DJ-oriented affordable DAW?

So.. I’ll start by saying that any decent DAW will take a lot of learning – the workflow, the keyboard shortcuts, where everything is hidden, the plugins, what the plugins do etc. If you are coming from a background of never have done anything, this will be a learning curve. I myself have been using Apple’s Logic Pro 8 since 2008 and I am still learning features and tools that I didn’t know it has. I am now studying Music Technology at Uni here in the UK – and we get taught how to use DAW’s properly there. It takes time.

I’ll answer your points one-by-one to start with – in terms of practicality.

1) Adjusting tracks so they fit a beat grid
Some tracks simply don’t fit a beatgrid – unless they were recorded to a click track or metronome, you haven’t got a chance. And I wouldn’t attempt to fix it. There is no software I know of that will do this automatically. VDJ and Serato (and I think Cross) all have the capability to deal with a track with a bpm that changes over time, although you do have to tell it where the bpm changes through the track. I don’t think Traktor can do this though – so you may just be out of luck if that is the software you use.

2) Making Your Own Edits/Remixes
No DAW (that I know of) will automatically beatgrid itself to a track you give it. Most have a bpm analyser, but you will have to set the bpm manually and drag the audio to fit onto the grid yourself. It’s not tricky and normally takes me a few mins when I do this.
If you are wanting to do your own edits/remixes – go for it. This is the first step to producing yourself and will be easy enough if you understand basic song structure!

3) Post Process/Master Mixes
Firstly, any mixes you do shouldn’t need mastering. That’s done to the original track not when you mix. If you use autogain/gain normalization you should be fine without mastering. Whatever you do, don’t use any of the free “mastering” websites out there. They will do what’s known in the industry as “sausage” the tracks, removing any dynamic content. Not good.
Editing/shortening tracks is easy, as it applying basic effects like delay/sampler etc in almost any DAW.

4) Creating your own loops is easy – simply set the bpm to what you want and compose. Export the 4 bar section properly (method changes depending on software) and it will work fine.

5) Harmonic analysis is something I don’t know of in any DAW. Most will tell you what chord you are currently playing if you plug in a midi keyboard, but this isn’t something needed by the vast majority of users so they don’t include it.

Programs I would look at:

Apple Only:
Logic Pro – This is my preferred DAW and I in fact bought a Mac Pro (Desktop) from ebay fairly cheap just so I could run it. For me, its the most intuitive DAW out there and will work very well with both audio files and midi files. Probably tricky for you though unless you own a mac.

Windows Only:
FL Studio – This is a very good DAW for midi editing and composing (many many producers have used it) but it is not good for handling audio files so I wouldn’t recommend it for you.

Both Platforms:
Pro Tools – The supposed “Industry Standard”. This has been around since the invention of the DAW and is still used in almost every recording studio in the world today. Personally I find the interface very clunky and hard to use, and the plugins are no where near as logical as the ones within Logic.
Cubase – Personally I have never used this but I know many people who have and they have been impressed with it’s handling of audio and midi. Defo a possibility for you.
Bitwig Studio – Similar to Ableton (written by people who left Ableton a few years back as a spin-off) but very much a DAW in it’s own right. Not amazing for audio but the midi is very good.
Ableton Live – (Don’t get the lite/basic version – it’s very limiting) Apart from that, this is a very different DAW to all the other ones I have mentioned (with the exception of Bitwig) – it works in a very different manner, mostly organised around loops rather than sections of audio files. I personally struggle to work this way, but a lot of people love it for being different and make some remarkable productions using it. If you are particularly interested in how Synth’s work, you can also get Max for Live which lets you design your own synthesizer if you have enough time!
Reason – Pretty much midi only and I struggled to get along with it, although again I know many people who love the way the visual interface works.
Reaper – New kid on the block, and really really good with audio but this is not good with midi files so it’s a possibility for you but remixes would be hard.

In terms of pricing – don’t get a limited version as if you start remixing you will run out of tracks pretty quickly. I got a copy of Ableton Live Lite with my DAC and I ran out of track (max 8) after I had just put my drum kit into it, let alone any other parts. It’s not rare for me to use 60 tracks in a production, especially if I remix as I will have several track with samples from the original on top of any synth parts I create.
Prices are very rough – they may have changed recently – but should give you an idea of cost:
Pro Tools – £700
Ableton Live (Suite) – £600
Cubase – £360
BitWig – £250
Reason – £210
FL Studio – £200
Logic Pro – £150
Reaper – £40

Hope this helps!!

bob6397

Here a solution called Linux MultiMedia Studio; 12 years of improvements absolutely free with no limitations, apt for MIDI, projects, samples in .ogg, WAV mp3 can be imported etc. Clean powerful output of recorded items… Works nicely with Audacity on Linux, OS X and Windows, here a link to the site: https://lmms.io/ check it out, have to get used to their layout, once you are into it, it´s a pleasure and serious competitor, the extensive user’s guide could be better and some knowledge from audio processing combined with some music theory would help, it’s a tough road which will change your perception of music, once started there is no way back, very addictive, good luck!

While you can use warping to “straighten out” tracks, it’s still a computer algorithm doing it. And it doesn’t get it right 100% all of the time. I have done some old Earth, Wind & Fire tracks and it takes some serious time and work to get it right.

Just hitting warp and export is, most likely, not gonna cut it.

My point is, there is no “easy” solution to do this. Even with good tools, like Ableton, it will take time and effort.

Yeah, those should warp pretty easily. Not sure if there is an Ableton time-limited demo that you could try on a few tracks.

Some DAW’s allow you to add swing to a track to give it that “live” feeling. It will then (semi-)randomly vary the beat between set limits to have more of a live drummer feel to it. It’s sometimes done with tracks where they used an electronic drum track but wanted it to sound less “canned”. This is certainly true for some of the studio work I have done, not sure if it happens in house music productions, but perhaps that is what happened to the tracks you mentioned?