Fascination with the sweeping changes technology has had on music has remained unabated since Napster popularized the new options digital music presented. From the illicit distribution of MP3s through P2P networks to Apple's licit and hugely popular iTunes store, through the growing popularity of successive generations of MP3 players and jukeboxes, to the roiling of the music industry's attempts to adjust its business model to the new reality, the story of digital music has been extensively chronicled. Less reported, but just as significant, is how new technologies have changed how music itself is made.

Music production has traditionally been a wildly expensive undertaking. Professional musicians spend tends of thousands of dollars on studio time and engineers to create high-quality cuts. Production equipment such as consoles and tape decks were impressively expensive, and the sound quality that could be produced by amateurs working with less expensive alternatives was several grades below that achieved in a studio.

Today, with access to a digital audio workstation, and just a bit of competence, both hobbyists and professionals can produce music that sounds as good as that made in a professional studio. Amateurs can build home studios from components, record and edit music at their workstations, and distribute the results by burning discs and posting tunes online. Whatever the quality of the resulting music, the quality of the recordings are guaranteed to be better than those of garage bands a decade ago.

Tom Stephenson, manager of recording and mixing technology at Roland, which manufactures standalone digital audio workstations, says of music produced on DAWs, "The quality you can get is equal to or better than any alternative."

In the last ten years, digital audio workstations have moved from the periphery of music production to the center, with a growing number of studios oriented use them. What studios offer now is not a technological advantage so much as expertise and creative experience. Hobbyists and professionals are setting up home studios centered around the capabilities of their music workstations.

Stephenson says that among Roland's customers are music producers who produce songs on their standalone DAWs, such as Blake Morgan, who produced seven charted songs. "Digital audio workstations are effecting the economics of the music business like consumer behavior is, you're getting things like the closing of studios."

DAWs are computers optimized for digital audio software and audio and MIDI production. They come in two forms, PC or Mac-based computers and standalone components. In terms of cost, they fall well into the standard range for low-end workstations, from $1700 for some standalone DAWs to over $6,000 for fully configured workstations with prime audio components and peripherals.