Introduction

Welcome to the Silverdaw user guide.

Silverdaw is an open-source Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) for Windows, built for remixing, mashups, and sample-driven music making. It lets you build new tracks out of audio you already have: import your songs, loops, vocals, and samples, drag them onto a timeline, and arrange, trim, re-pitch, and tempo-match them into a finished mix.

This guide is written for people who want to use Silverdaw. You do not need to be a professional producer, DJ, or audio engineer — if you can drag a file and click a button, you can make a mix.

Who Silverdaw is for

Silverdaw is a studio creation tool for bedroom DJs, producers, and mixers — anyone who wants to combine and reshape existing audio into mixes and mashups. It is designed for building tracks at your own pace, not for performing live.

The ideas behind it

A few principles shape how Silverdaw works, and knowing them makes everything else easier to follow:

• Arranging audio should be simple. Common tasks are a drag, a double-click, or a single menu item away.
• Remix and mashup first. Silverdaw automatically detects the tempo and key of your audio and can tempo-match and pitch-shift clips so they line up musically.
• Non-destructive. Tempo, pitch, trimming, and effects are stored as settings on a clip. Your original files are never changed, and every edit can be undone.
• It just plays. Drop a clip in and it is ready to play. Waveforms and analysis happen in the background without holding you up.

What you can do

• Import audio into a per-project Library, find it with Filter library, and drag it onto the timeline.
• Copy stems and samples from another saved project with File ▸ Import from Project….
• Arrange clips across multiple tracks — move, split, duplicate, trim, colour, and delete them.
• Select a section of the timeline to play once or loop while you refine it.
• Add a tempo-aligned Beat Repeat region for a quick rhythmic repeat.
• Split a song into stems (vocals, drums, bass, and other) to remix the parts.
• Chop clips into loops and slices, and save reusable clips and samples.
• Use supported MIDI DJ controllers to navigate and control your project.
• Record and edit vinyl-style scratch patterns in the Scratch Editor.
• Shape your sound with per-track tone, filter, compression, punch, saturation, bit crushing, reverb, and delay, plus several visible automation lanes that change settings over time.
• Use shared reverb, delay, and a glue compressor, with an optional safety limiter for the final output.
• Export the whole project to a single audio file.

How to use this guide

If you have already installed Silverdaw and want to dive straight in, head to the Quick Start and build your first remix in a few minutes. Otherwise, start with Installation, then take the tour of the Silverdaw window.

If terms like sample rate, bit depth, or WAV are new to you, Digital Audio Basics explains them in plain language. You do not need it to make a mix.

This guide targets Silverdaw version 1.4.x.