Best Beat-Making Software for DJs and Producers

Beat making has exploded in popularity over the last few years with new software emerging seemingly daily to help aspiring producers in their pursuit of producing club-bumping tracks complete with stellar-sounding beats. You’ve decided it’s time to jump on the beat-making bandwagon, but where to begin? Ask any beat maker, and they are almost guaranteed to give you a different answer. And, while Serato, Ableton, and FL Studio all have their own guaranteed benefits, which one is best for you and your workflow? At Sweetwater, we want more than anything to assist you with your journey. Below is a list of some of the best beat-making software available today for DJs, producers, and anyone looking to jump headfirst into the game with a pro-quality edge.

Serato Studio Software

For many DJs and producers reading this, odds are you have been honing your craft for years — possibly even decades — learning the ins and outs of your favorite software and settling into a solid groove for your work. When it comes time to start building beats, the last thing you need is another program to learn and master from scratch. With Serato Studio Software, your worries of working with tedious, confusing software can be put to rest. Plain and simple, Serato Studio is tailor-made for DJs with everything arranged around a DJ-friendly mixer along with familiar effects and instant access to your entire Serato DJ library. Serato Studio’s built-in audio editor makes it easy to detect song keys and stretch tempos, and it offers sequencing options like classic step sequencing and a piano roll with foolproof key modes that play only the correct notes. Plus, Serato Studio comes jam-packed with drum kits and other virtual instruments as well as 300 professionally programmed grooves so you can hit the ground running from day one.

Ableton Live 11 Intro

Designed to streamline both music production and live performances, Ableton Live 11 Intro is a fantastic entry point for anyone looking to dabble in beat making. Where Live 11 Intro truly shines is in its two unique views, perfect for finding the exact workflow that’s best for you. Its linear Arrangement View is similar to other DAW programs with time and tracks on the x-axis and y-axis, respectively. In contrast, Live 11’s Session View mode changes things up quite a bit, placing individual tracks along the x-axis and “scenes” on the y-axis. In each scene, you can load loops, grooves, and more, combining different samples in real time for excellent experimentation. You can even launch an entire scene with options to automatically go to other scenes or repeat the scene, making Live 11 an entirely customizable DAW experience to fit your style. It’s hard to imagine that this high-powered DAW comes in under $100 — economically priced with the power to take your beat making into the stratosphere.

Image Line FL Studio 20 Fruity
Edition

Effects chains. Advanced automation. Plug-ins. You name it, and Image Line’s FL Studio 20 Fruity Edition more than likely has you covered. When it comes to arranging and sequencing, it doesn’t get much easier than FL Studio’s Piano Roll feature with a flexible Playlist for cueing up automation and note data in any combination you wish. Locking in time signatures is a breeze with options to change them on the fly for a quick and easy way to add some dynamism to your beats. Best of all, with 11 virtual synthesizers onboard, you get access to acoustic and synth basses, guitars, string instruments, pianos, drums, and more with a search category built in for an efficient way to find that perfect instrument. Once you build out some beats, FL Studio’s loop-creation tool is your secret weapon for slicing, stretching, chopping, and editing audio. Not to mention, with the freedom to add up to eight effects onto a single audio track, you can experiment with delays, filters, reverbs, and even vocoder effects to nail that sound you hear in your head.

Reason Studios Reason 11

As the newest iteration of their award-winning software, Reason Studios’ Reason 11 takes everything that makes their DAW exceptional and upgrades it with a bevy of user-focused improvements. At its core is Reason 11’s virtual studio rack, a hub for crafting beats and tracks through Reason’s massive multi-gig sound library. Housed in this vault of sound, you’ll find synthesizers, instruments, and effects along with over 29,000 synths, samples, drum kits, loops, and more. Reason 11 sports a king’s arsenal of sounds guaranteed to build out top-notch beats from scratch. The included Rack Plug-in is as simple as they come, letting you load in any instrument, effect, or sound you wish into other DAWs and workstations to inject your studio and live setup with a hefty sonic upgrade. One thing that Sweetwater DJs and producers can’t get enough of is Reason 11’s five new rack devices: Quartet Chorus Ensemble, Sweeper Modulation Effect, Master Bus Compressor, Channel Dynamics, and Channel EQ — all of which are fully compatible with Reason Rack.

Magix ACID Pro 10 for Windows

Sometimes, a solid set of loop-worthy samples is all you need to kick your performances up a notch. That’s where Magix ACID Pro 10 steps in, offering super-powerful sample- and loop-based production at a price that doesn’t break the bank. It comes stock with Zynaptiq’s STEM MAKER 2, a fantastic tool for high-quality remixes. Using groundbreaking technology, STEM MAKER 2 extracts vocals, drums, and stems from stereo mixes with mind-blowing results. This program pairs incredibly well with ACID’s Morph Pads, letting you assign audio tracks, instruments, and busses to pads with a single click and then letting you shape them however you see fit. Need to fine-tune some freshly tracked vocals? With the included Melodyne 4 essential software from Celemony, you can load in vocals and tweak them to pitch-corrected perfection while retaining a beautiful, natural sound. Please note: Magix ACID Pro 10 is only compatible with Windows computers, so keep this in mind when making your final decision.

Bitwig Studio 3

One session with Bitwig Studio 3 is all it takes to understand its mission: pure, unfettered inspiration and creativity. With more than enough versatility for both studio and stage use and over 80 instruments and effects, Studio 3 is an excellent platform for supercharging your productivity. Its Realtime Ruler displays timelines in both minutes and seconds, and it’s compatible with Ableton LINK version 3 for syncing workstations of all kinds. The cherry on top is the Grid, Studio 3’s modular sound-design environment with over 150 modules and Poly/FX Grids for creating synthesizers and sequenced patches. Play around with the Grid for a few minutes, and you’ll quickly see that this piece of technology means business. Just add the Grid into your project, start patching, and bask in its incredible sound and speedy workflow. You can also add fades and crossfades directly into your project for an additional speed boost with top-of-the-line time stretching to sync everything to whatever tempo you’re working with.

Magix Music Maker 2021 Plus Edition

With its powerful song-creation tool and clean interface, Magix’s Music Maker 2021 Plus Edition is more than capable of taking your beat making to new heights. Its UI is completely customizable, letting you lay out Soundpools and instruments wherever you like for optimal viewing. Magix gave Music Maker a modern makeover for the 2021 edition with a redesigned arranger that makes the most out of the interface’s space and allows you to add more as needed. Need to craft a beat on the fly? Music Maker’s song-creation tool pumps out studio-quality mixes in three easy steps. Just select a song template and Soundpool, add in your instruments and song parts, and you’re all finished! Once you land on a track that’s perfect for your needs, experiment with different effects to fine-tune your sound. Best of all, you can use the same song templates and Soundpools over and over with different results each time, ensuring that you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for. Please note: Magix Music Maker 2021 Plus Edition is only compatible with Windows computers, so keep this in mind when making your final decision.

Conclusion

When it comes to finding your perfect beat-making software, there are a number of things to consider. While all of the DAWs listed above will get you where you need to go, each one sports different feature sets and hardware compatibility, and they all have enough standout benefits to give them a look, feel, and sound all their own. Once you narrow down the options, give your Sweetwater Sales Engineer a call at (800) 222-4700 to make your purchase or to answer any outstanding questions you may have. After that, you will be well on your way to crafting awesome beats!
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