DAW

What it means

DAW stands for "Digital Audio Workstation" and refers to a digital system for recording, editing, mixing, and outputting audio and, often, MIDI data. The term arose in the 1980s, when early integrated systems such as the Synclavier and the Fairlight CMI combined digital sound generation, sampling, and sequencing in a single device. As personal computers grew more powerful, music production shifted increasingly toward software-based solutions.

Today a DAW is typically a software application running on a computer or mobile device under macOS, Windows, Linux, or a mobile operating system, rather than a dedicated hardware system as in earlier decades.

Musical use

DAWs allow non-linear, non-destructive work across multiple audio and MIDI tracks at once. Typical features include multitrack recording and editing, virtual instruments and effect plug-ins, MIDI sequencing, a virtual mixing console with faders and buses, parameter automation, and time-stretching and pitch-shifting. Modern DAWs thus combine functions that once required numerous separate devices, and they are now a central tool in virtually every kind of music production, from home recording to professional studio work.