3 Essential Tools For Music Tools For Windows

I’ve been using Acid since it first came out. It was originally just a looping program that you could quickly and easily integrate piano, vocal, with ‘loops’. Not only is it a sequencing program – its an unlimited multi-track recording studio.

It is not a mastering tool so here’s a trick to master your albums. You can record everything at home with Acid PRO and then you can save all your tracks to WAV files. What I then do is bring a DVD-ROM over to my friend who has PRO TOOLS HD with $10,000 reverb and compression plugins (yes those plugins cost that much EACH) and pay him a small hourly fee to do the mastering. Voila!

There is no difference in sound quality between going this route. Why? Because bits are bits. What people ‘hear’ are the effects and ‘standards’ and believe me – even if you had the $10,000 reverb you wouldn’t know how to make it sound right – let the pro’s do that.

So for under $125 you can get a piece of software that will do everything you need to produce your own music.

Click Here to Learn More About Sony Acid Pro 7 [Download]

So you want the software that everyone else uses? That would be “PRO Tools”. Its the de-facto standard and its a beast. Version 12 is just around the corner and the only version you can currently buy (at a discount) with the link below is Version 11 for around $700.

In my experience making music with Pro tools isn’t as fun as it is with Acid, so then why am I still recommending it? Because everyone else uses it. So if you want to be ‘with the pack’ (a surfing term) then get Pro tools and learn it. But be warned – the plugins you will need and the hardware to make your music sound like the music you hear on internet radio is mixed and mastered by pros. You will spend thousands more on plugins than simply handing your tracks over to a mastering pro.

Click Here to Learn More About Pro Tools from Avid

Avid Pro Tools 11 (with DVDs) -Channel Audio Software

Truth be told, I’ve used Adobe Audition 2.0 to record, master and produce every CD I’ve ever made (and there are about 15 of them) other than my one studio album. Adobe switched to a subscription model a few years ago so you can buy the product now for a low monthly fee (aka payment plan). Years ago I bought the ‘boxed’ 2.0 version and it worked just fine. Unfortunately its no longer available – nor is version 3.0. The only one you can buy now is the latest ‘CC’ version.

To me the most useful feature of Adobe audition are the built in noise reduction tools. My Bliss album was recorded live directly to a laptop on Audition with two microphones on the piano straight to two track. From there I was able to isolate the background noise (hiss and mixer buzz) and completely remove it. The resulting sound was clean. I then took the files over to my friend who mastered them on his Pro tools setup. From there I went to CD Baby and got the CD’s made. Its a simple process – so if you only have $30 to spend you can actually make a CD with Audition and a couple of mics!

Click Here to Learn More About Adobe Audition

Adobe Audition CC [Digital Membership]