Just like when building a house or painting a portrait, you need tools to create a song! Our brains can only do so much until we hit a wall. There is absolutely no shame in “phoning a friend” or utilizing resources to knock those blocks down! These are the top four songwriting tools that have saved us during our creative process this year:
LyricStudio
LyricStudio is a lyric writing assistant, where songwriters get inspiration and get over writer’s block. As the world’s best lyric inspiration engine, it provides infinite lyric suggestions tailored to your unique style. It’s like a co-writer, or having someone else in the studio to trade bars with. LyricStudio also offers an advanced thesaurus and rhyming dictionary, and allows you to collaborate with other writers.
Splice
As the industry’s highest quality, royalty-free sample library, Splice allows you to access millions of sounds created by professional music artists, producers, and sound engineers. You might be asking, “How can splice help me as a songwriter?” Sometimes, all it takes is one beat or one loop to inspire your creative juices to flow.
Digital Audio Workstation
Wondering where you put those Splice samples in? Introducing the DAW! “DAW” stands for “digital audio workstation,” the software you use to record, produce, and edit your audio.
At a primal level, there are not many significant differences between the different brands of DAWs, as you can make music on all of them. Although some offer different features, you truly won’t know which is the best for you until you test it out.
Band Lab, Garage Band, Audacity, Pro Tools First, and Ableton Live Lite are great DAWs to use if you are just getting a feel of what it’s like to produce music. If you want to invest more into a DAW, purchasing Logic Pro X, Ableton, or Pro Tools is your best bet.
Voice Recording App
Imagine you’re freestyling a melody or hook, but you were so deep in the zone that you can’t remember the exact heat you spit out. Having a voice recording app ready-to-go before you start writing will help keep track of all your real-time ideas. If you own a smartphone, you can use the free, built-in voice recording app.
What songwriting tools are your favorite? Let us know in the comments.
