in the orange corner weighing in at 1.59 gigabytes we have Cakewalk by Bandlab
and in the blue corner weighing in at 208 megabytes we have tracktion waveform
free let the battle of the best free daws begin welcome to simple green tech i'm zane i'll be
officiating this battle of the best free daws be sure to stick around to see who i think is
the winner but it's not so much about who i think wins it's more about who wins your heart so let
me know in the comments which one of these you prefer for your home studio music production
and if you haven't tried either out yet which one are you thinking of trying first let me know in
the comments also links to both of these free daws are down in the description so check down there if
you need to grab them for yourself but right now let's head to the battleground alright first let's
look at the similarities between these two free digital audio workstations both are unlimited
allowing you to have unlimited tracks and bring in your own third-party vst instruments or effects
they can both deliver high quality audio recording and rendering and both of these free daws include
some decent instruments and effects to get you started cakewalk has the drums bass guitar piano
and string instruments plus it also includes your standard effects plugins like eq compression
reverb plus many more but it also includes a really nice guitar amp sim tracktion waveform free
includes the micro drum sampler and the 4osc synth which is capable of creating a lot of great sounds
plus they also include your standard effects plugins like eq compression reverb and more
but there's no guitar amp sim both of these music making programs will allow you to create
high quality music where your imagination and your computer power is the only limitation in terms of
plugins and instruments this category is really a draw because it kind of depends on the style
of music that you're creating and you can bring in your own third-party plugins which is what
you're likely going to do eventually anyway so the included plugins don't really matter here
but i will say cakewalk does come out of the box with a little more so that covers the basics and
looking at just that you really can't go wrong with either of these but right now let's dig in a
little deeper and look at some of the differences well first off let's look at compatibility if
you're on a windows system then you can grab both of these free daws but if you're using something
else then waveform is going to be your choice as cakewalk is windows only but tracktion waveform is
available on windows mac linux and even raspberry pi so for system compatibility the clear winner
is tracktion waveform both of these daws are 64-bit but cakewalk by bandlab actually includes a 32-bit
bridge so you can bring in your 32-bit plug-ins if you still use them and they may work i've found
this to be a bit buggy with different plugins but for plugin compatibility the winner here is
cakewalk but only by a hair now one of the biggest differences between these two music production
programs is we interrupt the battle of the best free daws to ask if you're enjoying this video so
far can you please give it a thumbs up it really helps the channel out and i appreciate it so much
now let's get back into the battle one of the biggest differences between these two music
production programs is the user interface cakewalk by bandlab has a more traditional
interface so if you're used to something like pro tools or cubase you may feel at home with cakewalk
tracktion waveform tries to bring everything that you need onto a single screen and in my opinion
it's a much faster workflow they've streamlined some tasks to make them quicker and easier to use
things like multi-output plug-in racks and even just general mixing tasks in the category of user
interface i'm going to choose tracktion waveform as the winner now one of the features that's kind
of in a category of its own is the inclusion of a pro channel strip on every track in cakewalk this
channel strip has some great effects in it and it can really help you dial in a sound of your own
waveform doesn't include this feature so you'll need to build your own channel strip which is
something i do regardless but it is a nice added feature in cakewalk by bandlab and it's one that
i thought you should know another consideration is the ease of installation i've found that
tracktion waveform is very straightforward to install you download the installer run it and
the program installs with cakewalk by bandlab you must install the bandlab assistant software first
and then register an account with bandlab and then install cakewalk from within that bandlab
assistant software sometimes it can stall and stop installing but it doesn't let you know
you could wait for hours and it still says it's stuck at a certain percentage so you need to
restart the bandlab assistant start over and hope it works but once it's installed it is a great
free program so it may be worth the installation hassle for you but for installation the winner is
waveform cakewalk by bandlab used to be known as sonar platinum which was a premium daw
it's since transferred hands over to bandlab and bandlab offers it for free they still update
cakewalk often so it's not like it's an abandoned piece of software but it is built on older code
and working with it does feel a little older tracktion waveform is continually updating things
and they've even made their code public it's a more modern daw but this sort of thing may
not really affect the audio quality but it will affect your workflow and neither one of these
is right or wrong i suggest trying both of these programs out and seeing which one is right for you
not everyone's going to work the same way or want the same thing so if you want that more
traditional studio feel cakewalk has that if you want something a little more modern
waveform offers that the key is to find the one that you feel good using if you feel good using
it then you're more likely to stick with it and figure out all of the little tips and tricks and
once you do that you'll be able to create the best music that you have in you as the tech
side of things is not going to get in the way but if you're constantly fighting with the interface
or trying to figure things out you're going to get discouraged and probably avoid making music
so you want to know who i think the winner is well this is going to seem like a little bit of a
cop-out but i think the winner is you you have the choice of two amazing free music making programs
that is a huge win i wish i had this when i was first starting out now if you want to check out
even more free daw software click up here or click down here to see what youtube recommends
if you like this video please give it a thumbs up also subscribe to the channel for more videos from
me thank you so much for watching for simple green tech i'm zane keep creating and we'll talk soon