

What, exactly, is it?ĭigital audio workstation software is sophisticated, deeply featured software for recording, editing, arranging, and mixing multiple tracks of audio for music, movie/TV productions, podcasting, and so on. Both Native Instruments and Arturia make keyboard controllers that come pre-mapped to work with their music production plug-ins and also offer control over many of the best DAW programs too. If you’re using a hardware controller to work with your DAW software, that same hardware may be able to also give you seamless, hands-on control of your music production plug-ins, as well. However, many people prefer to pay once and not think about it again, and not all the best music production software is available via subscription. Subscriptions allow you to get started producing music now if you don’t have the budget for the full-priced software, and they give you the latest updates to everything. Composers will use a lot of virtual instrument plug-ins but need sample libraries that are based on acoustic orchestras rather than otherworldly tones, and there are options for that.īig plug-in collections are investments in your musical career, but you can opt to make that investment as a single upfront price or try one of the growing number of subscription music software packages. If, on the other hand, you can’t get enough synthesizer sounds or are obsessed with ’80s-esque retro-wave music, there are very synthesizer-focused collections. If you’re in a band and your focus will be on mixing and mastering songs that are mostly recorded from instruments, there are packages that emphasize tone cleaning and sculpting plug-ins over virtual instrument plug-ins. There are some options, like Reason Studios’ Reason, that actually function as both a plug-in and a standalone DAW, but we’re primarily going to look at the best music production software for specific use cases. What to consider when choosing the best music production softwareĪssuming you have DAW software, which is the foundation for production, this guide concentrates on the best music production collections of audio plug-ins to complement that main software.

For synth addicts: Arturia V Collection.

