if you're looking for a free DAW or digital audio workstation you've come to
the right place in this video I'm going to be looking at 10 of the best free DAWs
available in late 2019 plus I have three bonus DAWs that will mention near
the end of this video you're gonna have to stick around to see why they're
considered bonuses so altogether that's 13 free DAWs mentioned in this video and
this free music making software can really help with your home studio music
production welcome to simple green tech I'm Radio
zane and on this channel i do audio tech tips tutorials and reviews to help you
unleash your creativity now this video is full of free DAW software
as I'm looking at ten of the best free DAWs available in late 2019 plus I have
three bonuses that I'm going to be mentioning near the end of the video so
be sure to stick around for those if you're a beginner looking for free audio
production software or maybe you've been using digital audio workstations for a
while you should be able to find a free DAW from this video that will fit your
style and your needs now all of the free DAWs mentioned in this video are linked
in the description below so you can head down there and easily check them all out
whenever you like now let's jump in to the music making software list but
before I start I just want to say that this list is in no specific order so
it's not worse to best or best to worst it's just a list and I had to put it in
some order first up we have cakewalk by bandlab this one is very popular and
for good reason it actually used to be a paid for premium digital audio
workstation but before it became a free DAW it was known as sonar platinum it
doesn't have any limitations you can have unlimited audio MIDI instrument and
auxilary tracks and all of your projects and you also get some decent effects
plugins included with cakewalk along with an interesting channel strip that
has some cool tape emulation and saturation effects home studio guitar
players may like the included guitar amp simulator called th3 and you also get
some free virtual instruments with cakewalk a bass guitar intstrument
a drumkit a piano and a string instrument they all have some decent
presets that cover a variety of styles of music cakewalk by bandlab gives you
everything you need to start making beats and doing music production inside
the box you are required to download the bandlab software in order to install
cakewalk but that's a very small price to pay for the audio production software
that you're getting for free at the time of recording this video it's only
available on Windows 7 and up there's no Mac or Linux version
available the next free daw that we'll look at is tracktion t7 and this is
another one that used to be a paid for premium digital audio workstation
tracktion made it a free daw for everyone in late 2018 and this is another free
audio production program that doesn't have any limitations you can have
unlimited tracks including MIDI and audio and you don't get as many free
plugins with tracktion t7 but the ones that it does come with are really decent
you will want to download some third-party plugins especially if you're
going to be using virtual instruments there are a ton of free plugins out
there so that's not a huge deal breaker with this free daw now one of the things
that you may either love or hate is the interface and layout of tracktion t7
everything is laid out on one screen there isn't a separate screen for the
mixer or the piano roll or anything like that you can access it all right from
the main screen and it didn't take long for me to catch on to this layout and I
actually really like the workflow I find that the tracktion t7 interface
doesn't get in the way of making music tracktion t7 is available for Windows Mac
and Linux next up is music production software that was recommended to me
quite a few times in my last free daw video
it's lmms this is a lot like FL studio it's very easy to start making music in
lmms as long as you plan on working inside the box
meaning you don't plan on recording instruments too much you're just going
to be using virtual instruments for your music production
as lmms does not allow you to record audio into it you can record audio in
another program and bring it into lmms so you're not completely limited to
virtual instruments this is an open-source digital audio workstation
that is completely driven by its community I'm sure as lmms continues to
grow it's going to be adding more and more features including audio recording
one day now I'm not promising that I just assume they're going to be adding
it one day now lmms does come with some instruments
and effects plugins but you will want to add some third-party plugins to give you
more variety you can actually use your computer keyboard to control instruments
if you don't have a MIDI keyboard yet and of course you can use a MIDI
controller if you have one plus you can edit all of your MIDI in the piano roll
it's very easy to do this digital audio workstation is available for Windows Mac
and Linux continuing on in the best free daw list we have a classic this one is
audacity this free daw has been around for a long time and has always been free
they continue to update it and add new features as well as get rid of any bugs
that may exist so just because it's free doesn't mean that it's ignored audacity
has been a great choice for streamers gamers podcasters and other content
creators as it's an extremely solid piece of audio recording software it
will allow you to record multi tracks so you can record something and then use
that as a backing track and record another instrument or another part to a
new track but if you do plan on using virtual instruments at all you will need
to look elsewhere as audacity does not have MIDI capabilities as of right now
but if you want a no-nonsense digital audio workstation and just want to
record audio in or use loops you may want to give audacity a try it's
available for Windows Mac and Linux the next free digital audio workstation on
the list is presonus studio one prime this is the free version of the very
popular daw Studio One and here's what you'll get with the free
presonus Studio one prime you get unlimited tracks nine basic effects
plugins presence XT synth plugin a guitar amp simulator plus you get almost
one gigabyte of loops and samples that will get you started creating music
right away the interface and workflow are decent and once you figure it out
you'll realize that you can make music pretty quickly with using Studio One
prime one of the biggest limitations of presonus studio 1 prime is that you
can't add third-party effects or instruments you'll have to either
upgrade to the artist version and get the VST add-on or go with the full
professional version and at the time of recording this presonus Studio 1 prime is
available for Windows and Mac alright we're now at 6 out of 10 on the best free daw
plus I still have those three bonus daws that I'll be mentioning near the end of
the video and I just want to say if you're enjoying this video please give
it a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe if you'd like to see more videos like
this one now on to number 6 it's Pro Tools first
Pro Tools has been known as the industry standard for music making software that
is starting to change now but you're still going to find it in
pretty much every Pro Studio and Pro Tools first is the free version of Pro
Tools so with Pro Tools first you get the same user interface and workflow
that the pros use and if you ever plan on working in a pro studio one day
learning on this will really help you as you'll likely encounter it almost
everywhere there are some limitations in Pro Tools first you can only have 16
audio tracks in a project which actually is quite a bit anyway and you can only
record a maximum of four inputs at any one time
you can save unlimited projects locally on your computer
and you can have three projects saved in the cloud at any time this is kind of
cool if you use multiple computers like you have a laptop on the go and a
desktop at home as your main as this will allow you to edit on the go pro
tools first does come with some great plugins and the expand to instrument
that you get with it is for starting out but if you do want to
add any third-party plugins you're going to have to purchase them directly from
the avid plug-in store you can't add your own third-party plugins even if you
purchase them from somewhere else however if you purchase an M-audio
product or a Focusrite product and I think there's some other hardware if you
purchase from you get a special edition that will include some extra plugins
with it now I know the m-audio Edition includes several effects plugins and
several instrument plugins plus you get the 11 guitar amp simulator which is
pretty nice Pro Tools first can be downloaded for Windows and Mac moving on
in the list of the best free DAWs we have a Mac only daw this is GarageBand
this comes with everything you need to start creating music either in the box
or recording real instruments into your Mac you get a large library of loops
instruments and effects with presets covering many different styles of music
you can work in iCloud so your projects will be saved across multiple computers
and you can even start a song on the free iPhone or iPad app then import it
into your computer to take your music production even further if you are on a
Mac and you're just getting started into home studio music production this one
should be a no-brainer for you to download the next free daw on the list is
another one that was recommended to me numerous times in my last video this one
is soundbridge this free digital audio workstation focuses on simplicity they
wanted to create a DAW that is full-featured and easy to use
the channel strip has many presets and you can also add third-party plugins for
more variety the free rit mix drum machine plugin is incredible and
probably the best free drum machine plug-in out there
you get the MPC style pads that you can load all of your sounds into and edit
however you like plus you can also use it like a sequencer if you're looking
for that MPC style plug-in to make your beats or program drums with then soundbridge
and the Rit mix is a must download for you it's available on both
windows and Mac next we'll look at one of the
first free daws that I personally used its magix music maker free
this one's been around for quite a while and provides you with an easy-to-use
interface that will have you making music quickly even if you don't have a
musical background if you're new to making music magix music maker free
might be the choice for you it comes with 4 soundpools and 3 instruments
soundpools are like loop packs and each one has a particular style and sound so
all the loops in that sound pool will work together easily plus you can mix
and match loops from the sound pools I find that MAGIX Music Maker is a
pretty easy program to learn and you get basic effects plugins plus a guitar amp
simulator and another plus is the instruments that magix music maker free
comes with they actually sound pretty decent magix music maker free can be a
great way to start learning to make music and recording MIDI or audio on
your computer it does have some track limitations and it doesn't allow you to
use third-party plugins you'll have to upgrade your version for that and if you
do upgrade your version you also open up many more sound pools and instruments
and other features to magix music maker free is only available for Windows
now onto the final daw on the 10 of the best free daw list plus remember and I
still have those three bonus DAWs that we'll be mentioning later so stick
around for that but right now we have Bandlab this is a
very interesting option as it's a 100% free online daw there are no additional
options to unlock or pay for everything is free with this and you get to work in
the cloud with unlimited projects unlimited storage and unlimited
downloads of sounds and tracks you can choose to work with hundreds of virtual
instruments and thousands of loops or you can connect your audio interface and
record your voice or instruments straight into the cloud you can also
bring in your own pre-recorded audio if you want to this is a decent free daw
from bandlab yes the very same bandlab that's giving
you cakewalk they're really giving musicians some great tools to work with
you can use bandlabs online daw on Windows Mac iOS Android and chromebooks
this might actually be the only daw that works with Chromebooks alright we're now
onto the three bonus DAWs and the first one is the very popular reaper it's
technically not free and that's why it's a bonus option you can download the demo
of Reaper and use it for free as long as you like and there's no limitations in
the demo it's actually the full software the only thing is that there's a
five-second delay before you can start a project or go into a project when you
first load Reaper up but if you do decide to download it and you enjoy
using Reaper please show them some support by purchasing a license it's
only like $60 and it will help them to continue making this great software also
if you plan on using Reaper commercially you must purchase a commercial license
Reaper is a full-featured daw with no limitations the only limitations are
what your audio interface can handle and what your computer can handle so
unlimited audio and MIDI tracks with an unlimited number of tracks recorded at
the same time Reaper comes with a large collection of decent effects plugins
plus you can add all of your own third-party plug-ins in Reaper as well
another cool thing about Reaper is you can even run it from a portable USB
Drive if you want personally I think Reaper is a great
alternative to Pro Tools and as of right now you can get Reaper for Windows or
Mac plus there are some experimental builds for Linux the next bonus DAW is
Ardour this one is free if you download the source code and compile it
yourself which can be a huge pain it also comes free with some Linux
distributions so technically it is a free DAW however if you want to use
Ardour without having to compile it yourself
you can pay as little as one dollar to get it which is extremely reasonable
Ardour has no limitations unlimited tracks busses sends inserts or whatever
it also has a pretty advanced routing system if that's something you're in
need of it does come with a handful of plugins but you can bring in your
third-party plugins too the interface is similar to the Pro
Tools style but it does have its own ardour twist if you're looking for that
familiar layout editing and mixing style then you might want to give Ardour a
try our door is available on Windows Mac and Linux
the final free daw on the list is Ableton Live Lite this is a free daw that comes
with pretty much every piece of audio hardware you can buy so you do have to
purchase something to get it but chances are if you purchase an audio interface
or MIDI controller or even some microphones you're going to get Ableton
Live Lite it comes with the same workflows instruments and effects as the
standard version of live however you can only have up to 8 audio and MIDI tracks
this is still manageable for creating music you can use Ableton Live lite
like a traditional DAW and record and edit on a linear timeline or you can
start to build songs using the session view the instruments and effects that it
comes with are great but you can also add your third-party plug-ins to Ableton
Live lite too if you've been interested in using Live but you don't want to
spend the money right away to buy it give Ableton Live Lite a try and start
to get used to this software then when you're ready to buy it you're going to
be a pro on it Ableton Live Lite is available for both Windows and Mac click
up here to see my audio recording software playlist or click down here to
see what YouTube recommends you to watch next thank you so much for watching if
you like this video please give it a thumbs up also subscribe to the channel
if you'd like to see more videos from me for simple green tech I'm Radio zane and
we'll talk soon