The Best Free Music Software

[zircon]

Are you a Mac, PC, or Linux user? Do you have an internet connection? If you answered "yes" to these two questions then you can get some GREAT free music tools that can be used for remixing or anything else you want. I've written up a guide to such tools including my personal favorites and others suggested to me by fellow remixers and musicians from various forums.

http://soundtempest.net/the-best-free-music-software/

[Kanthos]

You seriously haven't posted that link here yet? I was sure you had. I give it out at least once a week on one of the keyboard forums I frequent.

[Kizyr]

Bookmarked.

I suppose zirc hasn't posted it here yet; it's the first I've seen the link. Thanks! KF

[analoq]

Some pedantry on the Mac side of things...

There are no Mac versions of:
- Kjaerhus classics
- Synth1
- GSnap
- Continuous Velocity Piano

GarageBand is not free. Yeah, it comes free when you buy a new Mac but you can't just go and download it. If you want upgrades you have to buy iLife which is $80.

Cacophony is not free. You're supposed to pay for it, at least. It's a $25 shareware product.

[zircon]

Whoops, good catch on those four plugins. Not sure why I had them listed as Mac-compatible (though if you have an AU->VST adapter, or are using Cubase, you should be OK, right?)

I think it's fair to say that GarageBand is effectively a free program. It has been coming with every new Mac for what, four years now? I think that MOST people reading the guide that are on a Mac would probably have one that was shipped within the last four years. But, I'll put in an addendum anyway just clarifying that. Likewise with Cacophony's shareware status.

[analoq]

You can use Cubase or a wrapper but the VST still has to be compiled for Mac. DLLs are Windows-specific files, OSX doesn't know what to do with them (it uses .vst)
All the plug-ins I mentioned were Windows VSTs (DLLs)

[zircon]

Ah, noted..