Top 5 DAWs for Sound Design

Reason Studios - Reason+ is like a sound designers playground and is the best DAW for sound design for a variety of reasons (pun intended).

Let's first talk about compatibility. Reason is not only a DAW, but it's a plugin as well. So, if you've stumbled across this article and are already a diehard FL Studio user, you still need to consider Reason for sound design. Add the iconic Reason rack to any DAW, and start combining instruments, effects and other devices to craft the perfect sound for your next sample pack project.

Now let's talk about the price of Reason+. Reason is FREE to try, so if you're on the fence about its sound design power, there is no reason (ahem) to not give it a try. After your trial is up, it's only the low price of $19.99/month. So, whether you're using Reason as your primary DAW or as a plugin with its rack extension to your preferred DAW, the Instruments and Effects of Reason are yours to manipulate sound with. And with lifetime upgrades, inspired sound packs, the value here is truly tremendous for any music producer or sound designer.

But, what is the iconic Reason Rack? You can truly create any sound you desire by dragging instruments and effects to the Reason Rack. Everything will be inter-connected for you in a logical top to bottom workflow. Let's say you want to design some drums from scratch, you can start with an instrument, like the Kong Drum Designer. Then add an effect by dropping it under the instrument, like a Pulveriser. Then create a perfect loop by adding a MIDI Player effect by dragging and dropping to the top. It's effortless.

For quick access to inspirational sounds, easily find them among thousands of synthesizer patches, sampled instruments, loops and sounds. There's patches for specific devices or Combinator patches that combines any number of instrument and effects to deliver a powerful new sound.

And the Reason Rack is truly customizable for the sound you're looking for. The backside of Reason’s Rack is where you can go all-modular with the free routing of audio and control voltage signals. Control synth filters from envelope followers, control panning with LFOs or split up the audio signal to create huge sonic landscapes with parallel processing. Go absolutely HAM with these virtual cables.

Reason is the best DAW for sound design, and that's whether you prefer to use it in its standalone glory or to bring it into your workflow of the DAW of your choice. Try Reason+ for FREE today.

FL Studio is another great DAW for sound design. First, FL Studio comes in 4 iterations starting with its base version Fruity edition ($99/USD) and goes up to the All Plugins edition ($499). You can check out this comparison page to see the difference between all 4. What is amazing about Fl Studio is FREE lifetime upgrades. You buy any version once, you get that FOR LIFE! This is a huge differentiator compared to some of the other DAWs on the market. So, if you're planning on sticking to one DAW for life for music production and sound design, FL Studio would be a great long-term economical solution for you.

FL Studio comes packed with a huge array of instruments and effects that will have you designing sounds from scratch in no time. FL Studio is also a beautiful looking DAW which will make your sound design workflow much more fun than some of the competition. It's super intuitive, which makes sound design experimentation also a breeze.

Pro Tools is an iconic DAW in the music industry. And as the king of audio editing, it makes it a perfect companion for any sound designer. Pro Tools offers a free version for anyone looking to get familiar with the editing workflow, and then a subscription-based model starting at $29.99/month for its power users.

What I love about Pro Tools is its simplicity in usability but complexity in how you can really dial in the sound that you're looking to create. High quality sample pack designers can also do a lot of batch editing and naming within Pro Tools which makes it a great fit. See for yourself.

Ableton Live is a staple for many music producers and sound designers. From a price point perspective, you can get the Intro version to Live 11 for $99. If you're into production, however, you'll likely need more than the 16 tracks this version provides, so opting for Standard ($449) or Suite ($749) is likely the more practical route.

And while the price point is less competitive than some of the other DAWs on this list, Ableton is still entrusted by many sound designers. And that's because of the quality of the stock plugins that enable sound designers to manipulate sounds in a unique and incredible way.

But Ableton isn't for everyone. It definitely has a stale uninspiring look to it, but for those just interested in the sounds they create it can get the job done.

Logic Pro is a complete professional recording studio. And one that is packed with features that cater to sound designers. But sorry PC users, this one is only available on the Mac as it's developed by Apple. Apple does offer a super competitive price at $199 to unlock the full capabilities of this pro-level DAW.

I'm a huge fan of the Drum Synth and Drum Machine Designer that come with Logic Pro. An excellent choice for designing drums from scratch. Logic also looks great and works so fast on the latest Mac models equipped with the M1 chip.

If I was ranking strictly based on what's for Apple users, this would definitely jump higher on the list. Check out Logic today!