Is GarageBand a DAW?

Is GarageBand a DAW? Yes. GarageBand is a digital audio workstation, Apple's free one: you record, arrange, edit and mix tracks on a timeline, on a Mac, iPhone or iPad. What it leaves out is everyone else, because it runs only on Apple devices, and growing past it means paying for Logic Pro. Veena is a free DAW in your browser for every computer and phone, with a personal music producer, CoProducer, built in.

Veena is an AI DAW with a personal music producer built in. Describe the song you want and CoProducer builds it with you — beats, chords, melody, arrangement and mix — as real tracks you can edit, mix and export. Free, in your browser.

What makes GarageBand a DAW

A DAW holds your song as tracks on a timeline: recordings, instruments played from MIDI, effects and a mixer, ending in an exported file. GarageBand does all of that. Apple's own page calls it "a fully equipped music creation studio right inside your Mac — with a complete sound library", with virtual session drummers. Apple lists up to 255 audio tracks on the Mac and up to 32 on iOS, where "multitrack recording requires a compatible third-party audio interface."

GarageBand, Logic Pro and Veena compared

GarageBand is free only if you already own a Mac, iPhone or iPad, and Logic Pro needs a Mac with Apple silicon. Ableton Live is a DAW from $99 that installs on Windows or Mac, with stem separation only in the $749 Suite. Veena is the DAW that runs on whatever you have, free.

Start a song in Veena, step by step

1. Open the studio. Go to daw.veena.studio in Chrome, Edge or another modern browser and sign in with Google. Nothing to install.

2. Start a project. Double-click New Project: you get 6 tracks, the transport bar and the CoProducer panel.

3. Describe the song, or play it in. Ask CoProducer:

Make a 100 BPM soul-pop song in B-flat major: 4-bar intro, 16-bar verse, 8-bar chorus, 16-bar verse, 8-bar chorus, 8-bar bridge, 8-bar chorus. Jazz kit drums, Electric Piano chords, a Round Bass line and Strings swelling into each chorus. Leave space for my vocal.

Or press Record and play a MIDI keyboard or sing into your microphone.

4. Edit like any DAW. Piano roll for notes, Beat Maker for drums, mixer for levels, 17 built-in effects on every track and the master.

5. Export. WAV, MP3, MIDI or stems, with no cap and no watermark.

What's free

• The DAW: timeline, piano roll, Beat Maker, mixer, recording, 61 instrument presets and 8 drum kits, with up to 5 projects at a time.
• CoProducer: a daily allowance of requests.
• Collaboration and plug-ins: invite links with live cursors, and your own plug-ins through Veena Bridge.
• Export: WAV 24-bit/48 kHz, MP3 320 kbps, MIDI and stems, no cap, no watermark.

Veena Pro, $20 a month, removes the daily request cap and unlocks the premium models.

For the price question, read is GarageBand free; the head-to-head is Veena vs GarageBand, and on a PC see GarageBand alternative for Windows. The term itself is defined in what is a DAW. Every other answer is in the Veena help centre.

Related reading: Is GarageBand free? · Veena vs GarageBand · What is a DAW?