Garageband by Apple is an extremely popular DAW, especially among beginners. Extremely suitable for those in the starting stages of music, particularly younger ones or those who merely want to lay down some tracks and make some cool tunes. However, I have some friends who tour nation-wide that still use Garageband just because of its simplicity and ease of use for recording. We’d go with this over Fruity Loops in terms of starting from scratch as your first DAW if you’re on a Mac.
What’s also special about this software is its got the very user-friendly interface that helps you visualize what you’re making — keyboard, synths, and percussion. It offers some pretty solid presets for vocal and guitar recording as well, although nothing too out of the ordinary. It does have a few good amps and effects for the guitar or mic. As a cool little additive, if you’re looking to learn how to play piano, it’s got a nice built-in lesson function for both piano as well as guitar. It maps out the chords and explains what they are to help you get a better understanding of music theory. It supports your standard USB keyboard and gives you some loops built-in to mess around with (you can buy more through their app store), and there’s something called “Smart Controls” which is basically an interactive control of plug-ins — knobs, buttons, sliders, etc with images to really visualize what you’re doing behind the scenes.
Just an overall solid digital audio workstation for beginners, especially because it’s free. The way they monetize off of the software is basically purchases for more plug-ins, effects, and others; however, you can get away with what it comes with. A nice little touch is it’s compatibility with iPads if that’s what you’re looking for, a trend we’ve seen increase lately.