In the 2020s, it seems that everything costs a monthly fee, and everything is connected to the cloud. For better or for worse, DJ software is no different, with the advantages of cloud storage, music streaming, and library syncing coming with a highly-divisive subscription price for more and more of our best DJ software options.

Whether you already make your own music or plan to start producing, music-creation DAW software is also taking a turn toward the cloud-based, monthly-priced future. While the concept of an online DAW that runs inside a web browser and stores files on offsite servers rather than your own computer goes back many years, until recently, the browser-based DAWs available were typically unwieldy and too limited to take seriously.

However, the latest developments to both Soundation and Soundtrap Studio prove that online music tools have come a long way. Both of them provide powerful enough performance and ample enough instruments, effects, and recording features for high-level music production, while making online remote collaboration easy.

At the same time, a discussion of modern music tools is hardly complete without mentioning the specter of artificial intelligence. AI for mixing and mastering music has become commonplace, but is it about to take over music creation altogether? The new Soundful service generates full tracks with AI in a single click and lets you monetize the results if you can.

Soundation, Soundtrap Studio, and Soundful all have free limited versions, as well as multiple tiers of paid subscriptions, and they all have names that sound way too much alike. I tested all three to discover where the state of online music creation is in 2023.

Soundation

What it is:
Browser-based DAW

Key Specs:
12 virtual instruments: 3 drum machine/beat samplers, 7 synthesizers, and 2 sampled instruments.
16 audio effects: dynamics, reverb, delay, EQ, filters, modulation, and distortion effects, as well as a pitch-correcting effect for auto-tuning vocals or other monophonic audio.
Drop your own samples straight into a project channel or into the Beatmaker sequencing drum machine.
Audio recording from devices’ built-in mics or from hardware audio interfaces.
Real-time remote collaboration with other Soundation users.
Tutorials and free example projects for learning music production.
Pricing Tiers (per-month prices are lower if billed annually):
Free: Instruments and effects, parameter automation, MIDI controller support, project and clip MIDI and audio export
Starter, $9.99/month: 10 projects; 2,000+ loops & samples; 10GB storage
Creator, $14.99/month: unlimited projects; 15,000+ loops & samples; 100GB storage
Pro, $49.99/month: unlimited projects; 20,000+ loops & samples; 1TB storage
Soundation is an online, browser-based DAW that provides many of the most common and essential features of a desktop software DAW but in a web app that doesn’t require any installation or updating. One key difference is that you can’t use it with third-party VST/AU instrument or effects plug-ins. However, a big advantage comes with its easy, real-time online collaboration with other Soundation users. You can share a collaboration link or a listen-only link to your music projects for others to work on or listen to.

The searchable Sound Library includes instrument presets, beats, MIDI melodies & chord progressions, and a selection of loops and samples that varies according to your subscription level. There are also genre-based sound packs representing a wide array of classic and current styles and sub-genres for inspiring your ideas.

Its included synthesizer instruments comprise a lot of different options for polyphonic and monophonic synths, virtual analog and FM synthesis, and purpose-built instruments like the Wub Machine for making dirty, fat, wobbly sounds particularly suited for bass music, or the Noiser for making white-noise risers, downlifters, and more. The synths all have preset sounds to choose from, and the sampled instruments have selections of sampled acoustic instruments, like pianos, organs, strings, brass, etc. Drum machines cover sampled kits and classic drum machines inspired by the vintage Roland TR series. You can also get Reason Studio’s awesome Europa synth, but it costs another $30/year on top of your subscription price.

The library’s browser shows you many recommended sample packs, labeled by genre, mood, BPM, etc. You can audition these sounds straight from the library and drag them into a project to launch them into a new track.

Helpful tools include tutorial videos on aspects of music productoin and free projects of well-known tracks that you can study to learn more about arrangement, mixing, etc. Some projects included Billie Eilish “Bad Guy” and Dua Lipa “Physical.” Other tutorials focus on how to make genres like trap, lo-fi, and others.

Soundation In Use

You can work within Soundation in a browser like Chrome very similarly to how you work with a desktop software DAW. It uses many key-command shortcuts that match the familiar shortcuts like Command-D for Duplicate, or Option-dragging a clip to copy and drag the clip somewhere on the timeline. Many other features work just like other DAWs, such as moving/extending the loop region of the timeline and MIDI note editing.

Soundation’s one-window interface is also flexible like a desktop DAW. It can expand to full screen; instrument/effect interfaces can pop out for editing parameters; and areas like the sound library and the selected track’s instrument/effect chain can collapse to save screen space.

While working on music, I was impressed by the speedy responsiveness of Soundation’s interface. I also found its variety and quality of sounds on offer from its sampled instruments, synthesizers, drum machines, samples, and effects to be a diverse and well-rounded palette for seeing musical visions to fruition. For anyone just starting out in music, this may seem like a sonic amusement park. However, it’s not at the point of rivaling what producers are used to if they have for example, Ableton Live Suite’s instruments, some high-end synth plug-ins, and a decent collection of, say, Kontakt sampled instruments.

To Soundation’s credit, the Beatmaker sequencing drum machine provides a powerful and very efficient tool for creating dope beats fast, which even Ableton Live doesn’t have unless you also have its Ableton Push hardware. Soundation’s Beatmaker doesn’t have as many sophisticated options for crafting beats as some DAWs, such as Logic Pro’s beat sequencer, but it is one of Soundation’s best and most immediately gratifying tools.

Beatmaker’s drum kits in the Beats section of the sound library also already sound well mixed together and have levels and pan positions set, so you don’t have to fuss with their mix too much if you don’t want to.

For playing Soundation’s instruments, there’s a virtual keyboard you can play with the mouse or the QWERTY keyboard, and can use MIDI keyboards and record audio from any available audio input. There are MIDI mappings that support more than two dozen popular MIDI controllers from Akai, Arturia, Novation, Native Instruments, Korg and more. I was able to choose my Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S49 MKII in the MIDI panel to use it as a controller. Unfortunately there was some latency to recording MIDI tracks, which is one thing you don’t get from a good desktop software DAW. In most cases, Soundation’s quantizing or some light MIDI note editing was enough to make up for any inaccuracies caused from the MIDI recording latency.