Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Gurudutt R.
In 1994 a company called OSC produced a 4 track editing- There are many DAW programs that provide recording and
recorder app called DECK ($399,95) for Digidesign, editing audio, recording and editing MIDI data, sound
employed in The Residents' "Freakshow" LP. The first processing and synthesis. Commercial systems are often
Windows based software-only product was Software Audio designed to run on Macintosh or Windows operating
Workshop (SAW) from IQS and it was able to record, edit systems and are usually developed for profit.
and mix 4 tracks of audio. It became heavily used
throughout US radio stations. Detailed information of commercially available programs is
available in other articles.
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Musicians and composers long had a desire to integrate c' )
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and even electric guitars with computers. Serious computer- /*$ - '
based composition tools began to appear with the Atari ST
and Amiga computer systems. Enthusiasts continued to seek Other professional DAWs that use a combination of
more integrated, easier-to-use and higher-performance tools hardware and software include;
for audio creation tasks. Many current DAWs even support
integration with video streams allowing full A/V production. $+ +.0+$# +'*
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production tools.
As software systems, DAWs could be designed with any
user interface, but generally they are based on a multitrack
tape recorder metaphor, making it easier for recording
engineers and musicians already familiar with using tape There are many free and open-source programs that can
recorders to become familiar with the new systems. facilitate a DAW. These are often designed to run on a
Therefore, computer-based DAWs tend to have a standard variety of operating systems and are usually developed non-
layout which includes transport controls (play, rewind, commercially. The LADSPA plugin architecture, the JACK
record, etc.), track controls and/or a mixer, and a waveform API and the ALSA soundcard driver represent the 'cutting-
display. In single-track DAWs, only one (mono or stereo edge' in free and open source DAW development for
form) sound is displayed at a time. professional audio production.