Why do some people use more than one DAW?

While many of us are happy to get all of our music-making business done using a single digital audio workstation, there are also plenty of people out there who choose to run two or more such bits of software. This might sound daft – why waste time learning two products when you could just focus all of your energies on one? – but there are some valid reasons to do it.

These days, the most common argument for using two DAWs is to separate the production process into ‘creative’ and ‘mixing’ sections. So, someone might do all of their composing and arranging in Ableton Live, for example, and then take the audio stems into another application (Logic or Pro Tools, perhaps). There’s certainly something to be said for this approach as it forces you to commit to your track before you start to mix it, which will stop you from endless tinkering later on, and it can also be useful if you subscribe to the view that different DAWs have their own strengths and weaknesses.

There’s also the old argument that some DAWs ‘sound’ better than others: this has largely been disproven, but if you do believe it, then using a second one will make sense to you.

Another potential setup involves using two DAWs simultaneously. You might not have Propellerhead’s Reason as your main production software, for example, but connecting it up to another DAW via ReWire and using it as a big sound module is definitely an option.

Finally, you might choose to run two DAWs because you feel each can inspire you differently and give your music more variety. If, ultimately, by using multiple applications you end up with better results, you’re probably on to something.