The Digital Audio Workstation is a software application or environment which allows for the capture, synthesis, editing, processing, mixing, mastering, analysis, and exporting of digital audio files.
The term Digital Audio Workstation is commonly written as DAW. This is pronounced by stating each letter, like “D-A-W” or can be read as a single word, pronounced “dah” (which rhymes with “flaw”).
At various points, DAWs have consisted of both integrated hardware-based units, as well as computer software applications. The software-based DAW that we are familiar with today had its birth in 1991, when the company Digidesign introduced the first version, Pro Tools. (Pro Tools is still an industry standard today, although it has since been acquired by Avid).
The most basic function of a DAW is to edit and process digital audio files. (NOTE: We will learn more about what a digital audio file is later. For the time being, just know that they are the file types of audio.) There are of course many additional features that modern DAWs allow for.
One of the more significant functions, and what allowed them to become ubiquitous in modern sound studios, is there ability to capture sound as digital audio files in real-time. The heart of most modern studios now a days are a software-based DAW, which allow a sound engineer to setup microphones or plug directly into the sound output of electronic instruments and record the sounds they make.
For modern producers of electronic music or sound designers for movies and electronic games, the DAW is also a tool used for the synthesis or “creation of sound from nothing”. Synthesis sounds by these artists can be built-up, organized, and arranged such that they can create full sound works, without ever having to record a live sound.
Another critical capability of any DAW is the ability to edit digital audio files. This may include trimming the ends of files, splicing a single file into multiple files, or splicing multiple files into a single file.
For either of the above use scenarios, or anyone else working with audio, it is often the case that they will need to mix together multiple audio sources. A DAW allows the engineer/producer/user to adjust the relative ratio of amplitude for each source, thereby effecting how present each audio source is.
In addition to simple adjustments of amplitude levels, mixing often involves applying additional sound processing effects onto individual sources, so that they can either; A) fit together better, or B) create artistic effects. This technique of processing the audio, typically involves the use “plug-ins”, which a DAW can host.
The last critical capability for a DAW is the ability to take the final mix and export it as an integrated, singular digital audio file that can be shared with other computers or played back over various devices.