D.A.W... What a Cutie.

As a sound designer one needs a way to manipulate recorded sounds and voices. Enter the DAW or Digital Audio Workstation. DAWs are used to synthesize, edit, and manipulate sound in a digital format. Early DAWs were standalone workstations with diverse interfaces that differed from workstation to workstation. Eventually these early DAWs were standardized and revamped allowing for easier use among consumers. As personal computers have become more powerful and user friendly, DAWs have moved from standalone stations to the consumers personal computer’s hard drive. With the ease of using a personal computer and the standardization of the DAW interface, the market for DAWs has exploded. As a student I have a limited knowledge of more professional grade DAWs however my personal favorite, Audacity, gives much of the power without all the confusion and price.

I am a cheap guy so nothing makes me more excited than free stuff. Topping my list of things I received for free is Audacity, a free multiplatform DAW. Audacity is an easy to use editor with a variety of editing functions including cross fading, normalizing, and noise removal to name a few. Recording is a snap as well with single click activation and the ability to record from a line-in. This allows for the recording of not just microphones but also any device that can be connected through the line-in including tapes and records. A variety of file formats is supported including wav and aiff however wma and aac are both not supported due to their ownership by Microsoft and Apple respectively. Even Audacity cannot be perfect with its inability to publish audio works. Therefore a third party publishing software needs to be used in order to publish your works.





For the price Audacity is a godsend. Other more powerful DAWs can cost you from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. I find Audacity much simpler to use in many situations as well. The learning curve for Audacity is minuscule and I highly recommend for everyone to acquire this program. Besides, it’s free so why not?

Audacity 1.2.6. (2010). Retrieved from http://podcast-software-review.toptenreviews.com/audacity-review.html

Audacity. (2008, November 11). Retrieved from http://linuxmint.com/software/?sec=item&id=1067&release=4

Digital audio workstations. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.sweetwater.com/feature/daw/daw_defined.php