Are most DAWs capable of producing the same quality, release-ready songs?

Published: Wed, 12/02/15

Got a question to answer for today but first:

Wow! Just wow.

I never expected so much feedback from yesterday's email.

Thanks for the floods of emails of support. I really appreciate it.

For the record, I never thought you hated me.

It was meant more as a joke than anything else. Quick Mixing actually became my best selling product to date so I knew I was doing something right so I wasn't really worried about you hating me.

Besides, I have thick skin. Writing about audio online does that to you ;)

Since I can't respond to everyone's emails directly (there are simply too many!) I thought I would respond to the few trends of responses I got:

  • For those of you who responded with feedback and/or answered the survey, THANK YOU!
  • For those of you who made me feel better by telling me they didn't hate me and/or laughed it off, Thank You Too!
  • For those of you who got angry or actually seemed to hate me because of that email, I'll quote David Leddick: "I'm not for everyone, (and neither are you)."
  • For those of you who actually purchased Quick Mixing but got the email regardless, my system was supposed to exclude you but if you used a different email address or didn't confirm your subscription to the free updates you weren't on that list and therefore weren't excluded. Sorry about the mixup!

That said, we have a question and I'd love to hear what you all have to say about it (IN THE COMMENTS!)

Matt Kurke wrote in and said:

Are most DAWs capable of producing the same quality, release-ready songs? I ask because when I send a song to one of those $150 guys for mastering, theirs is always louder and more radio-ready than mine, and I want to believe I’m limited by Cakewalk Sonar, but I’m believing more and more that it’s never the DAW and it’s gotta me me.

Personally, I think you're not limited by your DAW at all. I have not done extensive testing but I doubt there's a massive difference between DAWs when it comes to the sound quality of your master.

I remember an Andrew Scheps story where he decided to mix a song completely in the box instead of on his Neve console. He sent it to the band and asked if they thought anything sounded different than usual.

Nobody heard the difference, which brings me to what skilled engineers, whether they're mixing or mastering might have on you:

  • Their ears and years of experience
  • Higher quality monitors that they know
  • Fine-tuned acoustics in their rooms (especially mastering engineers).

So unfortunately, it might be you. BUT, that's not something to be ashamed of. There's always room to improve.

One way to improve would be to take the $150 mastering engineer track and use it as a reference. Once you're able to make your masters sound as good as their master then you know you've improved.

So that's the piece of advice for today. No pitch. No buy my product.

Just go out and improve. Whether that's learning by reading/watching or learning by doing I hope you always strive for continuous improvement.

Go!

Do It!

I'm taking a break for a little bit but I'll see you next week!

Björgvin