there's no need to spend big bucks on great music making software if you're on windows 10. There are
several free options out there that don't suck and they deliver on features and on sound so in
this video i'm going to look at five of the best free music making programs available to windows 10
right now plus near the end i have a couple of bonus options and some advice on selecting the
right program for you this video is sponsored by DistroKid so if you create music you're going
to want to release your music and DistroKid will help you to easily get your music onto
itunes, Tidal, Spotify all of the major online music stores and they give you 100 of the royalties more
on that in a bit i'm zane welcome to audio tech tv where it's my goal to help you conquer the tech so
you can unleash your creative beast i've included links down in the description to all of the free
music making software mentioned in this video so first up on the list is tracktion waveform free
this is an incredible free program that's completely unlimited so they don't limit the
number of tracks that you can have or anything like that it's actually the exact same core
program as the pro version it just doesn't include some of the instruments and some of
the more advanced features but not having any of those doesn't limit your music making capabilities
in this software tracktion waveform free allows you to have unlimited tracks use midi record audio
edit your audio and it's very easy to use i really like how they put everything on the single screen
so you don't have to hop around between views to access anything it's all laid out for you on that
single screen making your music making workflow extremely quick you can also bring in third-party
vst plugins and if you don't know what those are they can be instruments or effects that other
developers have created so you aren't limited to using what comes stock with traction waveform free
even though the effects and the instruments are decent you're still going to want some variety
and you can have that here i'll link to a video down in the description with 50 free vst plugins
and you can see what's available to you for free there's some great stuff out there now traction
waveform free is a great starting point and it can be the one that you stick with as it has some
great pro features in it as well so there's no need to move on to another daw or daw and you may
hear me use those terms and what that stands for is digital audio workstation and that's typically
what the music making software is referred to as so this first option tracktion waveform free
should really be something that you give a try and see if it works for you and your workflow next up
is another free daw that isn't limited this is soundbridge so you can have unlimited tracks and
also add your third-party vst plugins and like i said there's tons of great ones out there for both
instruments and effects and soundbridge does include some decent effects and probably the best
free drum machine plugin out there seriously this thing can be great for so many different
styles of music not just electronic styles it also includes several drum kits with it so you
can start making beats right away the user interface of soundbridge makes it very easy
to start creating music from easy access to the piano roll mixer and recording features
this one is also available in 32-bit and 64-bit options so if you're looking for a 32-bit daw
soundbridge might be the choice for you as there aren't too many 32-bit options out there right now
if you start creating music and you're feeling good about it you're going to want to release
your music so why not get it in the same places where your favorite bands have their music like
Spotify, iTunes, Tidal, Amazon all of the major online music stores DistroKid makes this process
super easy and they give you 100 of the royalties plus they give you some unique features like
claiming your verified artist badge on spotify and you can also get your official artist channel
on youtube and this is all included for free with your annual membership which is just twenty
dollars per year and if you use the link down in the description you're going to save seven percent
on that so be sure to click on that and save yourself some money so you can start releasing
your music and make money and another big bonus of DistroKid is once you become a member you're going
to find that you're going to want to create more music so you can release more music as DistroKid
allows you to release unlimited tracks per year which is very nice so for twenty dollars you can
release as much music as you like and for free you can get all of these great programs to create
the music now let's look at some more of these great free doll programs the next one on the list
is cakewalk by banlab this is another unlimited digital audio workstation that is packed full
of pro features and that's because this used to be a premium paid for program but bandlab
purchased it from the gibson guitar company and decided to make it available to musicians for
free and they continue to upgrade it and even add more features too so you can have as many tracks
as you like both midi and audio and it also comes with a lot of useful effects and even some decent
instruments as well the included guitar amp sim is very nice and it competes with some of the
high priced options that are out there so if you're a guitar player this one will give you
a great starting point along with a drum kit to program some drums and all of the effects that
you might want the interface can be a little clunky so the workflow isn't as smooth as
some of the other options but there are a lot of customization options that are built into cakewalk
so you can make it look the way that you want and i've created several songs in this software
and continued to use it and i haven't felt like i was limited in any way all right moving along but
hey if you're enjoying this video so far please give it a thumbs up it really helps my channel
out and i appreciate it so much now the next free music making program on the list is LMMS
if you've heard of the popular software called fl studio this one is a lot like that in terms of the
workflow it's very easy to start making music in lmms if you're using virtual instruments but a big
drawback is that lmms does not allow you to record audio into it so it may not be ideal if you plan
on recording real world instruments or vocals however you can record audio in another program
and then bring it into it so you're not completely limited to virtual instruments LMMS does come with
some virtual instruments and effects plugins but you're going to want to add some third-party ones
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 the other option is to create and edit all of your midi in the piano roll by clicking with your
mouse which is a very popular way to do things in this program as you can do that very quickly
now some of the pros of lmms are it's easy to sequence music similar to fl studio's workflow
and it allows you to use third-party plugins the big con is the lack of audio recording
within the program itself now the next piece of free music making software is akai mpc beats
this one gives you a workflow that's very similar to working on a hardware mpc but with the added
benefit that this is in the software world so editing can be a little easier if you have a midi
controller with pads on it this can be a great daw for you as it integrates with pads very nicely
and you can see on the screen you have your pads here but you can also create beats with your
mouse just by drawing them into the piano roll or use your midi keyboard to play the notes in
mpc beats can be very easy to use and if you want to record audio you can do that too but you only
get two audio tracks per project and speaking of tracks you can only have eight instrument tracks
in a project so a total of 10 tracks which is quite a few for beat creation once you get used
to the workflow it's very quick to start making music and mpc beats and it includes some great
kits and synths but you can also bring in your own third party vst instruments too
plus mpc beats includes over 80 quality effects plugins but just like instruments you can also
bring in your own vst effects it's still fairly new and continues to get better with each update
and if you're a beat creator this one should be on your list of free daws to check out alright so now
let's look at those two bonus options and i'll tell you why each one is a bonus and the first
one is reaper this one is not free and that's why it's a bonus but like the winrar program that you
likely have on your computer you can continue to use the demo of reaper completely unlocked
long after the trial period ends and i think the trial period is like two months so that's a huge
length of time to try it but after the trial there's a screen that pops up for five seconds
each time you start the program and it just reminds you that the trial is over and you should
purchase a license and if you do end up sticking with this program definitely support the developer
so they can continue to upgrade the program to make it better for you now with reaper you get
a very powerful digital audio workstation that really competes with the big names so you have
all of the features that you would expect like unlimited tracks third-party vst support plus it
comes with tons of effects as well and these are very useful effects that it comes with
you don't get any instruments but like i said you can bring in third-party plug-ins so that's not
really a problem i found reaper to be an easy daw to switch to from pro tools as the workflow was
fairly similar so if you're thinking of working with pro tools you could learn on this and likely
wouldn't get too lost when you're going into pro tools reaper is a great powerful option that's
worth checking out the next bonus option is our door the reason why this one is a bonus again is
because it's not free unless you compile the code for yourself so technically it is a free
program but if you're like me and you don't like to compile software or even know how to do that
you can pay as little as one dollar and you can get the full program our door has no limitations
so you get unlimited tracks buses sends inserts or whatever and it also has a pretty advanced
routing system if that's something that you're in need of it does come with a handful of plug-ins
but you can bring in your third-party vst plugins as well the interface is similar to pro tools
but has its own are door twists if you're looking for that familiar layout editing and mixing style
then you might want to give our door a try now here's a bit of advice to get you started
what i recommend doing is downloading two or three of these programs and give them a good try to see
what workflow and user interface really works for you so i recommend trying to create a beat
in each one that you download or a part of a song if you're not a beat creator and really give it a
good try to see what the program's all about and then you should have an idea of which one
you might want to stick with and when you do find that program that you want to stick with
stay with it try to learn as much of it as you can and then you're eventually going to get to a point
where you're just making music you're not fiddling with the user interface or trying to figure out
how to do something you're just creating music and everything becomes instinctive and you want to get
to that point all of these programs are going to have a learning curve to them so don't think
that there's one that's easier than the other they all have a learning curve so try to get over that
learning curve stick with it and then you're going to be rewarded as you'll start to create music and
you're going to feel good about creating music but you can also release that music like on distrokid
and start making money so it's rewarding that way as well now if you want to check out 25 free vst
plugins click up here or click down here to see what youtube recommends if you like this video
please give it a thumbs up also subscribe to the channel for more videos like this
thank you so much for watching for audio tech tv i'm zane keep creating and we'll talk soon