Hi everyone, it's been a while since I wrote here, I hope everyone is doing well! I recently started my personal blog on my website and I felt like talking about a topic that often generates quite a bit of debate between musicians. I hope it's ok to post it here!

"What’s the best software to make music with? My TOP 5!"

When it comes to making music the choice of the software (or Digital Audio Workstation – DAW) is somewhat vital.

Logic, Cubase, Pro Tools, Reaper, Ableton Live, Reason, Massive, FL Studio, Sony Acid, Bitwig, Sonar, Digital Performer, GarageBand and Studio One are only some of the options available.

They all allow you to manipulate and record audio and to record or insert MIDI, but the differences (even if subtle) can have a important impact on the creative process.

In this article, we will have a look at the five most popular DAW’s (Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Cubase, Ableton Live and Reaper), to help you narrow down a choice that can be quite daunting.

Some important factors that may affect your choice:

• Platform: OSX supports almost all mainstream music software, Windows supports all mainstream software but Logic. If you’re running Linux without a Windows partition you’re going to be disappointed, since Bitwig is probably your only choice.
• Budget: Compare the prices for the latest versions of each software (click on the name to go straight to the official online store)
  • Logic Pro £149.99
  • Cubase £404
  • Pro Tools £599
  • Ableton Live €349
  • Reaper $225
• Hours of use: You want to make sure that your computer can actually handle the DAW you’re planning to work with. You can use an external DSP (Digital Signal Processor) to avoid weighting all your work on the CPU.
• Type of use: You have to make sure that software and hardware work in harmony. Reaper tends to use the cores of your CPU best.
  Using too much MIDI tends to slow the computer down, while working with Wave files gives you the opportunity to increase your buffer size and leave some room for your CPU to operate.
• Computer’s Speed: CPU (Central Processing Unit) quality is vital. You will struggle to operate a DAW with anything less than a dual-core i5, the more cores you have the better. (CPU cooling is very important! You want to keep it under the 60 degrees mark).
  RAM (Random Access Memory) is also important, go for at least 8 or 16 GB.
  Many of the new Waves, McDSP, UAD and Slate plug-ins (basically all the best ones on the market) use your VRAM (graphics card) to avoid weighting on your CPU. UAD plug-ins run off external DSPs but the UAD satellites don’t have graphics cards, so they’re going to run on your card. Make sure your graphics card has at least 1 or 2 GB of VRAM."