Different Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) have different specialities, and cover different niches in the market. With the overwhelming amount of music production software that’s knocking around these days I have taken it upon myself to guide you through the main contenders.

1. Garageband

Jamcast boss and author extraordinaire Bill Hilton is a keen exponent of this entry-level Mac-based DAW. It has everything you need to get yourself started on the road to becoming the next Guy Massey and it’s all beautifully presented. One of Garageband’s great selling points is its vast library of software instruments, samples and loops – a library that is as necessary as it is expansive if you don’t have a studio full of your own gear and microphones.

The downside of Garageband, like a lot of Mac software, is that it can be a bit controlling, and it’s hard to really break down and fiddle with the kind of things you’ll want to once you really start getting into your music production. Music that’s made on the software is also very recognisable as Garageband-produced to anybody who’s ever encountered it, and to make your songs sound really professional you’ll have to upgrade to something like ProTools or send them off for mastering.

Best suited to:

Beginners, those more inclined to making computer music rather than recording lots of live instruments.

2. Cubase

Steinberg’s Cubase has already been a big seller for those who work with a lot of VST instruments and MIDI, but the latest versions cater well for live recording as well. Its advanced MIDI editing capabilities will always be popular with the electronic/dance crowd. As will the incredible amount of VST instruments out there that are compatible with Cubase. If you’re used to the concept of a DAW it is intuitive to use as well.

If you’re running it on a laptop or old computer, it can be very CPU intensive and grind to a halt from time to time. It also takes a bit of setting up to get rid of latency issues when recording live instruments. Getting a good sound from Cubase depends a lot on the plug-ins you use with it, but the latest versions have some very nifty effects and plug-ins that come as standard.

Best suited to:

Programmers, electronic music producers, beginners(ish)

3. Logic

Apple’s Logic kind of combines the best of Garageband and Cubase, with additional features suited more towards the audio professional. Again, as an Apple product, is brilliantly presented and quite intuitive to use. It has some very handy features, such as being able to export all the tracks as full-length audio files at a click of a button, enabling users to switch between DAWs very easily. Again, the software instruments and programming capabilities make Logic a popular choice with programmers and electronic producers, but q decent number of mid-level professional studios use Logic as their DAW.

For those without the budget, there’s a much cheaper version called “Logic Express” that can still get you some great results for a lot less money.

Best suited to:

Apple fans, electronic producers, those that have out-grown Garageband

4. ProTools

Digidesign/Avid’s Pro Tools is the industry standard, and is my personal favourite. Any music software company worth their salt makes plug-ins for Pro Tools, and you won’t find a high-end studio without the latest top-of-the range Pro Tools system. Although previously specialised for audio recording and mixing, the latest version, Pro Tools 8, has greatly improved MIDI and programming capabilities. Hardcore electronic producers will probably still prefer the more intuitive MIDI editors in Cubase and Logic though.

It’s the Pro Tools’ intuitive design and architecture, plus the huge range of functions that make it number 1. It isn’t as complicated as you might think the industry standard software might be either. Beginners will be discovering new features and functions for years as they get more into the intricacies of music production, but it’s perfectly straightforward to get started without years of studio experience.

Pro Tools also has a cheaper, stripped down version; Pro Tools LE. It has the exact same architecture and interface as the full HD version though, just with less plug-ins as standard and fewer advanced functions. One bad point is that ProTools needs compatible hardware in order to work, which usually comes in the form of a Digidesign interface. Packages containing the software and hardware are available, and always check to see that your particular version of Pro Tools is compatible with the hardware you’re getting.

Best suited to:

Pros, enthusiasts, people who want to record live instruments, those who know how to mix, anybody serious about getting into music production.

…none of which are really very complicated. Basically, if you want to play rock piano it’s a question of having (and working on) a good rhythmic sense and really knowing your chord shapes. Here’s a short video explaining exactly what I mean:

It’s worth saying that the kind of rock piano I’m dealing with here is really a comping style - I’m assuming that you’re going to playing keyboard or piano in a band, or maybe singing a melody line over the top. You can incorporate melody into this style and make it work as piano solo, but in most contexts this kind of stuff is played to accompany either a vocal line or a full band.

One of the best ways of picking up how rock piano really works is to watch some professionals playing. Tunes like Elton John’s Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting or Ben Folds’ Not The Same (which I use as the example in the video) are both quite hard rocking piano songs. Notice that both make very heavy use of chunky, block chords. Ben Fold’s Landed is quite a slow rocker, and some of the piano part - especially the intro - is quite elaborate and ballad-like. But listen to the chorus and you’ll hear a fair bit of the hand-rocking technique I talk about in the vid.

By the way, that chord sequence I’m playing in the second half of the video goes like this:

E | B | C#m | A |

It’s a pretty good one to practise on. However, like I say, your best bet is probably to get hold of (or work out) the chord sequences to some songs you particularly like and start playing around with them on the piano. Bear in mind that if you buy commercial sheet music you should focus on the melody line and chords. Ignore the piano arrangement, because the chances are it will be heavily simplified to the point of being either useless or completely unplayable. The trick with rock piano, as I’ve said, is to master your chord shapes and develop a good sense of rhythm - don’t get bogged down trying to play an arranger’s third-rate piano adaptation.

I’ll probably post a few other bits and pieces explaining how to play rock piano in the next month or so, because quite a few people seem to be interested in this style of playing. In the meantime, if you have any questions about this, or any other style of piano playing, stick them in the comment thread!

I’m going to tell you about a few tricks and tips that’ll help to get your home-recorded tracks sounding a bit more professional. All the processes I’ll describe are to be added to your stereo mix, in a similar way to the mastering process.

Equalisation
EQ is an extremely important aspect of music production. The main area that seems to be a problem is the low-mids, from about 150Hz to 450Hz. Bass frequencies are the most powerful, and mid frequencies are the most commonly occurring in all instruments, so you ca end up with quite a build up of strong middy sounds on your track if you’re not careful, leading to a muddy, unclear final mix. To start, make sure you add a bass roll-off (pictured below) to any tracks that don’t need any bass such as vocals, acoustic guitar and the like.

Bass roll-off EQ

When it comes to EQ-ing the full mix, try reducing the low-mids a bit like this:

Low-mid EQ

You don’t want to cut too much out, as this might start to effect the sound of each individual track, but a subtle cut as shown above can help “clean up” the overall mix and make it sound a bit clearer.

Another trick to give your track a bit more of a sparkle is to add a bit extra high-end. Add a little shelving EQ as shown below, but listen to any “S” sounds in the vocal, and to any cymbals you have in the song, as these can be brought out by adding too much to the higher frequencies, and you want the track, as a whole, to sound balanced across the spectrum.

High-end boost

It’s also a good idea to roll off the really low frequencies, so there isn’t ay low frequency noise in your song. You’ll need a good set of monitors to hear what difference this makes though.

Compression
Compression can be a tricky one when it comes to effecting the whole song. Subtle amounts of compression can help give a track a bit more power and increase the volume, but too much and your track will sound squashed. Only use low ratios and thresholds close to 0dB. The way to spot over-compression is to listen out when something loud happens in your song – if all the other elements suddenly drop in volume when something loud kicks in you’re using too much compression.

Multi-band compression is really useful for compressing your whole mix. It lets you compress different frequencies to different degrees, so you can compress the bass without effecting the higher frequencies, kind of like EQ.

Limiters and maximisers also use compression to increase the perceived volume of your track. It’s important that your song is loud in order to compete with commercial or professionally mastered music, but you don’t want to compromise the sound quality by over-compressing it. On a typical limiter, there will be parameters for threshold and ceiling. Keep the ceiling at 0dB, and lower the threshold until the music is coming out at a good volume. Listen out for over-compression as I explained above though, as you need to find a threshold value that increases the volume of the track without making it too obvious.

So those are just a couple of tips to help give you a better sounding home-recorded tracks. If you’re still struggling, there are a number of professional mastering services out there, which charge anywhere between £10 and £100 per track, depending on the kind of mastering you go for.

Graeme Allen is the founder of, and chief mastering engineer at Amati Studios. The company has a range of mid-size nation-wide recording studios and an online professional mastering service.

I made this as a bit of fun the other afternoon - ten tips if you’re trying to improve your twelve bar skills. Tips 8 and 9 are a bit (cough) debatable, but I hope it’s useful all the same…

Here’s a quick blues lick in C that’s very flexible and handy for all kinds of blues styles. It stays within a single octave, so you don’t need to move your hand much, and it can go over pretty much any kind of blues progression or bass style.

If you find this useful, don’t forget to check out my book, which has loads of stuff about blues in it.

This is a really cool short vid of Mulgrew Miller talking about the art of comping, how to practice it and how to do it well.

Of course, Mulgrew is a jazzman and the examples he’s playing are on the piano. But the basic comping principles he’s talking about here apply whether you’re playing piano, bass, guitar, whatever. It’s all about being comfortable. If you feel comfortable, then the singer or soloist you’re accompanying will feel comfortable, too, and you’ll get the best possible musical performance.

The secret of getting comfortable, like the man says, is to spend a lot of time on your instrument, playing around and experimenting. I go on about this constantly, but that’s the way to become a good improviser: other people’s exercises can be very useful, but there’s no substitute for sitting down at the piano (or with your guitar, sax, kit…) and just messing around, pursuing musical ideas as they come to you.

I found the video in the YouTube channel of JazzVideoGuy, which is worth checking out - he has a ton of interesting stuff in there. In case you’ve missed it, here’s my own introduction to comping vid, in which I make a couple of same points (though I wouldn’t claim to speak with the same authority as Mulgrew…!)

Want to get started on jazz and blues improvisation on piano or keyboard? This exercise easier than it looks, and sounds pretty impressive to listeners.

In the video I mention a PDF doc containing the chord sequence and sample parts written out. You can view, download and print it at Google docs (new window)

If you have any questions about this piano improvisation - or any other aspect of jazz, blues or pop piano - stick them in the comment thread below this post and I’ll get back to you ASAP.

Just a quick post to update regulars on where things are going with Jamcast. If you’re a subscriber, you’ll notice that I’ve been spending the past few weeks posting backdated material to tie in with my new book, so everything’s been focussed very heavily on understanding harmony and related topics.

Anyway, that’s nearly done, and I’m going to be posting some more stuff on general musicianship and music tech topics in the near future. I’m also going to restart the tutorial series on songwriting, which ground to a halt after a couple of videos last year because I got engulfed in writing the book. Lots of people have been asking for it to be completed, so I’m going to get on the job in the next few weeks.

On the subject of music tech, have a listen to this cover of Eurhythmics’ Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This, as recorded by the Walldogs, of which chum of Jamcast Matt Wallace is a member. The whole thing was done in GarageBand ‘09 - which shows you just how much you can achieve with this so-called “entry level” DAW.

The suspended fourth chord (written “sus” or “sus4″) is used pretty extensively in contemporary ballad and indie-type sounds - it crops up a lot in songs by people like Coldplay, Ben Folds, Snow Patrol and others.

At heart, the suspended fourth is a very easy chord to add to your music. It’s a handy tool for adding depth and texture if you’re a songwriter, and you can add it to existing chord progressions for a bit of extra interest. It often works very well in tandem with ninth chords, especially when the tonic chord of a sequence is enriched with alternating ninths and suspended fourths - as you’ll see in the example in the video.

This video was originally created to tie in with my book, How To Really Play The Piano, but hopefully you’ll learn plenty from it even if you’re not working from the book. Any questions on suspended fourths or any other chords, post them in the comments thread!

UPDATE: You can see an old vid I did on the subject of the relationship between ninths and sus fourths here. Quality isn’t great, but there’s some useful stuff in there which should reinforce some of the points I’ve made in the newer vid.

Augmented chords are relatively rare, especially if you’re playing the kind of progressions associated with blues and rock’n'roll. However, they crop up a reasonable amount in jazz and classic showtunes, and can sometimes be heard in more modern pop ballads - usually as passing chords rather than the major harmony in a progression. Forming them is dead easy.

If you have any questions on augmented chords or other aspects of harmony, post them in the comments thread and I’ll do my best to help!