FREE TOOLS
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FREE TOOLS FOR COMPOSERS



I created a list of free tools for composers that are limited with the production side of their compositions. I covered a good range of tools that I hope will help you to produce music with a better audio quality. While it will not be the top of the best or easy to use, you are getting a lot of good tools for free.

This is good for beginners or those that can not pay for expensive tools.

All of these tools are legally free to use, so you do not need to worry about downloading anything illegally.

For questions about each tool please read the information supplied in their websites or the documentations supplied in the downloads. It will inform you of all the important things you need to know.

If you have any suggestions or know of any other free software, do post it. It will be good for those that are limited.


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Digital Audio Workstations & Score Editors


Ardour
Available for MacOS X/Linux

Free Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) that allow you to record, mix and edit audio. It support several plugins also.

http://ardour.org/


Reaper
Available for Windows

This DAW is not free. However you get 30 days of evaluation without have anything locked/restricted. You do not get interruptions and you are able to save your projects for future sessions. You can record, mix, edit, and a lot more with this DAW. You have access to MIDI and to VST plugins also.

http://reaper.fm/index.php


Rosegarden
Available for Linux

Rosegarden is a well-rounded audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment.

http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/


Lilypond
Available for Windows/MacOS X/Linux

LilyPond is a music engraving program, devoted to producing the highest-quality sheet music possible. It brings the aesthetics of traditionally engraved music to computer printouts

http://lilypond.org/

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Audio Editor & Audio Corrector


Audacity
Available for Windows/MacOS X/Linux

Audacity is the most famous audio editor between users in the internet. You can record, mix, edit, process, import and export audio in a variety of formats.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/


GSnap
Available for Windows

Free VST pitch-correction.

http://www.gvst.co.uk/gsnap.htm

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Synthesizers, Samples & Samples player


Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra
Available in sfz format

Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra is a free orchestral sample library. While not as advanced or ambitious in scope as commercial offerings, SSO contains all the basic building blocks for creating real virtual orchestrations. It's primarily aimed at beginners, but also more experienced composers looking for something lightweight and/or portable might find it useful.

http://sso.mattiaswestlund.net/


Independence Free
Available for Windows/MacOS X

Independence Free 2.5 comes with all the powerful features of the Independence Sampler version 2.5 - only the import of audio files is limited to 25 files and the import of 3rd party VST Instrument Plug-Ins is not supported.

The intuitive user interface, the unique file management, an ultra fast streaming integration, the Auto-RAM-Cleaner and Multi-Core support give you an unmatched performance and allow you to load an unlimited number of instruments in seconds.

You can use Independence Free even for commercial use without any restrictions and save all your Projects, Layer Sets, Layers and presets. Independence Free is not connected to the yellow tools Authorization Key, so you do not have to purchase anything to get started.

Independence Free comes with 2.5 GB of free instruments from the Independence 2.0 Core Library.

http://www.yellowtools.us/cp21/cms/index.php?id=842


Kontakt 4 Player + Kontakt Factory Selection
Available for Windows/MacOS X

KONTAKT 4 PLAYER is the free sample player based on award-winning KONTAKT technology. Expanding the capabilities of its successful predecessor, the free KONTAKT 4 PLAYER allows for innovative, highly playable instruments leaving technological and musical limitations behind. Due to Kontakt Script Processing you get unprecedented functionality and musicality. The latest version features improved performance through Background Loading and full.

KONTAKT FACTORY SELECTION containing 50 premium instruments for KONTAKT 4 PLAYER. This collection takes in smaller-weight versions of some of the amazing instruments from KONTAKT's Band, Synth, Urban Beats, Vintage and World libraries.

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/kontakt-player/


Kore 2 Player
Available for Windows/MacOS X


KORE 2 PLAYER is a free software instrument with a production-ready 400 MB sound library, providing 150 instruments and effect sounds. Built on KORE 2, the Next-Generation Workstation, KORE 2 PLAYER includes six Native Instruments sound engines under the hood and provides ready-to-play sounds that can be browsed and tweaked via the intuitive KORE 2 PLAYER interface. Adding new sounds is as easy as purchasing and downloading affordable Powered by KORE Instruments.

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/kore-player/?page=349


Synth1
Available for Windows

Synth1 is a software synthesizer. Functionally it is modeled on the Clavia Nord Lead 2 Red Synth.

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/214.html


Free Sound Libraries from tonehammer
Complatible with Kontakt Full Version (Not Kontakt player)

Bee

http://www.tonehammer.com/?p=5027

Phonautograms

http://www.tonehammer.com/?p=2393

SICK

http://www.tonehammer.com/?p=5164


Free Sound Libraries from Soniccouture
Complatible with Kontakt Full Version (Not Kontakt player)/Ableton/Logic EXS24

Speak & Spell | Music Boxes | Brush Kit | RMI Rocksichord

http://www.soniccouture.com/en/free-stuff/


Simple-Media

Many Free VSTi. I really recommend The Shepherd. Effective for even productions of high quality!

http://www.simple-media.co.uk/music/vsti/vsti.htm#top


UgoAudio


String Theory

String Theory is a flexible, delay based, physical modeling synth which is capable of a very wide range of plucked strings, atmospheric pads and ambiences, and unique hybrid synth sounds. String Theory also offers dual phrase arpeggiators. Each arp has its own speed, gate, and octave controls; which allows for far more complex patterns than the average arp.

Rez v2.0

Rez is a virtual analog monosynth, with a highly resonant low pass filter, that is capable of a wide range of sounds, from funky squishes, beastly basses and screaming leads, to tight arpeggiations, atmospheres, bells, and interesting effects.

The Element of Surprise *v1.0
Random synth sound generating polysynth

Texture v1.2

Texture offers an amazingly wide range of...well...textures. Smooth, odd digital ambiences, metallic rings, synthetic percussion, brutally distorted sounds, classic virtual analog sounds, and even some physical modeling type tones are all possible with this unique synth.

Motion v2.8

The basic idea behind this synth, as it's name suggests, is to offer a wide variety of ways to create automated motion of the synth's sound. This is achieved by the use of 4 envelopes, 8 LFOs, three 16 step CV sequencers, and a filtered delay module...all of which can sync to your host's midi clock.

http://www.ugoaudio.com/



Simple-Media

Many Free VSTi.

http://www.simple-media.co.uk/music/vsti/vsti.htm#top



Krakli Free Synths

Variety of VST.

http://krakli.com/krakli-free-synths/

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SoundFonts


Sf2midi

Website with a variety of soundfonts.

http://www.sf2midi.com/

Hammersound

More soundfonts!

http://www.hammersound.net/

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Effects


SIR1
Available for Windows

This is a reverb device that works with "impulse-responses". Impulse-responses are generated by recording short broadband signals and their corresponding room-reflections. What you get contains the information needed to reproduce the same room with other signals.

http://www.knufinke.de/sir/sir1.html


SimulAnalog Guitar Suite v1.0
Available for Windows

SimulAnalog guitar suite is a set of vst plugin that simulates some of the most common guitar amplifiers and analog processors.

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/SimulAnalog/

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Remember, If you have any suggestions or know of any other free software, do post it. It will be good for those that are limited.


Otherwise...


ENJOY!

-Nyu001

Musescore

http://musescore.org/

Another composition program much like Finale and Sibelius only without the price tag. Musescore is a free, open source project that is still undergoing development but it can still produce high quality scores, which are easy to edit. It is slightly unstable and I've had it crash on me a few times; but other than that its a good alternative to those who cannot afford either Finale or Sibelius.

^It should also be noted that Musescore can be exported in Lilypond format, making it a viable GUI for Lilypond.

OpenMPT

http://openmpt.org/

This guy is for the bitstream pureist, OpenModplug Tracker (OpenMPT) is an open source audio tracking solution based off of the original ModPlug Tracker. It has long since been a tool to mux sample sounds (midi, VSTs, or mp3s) into full musical scores. Before there was FL Studio and Reason, there was MPT. The tool itself is slightly difficult to get into, but once you run through a few tutorials, you will quickly be able to mux and add effects to all of your soundbits to create complex sounds and/or songs.

I would just like to add that from my experience, MuseScore sucks and I won't be using it again. My biggest issue with it was with copying and pasting measures. I was composing a short piece with chords in it and I was unable to select a measure (you double click inside the measure) because every time I clicked inside the measure it would instead just select a single note from the nearest chord. It was such a huge pain in the ass. Also, the program automatically keeps your measures accurate to the time signature, meaning that it won't let you delete rests, you have to replace them. This also pissed me off. I wanted to experiment a little and just change the time signature for a few measures to see how it sounded and I ended up having to actually add a new time signature just to see what it'd be like. There's just a bunch of fluency issues with this program that I really didn't like about it. Maybe there are ways to get around these issues, but I was too flustered to even bother. Also, the stock instruments' sound quality sucked. It's free though, so I don't think I'm allowed to complain about this.

If I were you, I'd try the other programs before trying MuseScore.

Here are new things added to the list!

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UgoAudio


String Theory

String Theory is a flexible, delay based, physical modeling synth which is capable of a very wide range of plucked strings, atmospheric pads and ambiences, and unique hybrid synth sounds. String Theory also offers dual phrase arpeggiators. Each arp has its own speed, gate, and octave controls; which allows for far more complex patterns than the average arp.

Rez v2.0

Rez is a virtual analog monosynth, with a highly resonant low pass filter, that is capable of a wide range of sounds, from funky squishes, beastly basses and screaming leads, to tight arpeggiations, atmospheres, bells, and interesting effects.

The Element of Surprise *v1.0
Random synth sound generating polysynth

Texture v1.2

Texture offers an amazingly wide range of...well...textures. Smooth, odd digital ambiences, metallic rings, synthetic percussion, brutally distorted sounds, classic virtual analog sounds, and even some physical modeling type tones are all possible with this unique synth.

Motion v2.8

The basic idea behind this synth, as it's name suggests, is to offer a wide variety of ways to create automated motion of the synth's sound. This is achieved by the use of 4 envelopes, 8 LFOs, three 16 step CV sequencers, and a filtered delay module...all of which can sync to your host's midi clock.

http://www.ugoaudio.com/



Simple-Media

Many Free VSTi.

http://www.simple-media.co.uk/music/vsti/vsti.htm#top


Krakli Free Synths

Variety of VST.

http://krakli.com/krakli-free-synths/


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SoundFonts

Sf2midi

Website with a variety of soundfonts.

http://www.sf2midi.com/

Hammersound

More soundfonts!

http://www.hammersound.net/

A question... Where and what is the VST plug-ins for Finale? I think I know the answer to "what it is", but when I was told to drag all the dll. files into the vst plug-ins files of the host... I had a hard time distinguishing between Finale VSTfolder and the Plug-ins folder. Help this computer illiterate out please...~

Nyu001, you are my hero!

Before purchasing my audio card bundled with cubase LE, I used these software (among others ^_^):

MIDI Sequencers :

Jazz ++ Midi Sequencer

It's a simple midi editor. Platforms : Windows (http://sourceforge.net/projects/jazzplusplus/files/jazzplusplus/Old%204.1.3%20version/Jazz-4.1.3-Installer.exe/download), Linux (http://sourceforge.net/projects/jazzplusplus/files/jazzplusplus/5.0.11%20%28minimal%20functionality%29/jazz-5.0.11.tgz/download)

http://jazzplusplus.sourceforge.net/


Music Studio Producer

Can edit midi and Audio. The software moved to a bigger project => "Music Studio Independance". But it's still available to download (http://www.frieve.com/musicstd/download.cgi?down=http://www.frieve.com/zip/msp125e.zip&name=Producer_125e&hp=download.html) the software through this page (http://www.frieve.com/english/musicstd/download.html).

http://www.frieve.com/english/musicstd/musicstd.html

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Audio mixing and editing

Kristal Audio Engine

A really really nice software: mixing up to 16 channels with bundled effects and VST inserts.

http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

That is awesome! :D

A few worth stuffs:


RAW STEEL – the sound of man’s greatest achievement. Stainless, processed, molded and now conveniently sampled for Kontakt 4!

DEVIANT STATES, a quirky, cinematic, crazy dark ambient, sound design and percussion Kontakt Instrument. Featured are custom percussion, hand drums, kitchen gear and pure electronic elements!

ADVANCED DISTORTION you’ll find crazy drum kits, hellish atmospheres and also a selection of bonus loops, all programmed using only the drums in Advanced Distortion!

METALLIC DREAMS, a very special Kontakt instrument collection of heavily processed recordings of kitchen knifes, metal chains, wrist watches and other metallic objects! You’ll find pads, reverses, atmospheres and general madness in this collection!

http://brickwallaudio.com/v2/extra/