Should I call myself a musician or a producer?
Traditionally, the role of a record producer has been to be in charge of a musical project, working with an artist or band on their ideas to create a finished piece of work. They might help to collate ideas and work on songs, collaborating on the likes of lyrics and arrangements. The most obvious example of this kind of producer is Sir George Martin, whose influence on The Beatles was so great that he’s frequently cited as the fifth member of the band.
That was how things used to be – with a few exceptions, the roles of producer and artist/musician were kept separate – but technology has changed all that. With everyone now having access to pro-level tools on their computers, artists are frequently producing their own material, doing everything themselves. So, the line between artist and producer has become blurred.
These days, it’s actually hard to decide where one role stops and another begins, but the truth is that it doesn’t really matter what you call yourself. The argument that anyone who makes music with a computer isn’t a ‘real musician’ has long since been debunked – coincidentally, Berklee College of Music have just announced that a laptop and controller can be considered a principal instrument on their courses from 2019. But there are those – perhaps people who don’t play any kind of instrument but do use a DAW – who are more comfortable wearing the producer hat.
If you’re looking for a definition, we’d say that a producer is someone whose primary skills are technical, and a musician is someone who can play and/or feels more comfortable composing than editing or mixing. Feel free to disagree – obviously, there are some people who excel in all areas – but don’t sweat about it and just enjoy whatever it is you do. For many, the problem with free DAWs is that most of them are simply cutdown versions of more capable applications. The likes of Pro Tools First, Studio One Prime and GarageBand are great if you’re a beginner or have limited ambitions and requirements, but they’ll only take you so far, and you’ll always know that there’s something better out there.
If you accept these limitations, and the fact that, at some point, you’ll probably have to move on, these kinds of free DAWs are fine, but by their very nature they can never be seen as a match for their paid-for siblings.
At the moment, the closest you’ll get to a complete free DAW is