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Comment by jonp | Hacker News Reader

This is great. Can anyone recommend a "DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)" for Windows? Preferably with at least a free trial version. Thanks.

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If you're a programmer, you might be more interested in Pure Data (http://puredata.info/) or cSound (http://csound.sourceforge.net/). Both are free.

There's also Renoise (http://www.renoise.com/) which is inspired by old school mod trackers. There's a free demo, and the full version is really cheap.

Reaper: http://reaper.fm/ is excellent, very cheap ($40) and has an unlimited trial. Unlimited both in time and scope, you get the full software. I use it, works great.

I personally use FL Studio/Sibelius (FLS trial won't let you save your song in an editable format, but you can export in ogg/wav/midi/mp3). It depends on what you want to do, for music production Pro Tools/Logic Pro are a must (though it's more about the instrument library and external hardware quality).

Consider looking at the See also section for a list of DAWs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Workstation#See_a...

And also one for Linux that actually works. :(

I've heard good things about Ardour http://ardour.org/ especially and also Renoise http://www.renoise.com/ but I haven't tried them personally.

Don't overlook Audacity. I'm surprised no one has mentioned it:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Free/open source, for Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Overall I'm not a fan, but I come from a background in more complex/full-featured DAW's like Logic and ProTools. I also find the UI lacking. That said, it's a great way to get off the ground when starting out with digital audio.

Ableton Live

One really appealing thing about Ableton, if you're just getting into music, is that the UI is simple, slick, and makes sense. The other software has way too much visuals and useless UI pieces. Ableton is direct and to the point. I'm not a musician and have never used "real" hardware, so all that visual overhead in the other programs is just noise.

In addition to (and duplicating some of) the other recommendations:

Sony ACID (I use ACID Pro extensively, free trial, free lite version)

Ableton Live

FL Studio

energyXT (Linux and Mac versions available)

Other stuff to check out: console.jp, Audiomulch

Reason

Reason is great, but it's not a DAW; it's a synth package. For recording, you'll want to look at Reason's companion product Record.

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