Digital Recording Software

Digital recording has revolutionized the music industry. Inexpensive home recording techniques have resulted in increased output by independent musicians and labels. These musicians and labels have released a slew of inexpensive hits that are forcing major labels and long-time artists to Re-evaluate how they spend their money and how they make their music. In order to produce the best work you can in a digital studio, you need a program that suits your recording needs, experience and preferences. Behind every good home studio is good software.

Industry Standards

Though Pro Tools  has been the leading competitor in the digital recording software market since its inception, other programs have begun to receive widespread recognition for their increased functionality and cheaper price. As a result of the relative ease of production, there is plenty of softwarespellerr to choose from and many of them have extremely disparate interfaces, feature sets and capabilities. Be certain to make sure you computer's processor, sound card and hard drive specs can handle whatever program you do go with and also be sure that your recording setup (boards, USB interfaces, etc. etc.) are compatible.

Pro Tools Pro Tools  has loomed over the digital recording industry since its beginnings. So many producers use Pro Tools that many individuals buy it just for its easy PT-to-PT share features. The latest incarnation, Pro Tools 7.2  offers significant video capability and supports just about every device you can imagine.	Reason Reason's  lucrative features and excellent performance have carved it a big audience. Reason 3.0  lets users create custom instrument sounds and combine effects. It's also compatible with any MIDI recorder. Reason's interface closes resembles an old analog board, making it a favorite of many old-school mixers.	Mac Logic Pro Mac's Logic Pro 7.0  is the most user-friendly software available. It also boasts most of the features of its competitors as well as some time savers, like real-time score transcription and advanced Quicktime support with easy firewire output. Apple Loops software, which bends loops in real-time, is included.	Adobe Audition Audition  is easy to use Windows-only multitrack recording software. It has great noise reduction capacity and can easily export files in many formats. Home studio users will find its price reasonable and its features useful. If you want to produce your own music then burn it immediately, Audition is a strong choice.	Acid Pro Initially known as an ornate looping technology, Acid Pro  has long been a favorite of many electronic music producers. Its "pick, paint and play" interface has largely driven the direction of pro audio software. Special "Groove Mapping" and "Groove Cloning" allow users to bend rythmns across songs.

Free Digital Recording Software

In addition to the plethora of professional recording software options out there, a number of free digital recording programs exist, though they often have limited functionality and are generally not that great with noise reduction. He is a small rundown of some of the software available.

Acid XPress: Acid XPress is a free version of Acid Pro with a reduced feature set. Of the freeware programs, XPress probably boasts the best noise reduction. It is intended as a loop arranger.

Anvil: Anvil Studio is intended for media composer working largely with percussive arrangement. A helpful program in the songwriting and demoing process.

Pro Tool Free: Pro Tools Free boils Pro Tools down to its bare essentials and presents them in a simple, easy-to-use multitrack recorder. It offers eight audio tracks and 48 MIDI tracks. Unfortunately, it has been official discontinued and finding functional ports can be tough for modern OS and Windows users.

GarageBand: Though not exactly free, GarageBand comes standard in Apple's iLife suite, which is featured for free on many of their computers. GarageBand is quite comprehensive, despite having limited quality. GarageBand is best described as a multimedia application. It allows you to capture iChat video footage, add score to Quicktime video, publish directly to the Web and create seamless Podcasts.