One of my friends asked me some questions about building his home studio and which DAW to use as he was new to the music production scene.
I recommend he get FL Studio, and he was kind of surprised because he did not know that FL Studio is a DAW.
FL Studio is one of the best and userfriendly DAW in the music production world today. They are easy to work with, and the user interface is very friendly for beginners. MusicRadar has even claimed FL Studio as the best DAW in 2021. Unlike traditional DAW, FL Studio uses its channel rack a lot instead of a mixer.
What is a DAW?
The full form of DAW is Digital Audio Workstation. DAW is simply an electronic device or software that is used to record, edit, mix, and produce digital audio.
There are two types of DAW: Software DAW and Standalone DAW. The standalone digital audio workstation looks somewhat like an analog mixing desk but has an LCD screen.
Standalone DAW is expensive and uses a lot of space. So, they are often used in a professional studio setup.
The software Digital Audio Workstation on the other is just a piece of software that can be installed on any computer platform, be a MAC, Windows, and Linux.
There are many software DAW available on the market today. Some of the popular ones include:
- Steinberg Cubase
- Ableton
- Pro tools
- Cakewalk Sonar
- FL Studio
- Audacity
- Reaper
- Adobe Audition
- Apple Logic Pro
Is FL Studio a good DAW?
FL Studio is definitely a good DAW, and as mentioned in the earlier blogpost, MusicRadar has claimed FL Studio to be the best DAW in 2021.
The topic of what is the best DAW is always a debate. Pro Tools users will answer that Pro Tools is the best DAW, Cubase users will claim Cubase as the best and vice versa. Every DAW has some of the same workflows, and each DAW will have some advantages and disadvantages over the others.
But FL Studio is very different from the traditional DAWs like Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Ableton, or Cubase. The workflow is different but easy to understand, which is why many beginners trying to make music will often go with it.
FL Studio is one of the most versatile DAW in the music production world today. Even for a beginner starting out, FL Studio is very user-friendly and easy to learn.
One thing to keep in mind is that FL Studio is very popular among electronic music producers like EDM music because of its high modular software and detail-oriented workflow. This does not mean that it is only suitable for this type of genre. In fact, many pop and rock (even heavy metal) music producers still prefer to use FL Studio and have never complained about it.
Why do people see FL Studio as an amateur DAW?
Many people see FL Studio as an amateur DAW because many beginners tend to go with FL Studio as their go-to music production software.
But this does not necessarily mean that FL Studio is a beginner’s DAW. It just showed that it is the most userfriendly DAW for people starting their music producing carrier. And as FL Studio is available for a free trial, many beginner downloads and try out the DAW and easily fall in love with it.
If you want to try out FL Studio, you can easily do so by downloading the free trial version here https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-download/.
The free trial will have all the available tools just like in full mode, but you cannot save the project. In order to save your FL Studio works, you need to purchase the license.
In the early days, FL Studio used to have a bad reputation. It was designed to be friendly for a newbie and was engineered to focus mostly on hip hop and dance music production.
This results in many limitations in which a music producer sometimes finds it hard to make some simple mixing. But this has all changed now in the newer and updated version.
Do professionals use FL Studio?
Even though many beginners use FL Studio because it’s easy to use workflow, many professionals prefer to work with FL Studio instead of the other traditional DAWS.
Just because I’ve said FL Studio is good for a beginner does not mean that the professional does not use it. In fact, many professionals use FL Studio.
Some of the more famous FL Studio users include Porter Robinson, deadmau5, Savant, Feed Me, Nick Mira, Martin Garrix, and much more. If you want to see the full list, you can go here (https://www.image-line.com/artists/)
