DAW Essentials

[rook takes knight]

Okay, so you've built your home studio and have all the necessary components(interface,mic,monitors,instruments,etc.)

You have your DAW software of choice.

You also have a complete song that you'd like to record.


Now, what do you need to create a finished piece of music these days?


If someone were to go over the software essentials in recording a song from start to finish.
What would they be?

[woggle]

Assuming the things you have assumed then all you need is a DAW. You can then record a performance and mix that performance to a stereo track. That's how a lot of great recordings have been and are made - as long as the performance is great and your recording skills are good as well that will do.
But of course everyone wants more so there are a bunch of things that are useful - but a lot of DAWs have them included anyway and if not there are freebies that are pretty good for probably the two most commonly used signal processors, EQ and compression.
After that probably a good reverb is useful, then various fx according to taste.

But a good stereo recording of a good performance is all that you need

[kelldammit]

with all of that in order, all that should be left is to just do it

[exmatproton]

my fav mixing tools (vst, daw);

FL Studio
Adobe Audition
Waves GOLD
Nomad (complete package)
Slate digital (pre-amps, eq's)
Eventide (fx)
D16 (fx)
AIR (fx)