Free music production software 2023 – download the best free music-making software for PC and Mac
Today, we have an abundance of music production software and it can be tough to find free music software that does what it says on the tin well.
Music software developers are constantly releasing new VST plugins, including effects and software instruments, while major brands like Avid, Image-Line, Apple, and Ableton are constantly launching new updates to their flagship DAWs.
But the truth is, some of the best music creation software out there is actually free. Free music production software allows us to breathe a huge sigh of relief because some software instruments, effect plugins, and DAWs are just too expensive. And that’s where free software for producing music comes in handy.
This article will show you some of the best music production software available today, and it’s all free! Music producers, artists, and beat makers – get ready to learn about some of the best free music creation software, including free VST plugins, free DAWs for Mac & Windows, and free music-making websites – so let’s get started.
- Free DAWs
- Autotune
- Vocal doubler
- EQ
- Compressor
- Reverb
- Delay
- Distortion
- Free Sampler VST
- Drum VSTs
- Synth VSTs
- Piano VSTs
- Electric guitar VSTs
- Orchestral VSTs
- Free metering VST
Free DAWs for professional music production
Of course, we couldn’t begin this list of free music-making software that you can download any other way than with free DAWs for Mac & Windows. A DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) is the software we use to record and edit audio, and we export the project at the end of the production process into an audio file. DAWs give us a number of tools that allow us to manipulate our audio, but this article is about finding the best free versions of those tools – including virtual instruments, software synths, and effects – but we’ll come back to those.
This section is of course about free music-making software for beginners because the best DAWs like Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton, and FL Studio come at a cost. But what if I told you that there are free DAWs that are just as good as these premium ones?
Tracktion – Waveform Free – best free DAW for Windows & Linux
Waveform Free is based on Tracktion’s paid Waveform Pro DAW, and this Free version’s interface is easy to use and available for Linux & Windows operating systems too. Personally, I think Waveform Free is the best free DAW for beginners because its single-panel user interface makes it an easy DAW to navigate while you’re unfamiliar with its layout. Furthermore, it comes packed with automation tools and full VST plugin support!
Apple – Garageband – best free DAW for Mac & iOS
Meanwhile, Garageband is Apple’s free DAW that comes pre-installed on all of their computers, iPads, and iPhones. Though it’s free, it’s downright versatile and will give you the tools you need to start writing music on Apple systems. GarageBand is one of the most beginner-friendly DAWs there is, and it’s one of the best DAWs for Mac and iPad too.
Garageband’s workflow makes it easy for you to sketch out your ideas, experiment with virtual instruments and effects, and really get to grips with music production. And you can use it free of charge as long as you have an Apple system!
Best free effect VST plugins
Effect VST plugins are bits of software that operate inside a DAW, and that’s why we call them “plugins”. There are different types of VST effects, including compressors, EQs, distortion, reverb, delay, saturation, and more! No matter the effect, a plugin modifies an input signal and shapes its sound in new ways.
Autotune
Probably the most widely known effect, autotune plugins use algorithms to pitch a vocal line up or down depending on the key you input. So once you nail the vocal recording, you can use an autotune plugin to correct any unwanted pitch problems.
UnitedPlugins – TrapTune Second-Hand Edition – the best free autotune plugin
TrapTune Second-Hand Edition is an epic free autotune plugin by UnitedPlugins, and it’s pretty new too. It’s great for tuning vocals in styles found in Trap, House, and other electronic music, but it does have limited controls compared to the full version of the plugin.
Nonetheless, the free Second-Hand edition does have a nice user interface that’s easy to use with one knob that controls how intense the tuning is while additional controls let you adjust voice transposition and key. Oh, and it has a stereo mode that activates TrapTune’s doubler!
Vocal doubler
As the name suggests, a vocal doubler duplicates a vocal take and applies subtle variations in both pitch and timing to create a rich, full vocal.
iZotope – Vocal Doubler – a renowned vocal doubler plugin, and it’s completely free
iZotope’s free Vocal Doubler VST has a pretty interactive user interface with simple controls. Simply drag in and out to increase or decrease stereo separation, and drag around to add natural human-like variation to the signal.
The user interface gives you real-time information as the intensity of the doubler effect increases, therefore making it easier for you to notice how the signal is being affected. You can rotate the dot for more variation in the effect, and move the dot further away from the center to get more separation. The result is a vocal doubler plugin that doesn’t sound like the others.
Free EQ VSTs
An EQ (equalizer) allows us to make changes to the frequency balance of our audio signal. In practice, we can cut or boost the frequencies of a single instrument, a group of them, or an entire mix. As a result, EQs allow us to control the tonal balance of these sounds and correct any problematic frequency imbalances.
With that said, EQs can also be used creatively. For instance, they’re used in EDM music to gradually open up the high end of a riser sound as the build-up approaches the drop.
AudioThing – Blindfold EQ
Blindfold EQ is a free EQ software that forces you to use your ears.
This free equalizer has 4 bands (LowShelf, LowMid, HighMid, HighShelf), but each knob is blind. More specifically, Blindfold EQ has no indicators or numbers that show you frequency, gain, or Q values!
Now, I know that this may seem a bit daunting – visual cues do make our lives so much easier. But the lack of indicators will actually train your ears to pinpoint problem frequencies – a very handy skill if you want to be a professional music producer.
Analog Obsession – Rare Program EQ (BPB Edition)
The BPB edition of Analog Obession’s Program EQ offers an optional pre-EQ gain stage where you can saturate your signal before it enters the EQ “circuit”. In fact, this free EQ VST can be both a utility tool and an extremely creative effect. It gives you two EQ frequency bands to play with and offers separate Boost and Attenuation controls. Additionally, you can even fine-tune your target frequency range and bandwidth.
Then an oversampling feature (that you can access by clicking on the logo) lets you remove any aliasing artifacts, though it will put more strain on your CPU.
Free Compressor plugins
A compressor allows us to manipulate the dynamic range – the difference between the loudest and quietest sounds – of our signal. As well as an EQ, a compressor is used in pretty much every contemporary track.
In practice, a compressor reduces the level of the loudest audio while boosting the level of quieter audio, and this gives our audio a more consistent level. In short, we can use compressors to adjust audio levels, add thickness and punch, control transients, and maintain control of the level of our project.
BPB – Dirty LA
BPB Dirty LA is a free compressor VST that delivers musical-sounding compression. This first free compressor plugin on our list is inspired by a number of vintage limiting amplifiers, and it also offers BPB’s Dirt algorithm which allows you to saturate your input signal while compressing it. In short, this “warms” your signal up as you compress it, delivering saturation while you tame your transients.
Though it doesn’t give you precise controls over attack & release time, BPB Dirty LA does give you a Peak Reduction knob that adjusts the threshold, allowing you to control how much compression you apply to your input. And then you can use its Output knob to adjust the output level while using its onboard VU meter to accurately measure how much impact the compression is having on your signal.
Xfer – OTT
Xfer’s OTT compressor plugin is actually a pretty notorious bit of software. It is a 3-band compressor that can compress both downward and upward. Its ‘Depth’ control acts as a Dry/We control, ‘Time’ as an Attack/Release for all bands, while ‘In Gain’ & ‘Out Gain’ allows you to adjust the levels going in and out of the plugin.
OTT excels at making sounds and instruments more pronounced in a mix. It can add brightness by accentuating the mids, beefing up the lows, and adding fatness. In short, OTT is a must-have free mixing plugin that all music producers must have in their arsenal.
Audio Fusion – SeteChave
A lot of compressor plugins offer as much of a transparent sound as they can. But SeteChave is an analog emulation that does things differently. Rather than simply relying on ordered harmonics like many other analog emulations, SeteChave begins to distort the signal in interesting ways the more compression you apply.
So, the more you compress the signal, the more the signal distorts in a really cool way. In other words, SeteChave isn’t your traditional clean compressor, it’s a superb free mixing plugin for many music styles in rock and electronic genres.
The best free reverb plugins
Reverb plugins simulate the natural sound reflections that occur when sound bounces incredibly quickly in a room. Reverb is like delay, only the reflections occur in a matter of milliseconds rather than seconds, and we can use this effect to create a sense of depth and space in a room.
Reverb is an audio effect that simulates the natural reflections and reverberations of sound in a space. It can be used to create a sense of space, depth, and ambiance in audio recordings or live performances.
Valhalla – Supermassive
Supermassive is the best free reverb plugin around. It gives you huge delays and reverbs with massive waves of feedback that are so useful for creating crazy textures and all-encompassing reverbs. In fact, the free plugin is a mix of delay & reverb effects, utilizing a number of feedback delay networks where each delay in the structure can be up to 2 seconds long. And, on the user side, the plugin offers a WARP control that gives you echoes that fade in and out, rich reverbs, and even reverbs that take minutes to decay.
U-He – Protoverb
Protoverb isn’t quite as well known as Supermassive, but it certainly packs a punch. It builds an entire body of air filled with resonances, and the result is a natural-sounding reverb effect that offers character not found in many other reverb plugins.
In practice, you could insert this plugin on multiple instruments and they won’t wash away, they actually remain pretty distinguishable!
Free delay plugins
Delay is an audio effect that creates what are essentially echoes of an input signal. It does so by repeating the sound, and each repeating echo gets gradually quieter than the previous one. Like reverb, a delay effect is a fantastic way of creating a sense of depth while adding new textures and even rhythm to the sound.
Sixth Sample – Deelay
Deelay’s modern user interface makes it a super easy plugin to work with, and it’s our favorite free delay plugin! Its highly intuitive features, including a randomize button, give you awesome results. Each of the plugins’ presets will prove that this really is some of the best music software around!
It even offers an A-B switch that lets you toggle between two different configurations, and you can even switch mid-song! Also available are a couple of parameters for adding filters, distortion, and modulation over time too.
SaschArt – SweepDelay
SweepDelay has a pretty intuitive user interface and produces versatile results. It offers two resonant filters in addition to a Delay Rate control with normal, dotted, and tripled note options. Consequently, you can create colorful textures with these and its ping pong settings – and you don’t need to worry about taxing your CPU either!
Despite being a powerful delay plugin, it’s actually super light and won’t cause any processing problems.
Free distortion plugins
The distortion audio effect actually alters the waveform of a sound by adding new harmonic overtones to the fundamental frequency of the sound. As a result, the distortion effect allows us to warm sounds up, add thickness & grit, and make a sound much more aggressive.
Wings Music – Fire
Fire gives you a number of distortion options, including Soft Clip, Hard Clip, Foldback, and “Other”. The truth of it is that this plugin is super versatile and offers you so much, making it one of the best free distortion plugins around. So much so, in fact, that Fire really shouldn’t be free! Nonetheless, everything is packed into one nice user interface with controls that are pretty easy to navigate.
The interface gives you two main tabs – Band Effect and Global Effect – and you can use the color-coded buttons to cycle between different effects. The different effects include a sound shaper, a compressor a stereo-width function, control-linking options oversampling, and more!
Soifer Sound – TripleDrive
TripleDrive is a multiband distortion plugin with ten different distortion types. It gives you three frequency bands to work with, each with its own gain, distortion amount, and output controls, and you can apply gentle or harsh distortion to each. This plugin is perfect for saturating vocals, applying harsh overdrive to guitars, and warming up a drum kit.
Furthermore, it comes with two Band Crossover knobs where you can adjust the crossover frequencies between bands and merge the effect from adjacent bands. And its multiband visualizer, filters, and its three-band EQ give you plenty of controls for fine-tuning the effect.
Free virtual instruments & software synthesizers
Virtual instruments, as the name gives away, are software emulations of acoustic or digital instruments. These can include guitars, pianos & keyboards, hardware synthesizers, drums… and any instrument you can think of. They do so by using pre-recorded samples of these instruments (sample-based instruments) at various velocities with different note lengths, and the result is a virtual instrument that aims to be as expressive as the real instrument.
Meanwhile, software synthesizers (also known as soft synths) generate sound via digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms rather than with pre-recorded samples. Many developers such as Arturia have used this technique to create emulations of hardware synthesizers, but it’s more commonly used to develop brand-new software synths.
Free sampler VST plugin for beginners and professionals
The first sample-based instrument we’ll talk about is none other than the sampler itself. Sampler VST plugins allow users to import, playback, and manipulate their own audio files in a number of ways. In fact, sampling is now at the forefront of the music production conversation with sample subscription services like RouteNote Create offering 100 professional-quality samples for just $2.99!
Anyway, samplers allow you to change the pitch of sounds and their length, you can slice sounds up, warp them in countless ways, and blend your sounds together to create new sounds too!
One Small Clue – Grace
Get ready to learn all about the best free sampler VST that packs more than a punch. Firstly, you can drag & drop your own sounds into the software. That, of course, is a given – but what’s impressive is the sheer amount of tools it gives you to manipulate your sounds.
For instance, it gives you 2 filters per voice with low pass, band pass, high pass, comb, LoFi & ring modulation modes), two AHDSR envelopes, and two LFOs! Then you can start writing with its twp step sequencers before exporting your project in WAV, AIF, or SND audio file formats. And all of this is neatly wrapped in a clean user interface! As far as free music software goes, this is a must-have for any electronic musician.
Free drum VST plugin
Free drum VST plugins can be very hit & miss. Some lack features and others lack sound quality, but we’ve found two that we know you’re going to love!
E-Phonic – Drumatic 4
Drumatic is a slimmed-down version of a paid plugin, but this free version is the best all-around drum VST plugin because it utilizes a combination of FM, wavetable, and subtractive synthesis to generate sound.
Drumatic even gives you over 40 noise types, two stereo noise oscillators, graphical envelopes for pitch, filtering, and levels, in addition to a plethora of professional presets!
Native Instruments – Urban Beats
Next, we have some free VST drums by Native Instruments – and they need no introduction unless you’re super new to music production. Their free Urban Beats VST drum machine is geared towards creating hip-hop beats, and it’s one of the developer’s older software instruments.
Nonetheless, it features plenty of drum machine samples that are tailored towards hip-hop but definitely has a place in club tracks in techno and house styles. Furthermore, it has typical mixer features built-in as well as effects such as convolution reverb, delay, and saturation. And this is why Urban Beats is one of the best free drum VSTs around.
Despite its age, Urban Beats is pretty versatile in that it lets you create grooves in one of three ways:
- Trigger individual sounds with a MIDI controller
- Trigger pre-programmed loops
- Create drum patterns with the step-sequencer in Groovebox mode
Free synth VSTs
There are so many free Synth VSTs that finding the right one for you can be tough. Nonetheless, we’ve listed two of the very best free VST synths that can produce jaw-dropping sounds after a bit of playing around.
Matt Tytel – Vital
Vital is a free wavetable synthesizer that rivals the popular paid wavetable synths Serum and Massive. Vital’s user interface is all about the visualization of movement, so everything you modulate is made plainly obvious before you jump into the modulation matrix.
The Vital VST synth gives you three oscillators and a noise generator, and you can easily modulate the wavetable position, phase, frequency, level, and more wavetables. In fact, you can modulate the pulse width of the waveforms, you can edit the wavetables free-hand and emphasize specific harmonics and draw how the wavetable should morph.
Digital Suburban – Dexed
While wavetable synthesis has Vital, Dexed is easily the best free FM software synthesizer around today. It’s actually a comprehensive emulation of the Yamaha DX7 – the classic digital FM synthesizer. As a matter of fact, you can use the Dexed software as an editor for the DX7 hardware synth itself.
A key difference that separates the software from the hardware, though, is that Dexed utilizes a filter that the original hardware does not. Although Dexed’s interface does look pretty intimidating, it gives you every parameter from each of the DX7’s 6 operators – so you have a broad overview of what’s occurring in the synth.
/idxFree piano plugins
Piano VSTs come in many shapes and sizes. Paid piano plugins almost always perform better, I won’t kid you, but these two free piano VST plugins will serve you well as you begin to write epic compositions.
Versilian – Upright No. 1
The Upright No. 1 is a fantastic virtual piano for Kontakt, with the samples recorded at the Berklee College of Music. Recorded with two close microphones with wide pick-up patterns, the free Upright No. 1 VST piano even features effects like reverb in addition to panning and volume control.
Meanwhile, the Upright Piano gives you three velocity layers thanks to its abundance of samples, giving each note some individuality. And its attack, decay, sustain and release envelopes allow you to shape the sound of the instrument too.
Spitfire Audio – LABS Glass Piano
It’s time to dive into the world of Spitfire Audio and LABS instruments. Up first, their free piano VST plugin, Glass Piano, is a truly gorgeous-sounding instrument. Phillip Glass, known for scoring films like Hamburger Hill and Secret Window, used a baby grand piano to compose scores for his movies. Well, LABS Glass Piano is actually the sound of that baby grand piano!
Glass Piano is a very pretty software instrument, and the original instrument has a very long history with film scores. It offers high-fidelity sampled recordings of the baby piano and captures the beauty of the original instrument. In fact, engineers recorded the piano at Phillip Glass’s home in New York. And Glass Piano even utilizes an atmosphere that adds detail and character to your music.
Free electric guitar VSTs
Now let’s talk about free guitar VSTs. Like pianos, many paid guitar emulations almost always perform better. But again, we’ve made sure to find some free guitar VST plugins that sound fantastic and provide you with enough functionality for you to write expressive riffs.
Ample Bass – P Lite II
Next, we have a free bass guitar VST. Ample Bass P Lite II gives you 443 bass guitar samples with a number of articulations with authentic bass tones. In fact, the recordings are actually sampled from a Fender Precision bass guitar!
Furthermore, you can use two sampling cycles at once while playing and use your MIDI keyboard modulation wheel to achieve a vibrato effect. Further, Ample Bass P Lite II’s dedicated Tab Player module can load and play several prevalent guitar\bass tablature file formats which allow you to load, display, and playback any specific track inside a tablature file!
Spitfire Audio – LABS Electric Guitars
Staying with Spitfire Audio, LABS Electric Guitars gives you a versatile sample collection of classic guitars with a range of styles – rock, funk, blues, pop, and even 80s chorus-drenched tones.
The software instrument was curated by guitarists Leo Wyatt, Dino Pollano, and Keith Theodosiou, and it offers dynamic plucks, sustained notes, and strumming rhythms that you can insert into your music.
Free Orchestral VSTs
Traditionally, cinematic compositions rely heavily on orchestras, and legendary film scorers like Hans Zimmer have spoken of their love for Orchestral VSTs. Well, let’s talk about the best free orchestral VST instruments that will give your film scores and music an edge over the rest…
Orchestral Tools – SINEfactory
SINE Player by OrchestralTools is as notorious as it is free, which is to say… very. SINE Player is a free orchestral sampler plugin that behaves much like LABS and Kontakt, and you’ll find a number of professionally recorded orchestral sound libraries inside.
You’ll find instruments like strings, horns, percussion, piano sounds, and more. Together, the orchestral sound libraries are enough for any budding composer to get started scoring music right now. However, every SINE library does require the SINE Player (free) because you won’t be able to play them in Kontakt, LABs, or any other sample player.
Spitfire Audio – BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover
Next, we have the BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover orchestral VST plugin. Another of Spitfire Audio’s creations, though this one was in collaboration with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In fact, this is the free version of Spitfire Audio’s flagship BBC Symphony Orchestra Professional.
This incredible orchestral plugin makes orchestral scoring so much more accessible to music creators everywhere. It features a total of 35 instruments and 47 playing & recording techniques that are all premixed down into one final signal!
Youlean – Loudness Meter – best free metering VST plugin
We thought we’d finish this plugin with a metering plugin because it’s critical to monitor your levels throughout the music production process. They allow us to visualize the true loudness levels of our audio because dBFS meters in DAWs aren’t honest about how loud the audio is to human ears – they only reflect signal strength.
While you can avoid clipping your signal with effective gain staging by monitoring these dBFS meters, they don’t account for how loud listeners will perceive your project.
This final free plugin, Loudness Meter by Youlean, gives you the information you need about your audio levels in LUFs with neat visuals that don’t lack detail. Ultimately, Loudness Meter makes sense of the raw numbers with colors that aid you in identifying problems.
Youlean Loudness Meter gives you a real-time display of all track metrics with mono, stereo, and surround options. Its interface is resizable, and it even gives you presets for film, TV, and gaming platforms!
Loudness Meter informs you about what’s happening with the overall loudness of your project so you can make informed decisions and adjustments. And you can even customize the plugin to suit your tastes as well, but this is a limited feature in the free version.
Final thoughts
Music production software can get expensive, but it really doesn’t need to be so. As we’ve shown, you can get so many free music production software programs built for creating great music – all without spending a penny.
With this list of free music production software, you can create music that will make you a hit with your friends and listeners alike. I’m sure you’ve found at least one tool here that has inspired you to create some amazing music! If so, make sure to share it on social media and tag us so we can hear it!
If there’s a plugin that you think should be on this list and we’ve missed it, be sure to let us know in the comments or hit us up on social media!