DIY Recording Guys · Vadim Kharaz and Benjamin Hull

61: Back to Basics - The DAW and What Features to Learn Next

March 15, 2021·1 hr 2 min·5 clips

Vadim confesses he's at a crossroads: stick with Pro Tools or jump ship to Studio One.

The banter starts with gear. A newly bought Tama snare drum gives the room its usual loose start before the conversation turns toward a more useful question: what does a DAW actually let you control? The teaching stays calm and practical. The hosts begin with basic session setup, including the settings that shape the digital audio you are about to record. Sample rate comes up first. Bit depth sits beside it as part of the plain language a beginner has to face before making a track or pressing record. Then the track workflow takes over. An audio track gets explained through the everyday steps of choosing an input, arming the track, and making sure you record only what you meant to record. That part matters. Multitrack recording is where the DAW starts to feel like a serious session, because each layer can be captured and controlled on its own. They keep the examples grounded. One track can stay unarmed while another gets armed, or several inputs can be recorded together when the session calls for it. MIDI gets a clean pass too. Ben describes the piano-roll view as track-like at first glance, but built around notes, keyboard pitches, and musical time instead of recorded waveforms. Audio tracks capture performances as sound. MIDI tracks capture note information that can be edited against rhythms like sixteenth notes or whole notes. The tone stays encouraging without turning into a gear flex. This is not presented as advanced engineer territory. It is the next handful of controls worth understanding. The close points listeners back toward their studios, social channels, and Facebook group, tying the lesson to the DIY recording circle around the show.

As heard by us

A plainspoken DAW primer for DIY musicians, focused on tracks, inputs, MIDI, and the recording choices behind them.

DIY Recording Guys strip the DAW back to its working parts: session settings, sample rate and bit depth, audio tracks, armed inputs, multitrack recording, and the basic split between audio and MIDI.

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Why you'd press play

Need the DAW basics before the flashy stuff?

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