The “best” audio production or mastering software nowadays is mostly down to personal preference, and selecting the right setup that matches your ideal workflow. All of the major DAWs have (mostly!) identical features in 2021, just laid out in a slightly different way.
There’s a lot of misinformation on the web about what is better and what is worse, but in reality a great producer or engineer can get the same result from any major DAW. Here we’ll break down what is actually useful to consider and what to look out for when selecting a DAW for mixing and mastering, with a hope to guide you on your way to make your choice with our top picks in mind, rather than incorrectly recommend an option that may not be the best for YOU.

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!
The Best DAWs for Mastering
What you need from audio mastering software.
For mastering specifically, there isn’t really a need for a lot of fancy editing and adjustment tools, so you’ll want to keep things as simple as possible whilst also gaining the most insight as possible. Ideally, you want to consider a DAW that gives you:
- A good depth of information about the loudness (LU or LUFS), spectral analysis, stereo field etc. though this can be achieved with plugins.
- Great exporting options – a range of possible export tools for various outlets (streaming, digital, CD DDP, etc.)
- Metadata management – the ability to encode details about the artist, producer, songwriter etc.
- (optional) Simple to use built-in mastering tools such as;
- Fades
- Multi-track album mastering (projects)
- Reference track and audition options (A/B, loudness matching)
- Clip processing (i.e. automation of plugins)
We’d therefore consider the following DAWs with their inherent pros and cons