AnalogDAW User Guide

Mix and produce with the warmth of an analog console.

Welcome to AnalogDAW — a recording, editing, and mixing studio for macOS and iPad/iPhone that puts the sound and feel of a classic analog console at the center of everything you do. Whether you are tracking a band, recording a virtual instrument, or finishing a master, AnalogDAW gives you fast tools wrapped around a warm, musical signal path.

This guide is written for everyone — if you have never opened a DAW before, start at the top and work down. If you are a seasoned engineer, jump straight to the section you need.

What AnalogDAW is — and what it isn't

AnalogDAW exists to bring back the recording workflow that made the classic, timeless records — the era when a great performance was captured, not assembled. The whole app is built to reward the human touch: a singer leaning into a phrase, a drummer who pushes the chorus, the small imperfections that make a take feel alive.

What AnalogDAW is:

A performance-first studio. You track real players and real takes through a warm, analog-modeled console, then choose your best moments and mix. The craft is in the playing and the engineering — not in repairing it afterward.
A console at the center of everything. Every track, bus, and the master runs through modeled preamp color, EQ, saturation, and compression, so your recordings have character from the first take.
An honest editing room. The editing tools — trim, fade, gain, slip, splitting, comping across takes — let you arrange and choose performances. They shape what you already played; they don't fabricate something you didn't.

What AnalogDAW is not:

It does not include automatic pitch correction. If a note is flat, you sing it again. Tuning is part of the performance, not a slider.
It does not quantize, time-stretch, or "fix" your timing. The groove you played is the groove you keep. There is no grid that drags your audio into place, no elastic re-timing of a take.
It is not a MIDI sequencer. Virtual instruments are performed, not programmed. You play an instrument live and AnalogDAW records its audio — exactly like miking an amp. There are no MIDI clips, no piano roll, no step sequencer, and no note editing to nudge, quantize, or tune a part after the fact. An instrument performance is treated as a real performance: if you want to change it, you play it again. See Recording Instruments.
It is not a tool for manufacturing a performance that never happened. In an age when machines can generate flawless, frictionless audio on demand, AnalogDAW deliberately leaves out the crutches that sand the humanity out of a record. The point is to capture you.

This is a creative choice, not a missing feature. If your goal is to chase a great take until it's genuinely great — and to keep the feel of real people playing real music — you're in the right place.

How this guide is organized

Getting going

Getting Started — the welcome screen, creating your first session, opening an existing one, and the lay of the land.
Sessions & Saving — how sessions are stored, automatic saving, Save / Save As / Save a Copy, crash recovery, relinking missing audio, snapshots, templates, and session settings.
The Interface — the transport bar, the timeline and mixer views, the navigator/minimap, markers, loop, tempo, and meter.

Building tracks

Tracks & the Channel Strip — what a track is, how to add one, and a tour of the channel strip.
The Audio Processors — a deep, plain-language guide to every built-in processor: preamp & color, filters, gate, EQ, compressor (all five styles), de-esser, plug-in inserts, and sends.

Recording

Recording Audio — choosing inputs, arming, monitoring, count-in, the metronome, and capturing a take.
Recording Instruments — playing virtual instruments live and recording them as audio.
Takes & Comping — loop recording, stacked takes, take lanes, and building a perfect composite performance.

Editing & mixing

Editing Clips — selection, the cursor tools, snapping, trimming, fades, splitting, joining, ripple edit, and automation.
Mixing — soloing, panning, sends, automation modes, edit groups, and using the mixer.
Channel Strip Types — every kind of strip — track, mix bus, aux return, cue bus, VCA group, and master — and when to reach for each.

Output & reference

Audio Settings — devices, buffer size, latency, and recording delay.
Exporting & Sharing — bouncing your mix, stems, formats, and loudness normalization.
Keyboard Shortcuts — the full key-command reference.
Control Surfaces — mix and run AnalogDAW from external hardware (Mackie/MCU surfaces and generic MIDI controllers).

A few ideas that run through the whole app

It always sounds like a console. Every track, bus, and the master runs through analog-modeled preamp color, EQ, saturation, and compression. Even at "flat" settings there is gentle transformer warmth baked in.
Your work is always being saved. AnalogDAW autosaves continuously and keeps a crash-recovery copy, so you rarely have to think about losing work. See Sessions & Saving.
One layout, two views. A single session is shown either as a timeline (Edit) for arranging and editing, or as a mixing console (Mix). Switch any time with the EDIT / MIX toggle.
macOS and iOS are the same app. The same sessions open on a Mac, an iPad, and an iPhone. The interface adapts to the screen, but the features and sound are identical.

Tip: Throughout this guide, menu paths look like Menu ▸ Save, and keyboard shortcuts look like ⌘Z. On iPhone and iPad, the main menu is the ☰ button at the right end of the transport bar.