What Is a DAW and What Does It Do?

Long-time IT professional and technology leader George Papamitrou serves as the director of IT business services at MACOM. Outside of his professional life, he enjoys supporting his sons’ music production business. In this capacity, George Papamitrou provides part-time support in marketing, investments, sales, legal, and technology matters for music production.

An essential part of a person’s software for music production is a DAW, or digital audio workstation. DAWs help music producers record, edit, mix and manipulate sound. This software allows producers to mix multiple audio tracks together into single audio files.

While there are standalone DAW systems that look like mixers with LCD screens, software-based DAWs are often the easiest to incorporate since they work with standard personal computers, such as computers with Windows and Mac operating systems. DAWs incorporate four individual program functions that previously existed as their own standalone programs: a virtual instrument, digital audio processor, music notation editor, and MIDI sequencer.

Digital audio processors are key for editing, recording, and mixing digital audio. Meanwhile, MIDI sequencers record and mix MIDI notes, and the virtual instruments program receives information from MIDI and translates it into different instrument sounds. Finally, the music notation editor takes notes from MIDI and turns them into printable sheet music. All of this is incorporated by a single DAW software.