in this video I'm going to look at six of the best free daw software options for
music production on Windows 10 in 2020 if you're looking at getting into home
studio recording or maybe you just want to change up your music production
software a bit but you don't want to spend any money right now
then these free daws for Windows will help I'm Zane and this is simple green
tech on this channel I do weekly audio tech tips tutorials and reviews to help
you unleash your creativity now links for all of the digital audio
workstations that I mentioned are in the description along with the time codes
for each one now first up on the list of free daws for Windows is probably the
most complete free daw you can get and this one is cakewalk by Bandlab there's
good reason why this one is very popular it used to be a paid for premium digital
audio workstation before it became a free DAW it was known as sonar platinum
it doesn't have any limitations you can have unlimited audio MIDI instruments
and auxilary tracks in all of your projects 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 you also get some
free virtual instruments with cakewalk a bass guitar instrument a drum kit a
piano and a string instrument and 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 assistant 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 next on the list of best free daws for Windows is
tracktion t7 this is another program that was once a paid for digital audio
workstation and tracktion released it for free in late 2018 you can have unlimited
tracks including MIDI and audio you don't get
as many free plugins with tracktion t7 but the ones that it does come with are
fairly decent you will want to download third party plugins
especially if you'll be using virtual instruments and there are a ton of free
plugins out there so that's not really a huge deal breaker with this free DAW one
of the things that you may either love or hate is the user interface and layout
of tracktion t7 everything is laid out on the one screen there isn't a separate
screen for the mixer or piano roll or anything like that you can access it all
from the main page and it didn't take long for me to catch on to this layout
and once I did catch on to it I really liked the workflow I find that the
interface doesn't get in the way of making music
now this next daw on the list isn't technically free but you can download
the demo and use it for as long as you like and the demo is the full unlocked
version of the software this is Reaper and like I said the
Reaper demo is 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 which doesn't affect your music at all if you do decide to
download it and you really 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 this commercially you must
purchase a commercial license Reaper has 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 third-party plug-ins in Reaper as well another cool
thing is that you can even run it on a portable USB Drive if you want to
personally I think Reaper is a great alternative to Pro Tools if you're
enjoying this so far and getting some value out of it
please give it a thumbs up it really helps the channel out and I appreciate
it so much now on to the fourth daw on the list and
this one is LMMS. lmms is a lot like FL Studio it's very easy to start making
music in lmms as long as you don't plan on recording instruments too much and
you just want to use 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 and I've heard that as lmms continues to
grow and update they may be adding audio recording in the very near future I'm
not going to promise that that's just what I've heard lmms does come with some
instruments and effects plugins but you'll want to add third-party plugins
to give you more variety you can 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 do have one or you have the other option of drawing all
your MIDI in on the piano roll the next free digital audio workstation on the
list 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 one of the biggest highlights is the free ritmix drum
plugin that you get with soundbridge and this is probably the best free drum
machine plug-in out there you get the MPC style pads that you can load your
sounds into and edit however you like plus you can also use it like a
sequencer so if you're looking for that MPC style plug-in to make your beats or
program drums then sound bridge and the Ritmix is a must download for you the
final free daw for Windows on the list is magix music maker free and personally I
think this one is great for newcomers to audio production
as the soundpool loops that are included are a great way to start
learning how to arrange and edit music in a digital audio workstation MAGIX
music maker free comes with four soundpools & three instruments soundpools
are like loop packs and each one has a particular style and sound so all of the
loops in that soundpool will work together easily plus you can mix and
match loops from other soundpools 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 great 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 add third-party
plugins you'll have to upgrade your version for that upgrading your version
also opens up many more sounds instruments and features so now I have a
few honorable mentions to add to this list if you're ever thinking of working
in a pro studio one day you may want to download Pro Tools first as a lot of pro
studios still operate on Pro Tools and Pro Tools first is the free version of
that program another honorable mention is Ableton Live Lite Ableton Live is a
great daw for solo songwriters or even bands the lite version is basically the
full software but it has a track limit of 8 tracks you can still do a lot with
it also it's only free if you get it bundled with hardware or software but
it's actually bundled with quite a bit of gear so chances are you may have this
DAW already and the final honorable mention is presonus Studio One prime
studio one is becoming very popular so you might want to try the free version
and see if it fits your workflow and style that way if you ever encounter it
in another studio you'll at least know how to use Studio One the ideal music
production software for me is one where the interface doesn't interfere with
your music production you can just record your
music and get down to business without having to mess with settings or anything
like that click up here for my audio recording software playlist or click
down here to see what YouTube thinks you'll be interested in next if you
liked this video please give it a thumbs up also subscribe to the channel if
you'd like to see more videos from me thank you so much for watching
for simple green tech I'm Zane and we'll talk soon