What to Note as a Beginner in DAW (digital audio workstation)

We stated the last time that a DAW is an electronic device or computer software application for recording, editing and producing audio files such as songs, musical pieces, human speech or sound effects. The invention of this software has helped a lot in simplifying music production and decongesting the music studio. Now a music studio can be right inside your room once you have a good laptop (where the software can be installed), midi controllers (such as a piano), soundcard, studio monitor or headphone, microphone and mixer.

Initial training of how to use a DAW is highly recommended just as the case in the use of other computer software. For the sake of this article, I will be using Fruity’s FL Studio as a case study.

FL Studio just as other DAWs is easy and interesting to use. After the software is acquired and properly installed, the software is being started. Automatically, a new interface for a new project is being created. The right plug-ins to be used is dependent on your choice of work. Making an African oriented beat or music requires some African instruments preinstalled in the DAW. One after the other these plug-ins are added to a separate dashboard in the interface called step sequencer. The drum or percussion plug-in can be selected as a separate (example bass drum of drum set) or together as a full drum set (example FPC drum machine). Each plug-in can be selected from a menu at the left-hand side of the screen (called file browser) or from clicking view at the upper left-hand side of the screen (called panels), then clicking plug-in picker and then selecting the plug-in of your choice. The selected plug-in will be added to the step sequencer.

To make production flexible and to avoid any future entanglement, it is necessary that the plot of the production is properly drawn and the patterns on the step sequencer are properly separated. So that drawing them on the playlist would be easier and accurate. This is actually a very technical job and therefore required much practice.

According to the required sound needed the plug-ins are selected while a midi controller are used to create the required sound notes and melody in the piano roll (this is like a tracked space where these notes produced by the midi controller are digitally placed and arranged). The real conversion of the normal analog sound (so to say) of the midi controller or electronic piano to the digital notes seen on the DAW is done by a USB cord (midi USB cord). This cord can differ depending on the piano or midi controller.

The music notes of each pattern of the step sequencer are produced, either via the above discussed process or via eternal process by recording the analog sound produced by an instrument connect to the sound card. The patterns are now sequentially arranged in the playlist including the recorded voice notes. After the arrangement, the song can be played and edited using the editing plug-ins which are added to the mixer.

This is actually a tough technical process but with continuous addition of knowledge and practice such process can be mastered and perfected. This operation can be slightly related to other DAWs which might sometimes look very different and more technical.