Best free programs for musicians

When we talk about making music, we don’t limit ourselves to programs for converting audio tracks or mixing music, but we must also take into consideration free software that supports those who know and play musicboth at a professional level and, above all, at an amateur level, for those who are learning.

In the following guide we will show you the best free programs to make music, so that we can play an instrument or create our songs without having to spend a penny. Even if the best programs in the category are paid, nothing prevents us from starting with these applications and then moving on to the premium programs.

READ ALSO -> Best free audio editors to edit music and recordings

Best programs for making music

1) Sonic Visualizer is a powerful audio visualization tool for Windows, Mac and Linux. Although graphically very crude and unappealing, this program is capable of reproducing a wide range of graphic effects and displaying them in separate panes, layered on top of each other. Sonic Visualizer can be extended via downloadable plugins. VST Plugins are not supported directly, but Windows users can get them, with some limitations, through the VST Enabler di Audacity.

2) BPMinus is a modern audio manipulation software similar to SlowMP3 with different options. Editing tools allow you to change the tempo of the music by slowing it down or speeding it up, while maintaining pitch; you can change the pitch and balance the sound with the Stereo Mix. BPMinus supports almost all audio formats, but for some formats it is necessary to install additional plugins from the options tab.

3) GBK Music is a handy tool for finding chords and scales with ease
The program for musicians is useful for finding scales and chords for guitar and keyboards, for right and left-handed, with graphical display.

4) Pitch Ear Trainer it is instead a free learning program for those who want to train their ear to music. This little program plays notes according to certain user-defined parameters and asks you to identify them.

5) Forte Free e Musicore are two programs already described in the article about how to write the notes of a song on the computer and hear it while composing. Especially the first one, it’s really simple to use even for first-time musicians. To these we can also add the Italian programme Reading notes.

6) Noteflight for composing music on pcwrite notes to print and download scores is not a program but a web application already described in another post.

7) Reaper it is perhaps the most powerful free recording studio to download, even if it is very complex and recommended only for those who know music well and know how to navigate with computer software.
Reaper was already mentioned in the article Mix and create professional DJ music on your PC with the best free programs.

8) Audacity is the best of audio editor programs for editing music and recordings described in another article.

9) audio tuner instead it is a program for musicians who need to tune or tune their instrument.
In another article, all the programs for tuning a guitar.

10) Notation Player to see the notes of each song while listening and save the score.

11) LMMS is a free and cross-platform tool useful for playing various types of instruments, using samples and mixing elements of various songs, so as to create our music without spending a penny. It supports numerous plugins (VST and SoundFont) and can export music in raw format or in one of the most popular digital audio formats.

12) Ardour is another good open source program to create music with the PC. includes several tools for signal routing, editing and mixing tools and an interface suitable for working on new music pieces.

13) DarkWave Studio is a great tool for all musicians who want to create music using open-source programs. The application offers everything you need such as sequence editor, multitrack recorder, virtual studio, pattern editor and other useful functions in the process of creating new music.

14) Mixxx it is a valid sound and sound source mixer that can be used both for studio recordings and live sound recordings. Its open source nature makes it easily expandable and adaptable to any musical scenario, helping musicians create music quickly and easily.

Conclusions

Although in this area many programs are paid and optimized for the Mac (a point of reference in the musical field), nothing prevents us from using a laptop or a desktop PC with Windows e try one of the programs mentioned aboveso you can create music for free.

Sooner or later we will switch to premium programs (also for a question of image), but to start writing music we can create our own collection of software for musicians, to use whenever we feel inspired to create music.

On the same subject we can read our guides on programs to learn to play music with guides and exercises and on free programs for arrangements and beatmakers.