Freeware of the Year

Tracktion Tracktion 6

Web www.tracktion.com Format PC/Mac/Linux With last year’s Freeware of the Year award going to Tracktion 5, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the upgrade of Tracktion Software’s gratis offering to version 6 (to coincide with the launch of their stellar Waveform) sees the wily developers scoop it up once again for 2017. Not even three years old yet and originally priced at $60, this brilliant application being from any financial obligation whatsoever is a huge deal for the thrifty computer musician. Although obviously improved upon by T7, then the excellent Waveform, T6 still stands as a thoroughly comprehensive software studio that provides everything required to produce complete tracks from start to finish.

Now undermined to an extent by Waveform’s pop-out mixer and MIDI editor, Tracktion’s big selling point has traditionally been its resolutely one-window interface, with MIDI editing carried out directly on clips, mixer controls built into the horizontal tracks, and the contextual panel at the bottom revealing audio editing controls, track settings, effects parameters and so on, depending on what’s selected. Unlimited MIDI and audio tracks are supported, and everything you expect to find in a modern DAW is in place – VST/AU plugin support, automation, MIDI control, audio warping, track freeze, advanced effects routing, etc. Then there’s that very particular Tracktion workflow – definitely ‘different’, but in a good way. Indeed, many producers have fallen for its speed and logical sensibility hard enough to switch to it from other, far more expensive DAWs.

The only negative is the look of the GUI – it was a bit of an eyesore back in 2015, and now it’s just plain ugly. But hey, let’s not look a magnificent gift horse in the mouth, right? Oh, and it’s Linux-compatible, too, so you could even run your free DAW within a free operating system!