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 and drag it onto the timeline.
• Arrange clips across multiple tracks — move, split, duplicate, trim, colour, and delete them.
• 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.
• Shape your sound with per-track tone, filter, compression, reverb, and delay, plus automation that changes settings over time.
• 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.

This guide targets Silverdaw version 1.0.0.