant difference in the quality of sound? or maybe in the way to use it on the piano roll? splicing it or what not? add: ow, and with that, hows ardour vs lmms?

[@ClintMoody]

So disappointed to see Traktion’s Waveform missing from this list. It’s incredibly featured and is arguably easier to learn than Reaper for a first DAW. I’ve been wanting to make a video on this for a while. Realllly wishing more people would check it out.

[@mystixa]

not 100% free, they merely have a free version which essentially makes it bait. ..as explained in the video,

[@tmw3489]

Did you watch the video? He said no free version of paid for daws.

[@ClintMoody]

@mystixa it is 100% free; you pay literally nothing for the software. He said, “I wanted to stay away from free versions of popular DAWs”. Waveform Pro is not by any stretch a popular daw. Waveform is a fully featured DAW with automation, midi, multitrack recording and even some advanced audio effects possibilities that you will never have to pay for. Yes, there is an upgradable version that includes creature comforts, but as far as free goes, it doesn’t get much easier or faster than Waveform. I see why it’s not included, but honestly think that it’s by far and away better than the options here and you don’t have to pay anything for it so I’m still disappointed that it’s not at least an honorable mention.

[@ClintMoody]

How is Waveform any different from Reaper in that both offer a paid version and both are essentially free forever if you want?

[@dare2liv_nlove]

Adding in my glowing endorsement for Tracktion Waveform 12 Free, still criminally underrated in my opinion!

[@olymoon2008]

Thank you. Very interesting explanations. The part about the over competition in music business alone deserve a video. And btw I whatched it till the end so the the trick worked. lol.

[@WispOfSoul]

Zrythm, and Stargate are good Stargate is a bit limited but entirely FOSS, it doesn't allow external plugins, but that's by design so that the projects are portable, I haven't used it much, but it works. Zrythm (one of my primary DAWs) is FOSS, even though it has some limitations on the free version with a max of 25 tracks, you can import your own plugins, and it can be fairly easily compiled, to get around the track limit. Radium looks interesting, but I have yet to use it.

[@Bilbo__Baggins]

I will be hooked to Waveform, but it's UI just doesn't do to me. It's such a good free DAW though.

[@DomiFotaro]

Universal Audio has a DAW called Luna and it is free for Mac Users....and while technically not "Free" if you have a Mac Garage Band is always there.

[@AntonArhipov]

Great overview! Thank you for this!

[@rokrom408]

Awesome performance, refreshing and informative, big up m8.

[@johannesbuchinger2311]

You really made me watch the end of the vid this time🤣

[@tlholohelontsasa106]

CAKEWALK GANG STAND UP!!!!!

[@sionjones1675]

Ok, I'm standing. What now? It's late, can I go to bed? Do I need to remain standing?

[@tlholohelontsasa106]

@@sionjones1675 oh crap my bad, yeah you can bounce, totally forgot and had to go do my taxes

[@sionjones1675]

thank you! Phew, that was getting tiring!@@tlholohelontsasa106

[@sabofx]

In Cakewalk we trust!

[@primitiveT]

Keep creating! Thx for the info!

[@eyevenear]

There is also AIR Ignite, a block-based daw included for free with m-audio keyboards, with a very very high quality sound collection, lacks many other features but sometimes I open it along with Nuendo to loop back some of its instruments like the Neptune Piano, magic!

[@gevarre]

I'm confused about your comment saying that Ableton no longer supports VST2. Is that in some upcoming release? I'm using the current version, and it works fine.

[@cosmic_drew]

I think he meant VST 32bit.