What is this and why is it important?

A project navigator is a small window which shows a miniature view of all the tracks in a project and allows you to move to specific sections of a project.  This function is mainly useful in large projects where tracks would be difficult to work with if they were made small enough to fit into the track window.

Markers can be set on timeline to facilitate jumping, looping, changing pitch or tempo and zoom settings.

Zooming allows you to change the horizontal and/or vertical size of the track/timeline work area.  All products have this feature.  In addition some products provide presets that you can set for particular zoom levels that you find useful.  Event scaling is the capability to change the size of the audio waveform or MIDI event within a clip.

Although implemented differently, all products have the capability of displaying and changing a summary of the  data related to an audio clip or MIDI event.

Track Structure refers to a separate windows which allows you to list and manage the tracks in a project.  Some products also allow you to hide tracks so they will only be visible in the Track Structure window.

An internal File Explorer is a tree-structure directory listing similar to Windows explorer.  You can usually also audition files and drag and drop them into a project.

A Variable Tempo function allows you to change the tempo at any point on the timeline.  Most products have a separate view or track which allows you to create various curves similar to automation curves.  Variables tempos are only possible for MIDI tracks and  tracks for which real-time time stretching has been enabled, not regular audio tracks.

A large transport bar has the usual transport controls plus recording functions.  It is mainly useful when recording or when working in a window where the regular transport bar is not visible or readily accessible.

Loop allow you to continuously repeat recording or playback between two points on the timeline.

Metronomes can be set to provide beat clicks during recording and/or playback.  MIDI metronomes allow you to send MIDI events to an external synthesizer to generate the click.  The sophistication of the metronomes varies considerably among the products as to the ability to customize sounds and volumes.

Keyboard shortcuts allow you to substitute keystrokes for menu commands.  They are useful for improving efficiency in doing repetitive tasks.

People usually find they like projects displayed using a particular set and positions of windows.  All products will save and recall the current window layout.  In additional some products will all you to define layouts that you like.

Being able to identify similar tracks by color is useful for navigating.  Other color options are mainly a matter of taste.

Template refer to stored sets of tracks.  So, for example, if your projects normally consist of drums, two guitars, bass, piano and vocals, you can store those track settings and then recall them the next time you create a project.  Some products also come with predefined templates representing the most popular ensembles.

As you can see from the rating explanations, the different music production software products implement meters very differently.  All of them have bus meters and most have track audio meters.

Depending on what you are doing, you may want to look at your volume levels pre-fader, post fader or switch back and forth.

Peak is the highest amplitude encountered on a track whereas RMS (Root Mean Square) displays average volume levels.

It is also useful to be able to change the decibel scale of a meter since the signal level of tracks can vary widely.

For tracks that are grouped or linked changing the parameters on one track with automatically change the parameters on any linked tracks.  This is most commonly used to change the volume faders of multiple tracks at one time.

What is this and why is it important?

Complex projects typically use a large number of tracks.  Although you can theoretically create an unlimited number of tracks in most DAW's, using large numbers of tracks may result in instability.

For easier manipulation all products provide capabilities for grouping MIDI events and dissecting audio files into smaller segments.  Cubase provides for grouping of audio events.  Pro Tools has multiple levels of Region Groups.

While specific editing commands vary considerably in how they are implemented, all products provide basic cut, copy, paste, join, trim, and delete commands.

All products provide track muting.  The ability to mute a single clip in a track or a portion of the clip varies depending on the product.

All products provide the capability of automatically saving your project at regular intervals.

All products provide multiple undo levels for editing changes.

Automation curves allow you to change a particular parameter at any point in the timeline.  The most common use is volume automation, but most other parameters such as pan and FX Sends can also be automated.  Changes to most FX parameters can also be automated, but it depends on the particular FX.

There are normally two ways to create automation curves, drawing and recording.  With automation recording you play the project, enable automation recording, and vary the parameter (for example the volume slider).  Your movements will be recorded on the automation curve.

In addition to track automation most products provide for some automation of each individual clip.  Usually this is limited to volume, pan and fades.

Nudge is a feature that allows you to move a clip forward or backward in defined increments using keyboard keys, usually the keypad.  Sometimes, especially when trying to align audio, this method can be more useful than dragging.

When Snapping is enabled most editing and timeline functions (for example cut, paste, move) will automatically be aligned to the nearest snap position.  This is useful for aligning clips

Track presets/templates allow you to store all of a track's settings, including inserts and insert presets.  This feature can be useful for defining templates for a specific type of track--vocals, drums, etc.

What is this and why is it important?

Multitrack recording allows you to record audio or MIDI from different inputs to multiple tracks simultaneously.

In MIDI step recording the sequencer accepts a note from a MIDI input, records it with a specified length, and then advances a specified interval and waits for the next note to be input.  This function is useful, for example, when you want to input MIDI notes for a keyboard, but do not want to record at a real-time tempo.

It is fairly common to define a looped segment on the timeline, record the material for that segment several times, and then select the best take.  All products support this feature.

If you are recording over an existing segment of audio or MIDI, most products allow to  either replace the segment with the recorded material or layer the new material on top of the old.

Punch In/Out is a function which allows you to start playback prior to the segment that is being recorded and continue playback after the recording segment ends. 

Input Monitoring is the capability of listening to the recording input using your audio interface.  This function is mainly useful for hearing track FX during recording (guitar amp simulation, for example).

What is this and why is it important?

Being able to access multiple projects is useful in editing, for example, if you want to copy a portion of one project to another.

Device control mapping is the ability to assign external inputs (usually MIDI) to control the settings of components, for example, assigning a knob on a keyboard to vary the wet/dry mix of a reverb plug-in.

Control surfaces are most commonly used to provide a hardware mixing console that controls your music production software. 

Operating System support is obviously a very basic factor in choosing one of these products.  All products are specific about which versions of an operating system they will support, so you should check the manufacturer's documentation.

Networked processing allows a project to be spread over multiple computers thus increasing the processing power available.  This feature can be an important consideration for large projects.

All products have some form of copy protection.  Some people have the opinion that dongles (devices which must be inserted into a USB port on your computer) are excessively cumbersome.