Best production software for beginners

You can do a lot of different things like add effects, change the volume level, remove the unwanted noise, etc.

If you are just beginning your music production ventures and are not sure which software to download to produce high quality tracks with ease, then we are here with a list of softwares that will help you to kick off your musical journey in the simplest possible way. For Mac users, GarageBand is the best software to begin music production and edition.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we recommended. Read more about Affiliate disclosure here. With an easy-to-navigate interface and fantastic features, it is a perfect workstation for beginners. It is free of cost for Mac users and there are various in-app tutorials also available for using different features and virtual software instruments.

The Touch Bar support makes it further easier for users to navigate through the project and edit the tracks with ease. You can also connect MIDI keyboard or can use musical typing to play the notes of the software instrument, making it easier for the users.

An endless list of reasons to use this music production software! It is one of the top choices for both beginners and professionals. The software offers multi track recording along with an infinite list of audio and MIDI tracks for songs. The cut, paste, and splice features come in handy while editing the tracks.

Despite being a limited edition suite, Ableton Live 9 Lite is one of the best free music production software for beginners to fiddling with. You can use up to eight recording tracks on the lite version for MIDI sequencing and harness an eclectic collection of SFX drum sampler , EQ, delay, chorus, reverb, compressor, etc. Some other spellbinding features of Ableton Live 9 include Analog-modeled filters designed on the lines of vintage hardware models, inbuilt slicing and warping capabilities, and more.

LMMS also has a gamut of instrument synthesizers including emulations of Roland TB , and native multichannel support for Soundfont for quality instrument patches and banks. Of course, you can also use the usual fare: piano-roll editor, inbuilt compressor, distortion and bass enhancer , limiter, delay, reverb, and spectrum analyzer. We were very impressed with the Sequence Editor which allows users to line up patterns that can be played in any arrangement.

In fact, you can also mix all the track patterns together. DarkWave is also renowned for supporting all kinds of ASIO audio drivers and VSTs that provide a variety of instruments to choose from on its slick drag and drop interface. What else injects DarkWave Studio into our roundup of the best free music production software? DarkWave Studio includes 19 different plugins which can be harnessed to add virtual effects to your tracks. However, some beginners might find DarkWave a little bit complex viz-a-viz dealing with many separate windows and menus.

Ardour is a unique DAW that piqued our interest in many ways. In fact, the mixing console of Ardour is one of the best in the industry in terms of flexibility and ease-of-use thanks to a well-defined and soothing interface that hardly looks like a hotchpotch of random widgets and buttons.

Also, Ardour is a non-linear editor with virtual stacking for showing overlapping regions like some programs on our list of the best free music production software for beginners. Which means that multi-track MIDI editing becomes an easy affair.

Moreover, Ardour can also be used to edit the soundtrack of a video with a frame-by-frame timeline of the video displaying by the side in a separate monitor window. For those budding musicians who are on a tight budget, but yet seek a nifty program with a modular interface to create beats, Hydrogen fits the bill just right.

It is a great free option for creating and customizing your rhythm-based songs. MusicRadar The No. Included in this guide: 1. Apple GarageBand.

Specifications Price: Free. Compatibility: Mac. System requirements: macOS Reasons to avoid - Mac and iOS only. Ableton Live 11 Intro. System requirements Mac : macOS Reasons to avoid - A lot to get your head around. System requirements PC: Windows 8. System requirements Mac: macOS Reasons to avoid - Interface can feel a little busy.

Steinberg Cubase Elements Bitwig Studio track. System requirements Linux : Ubuntu Reasons to avoid - Very little. With so many options and settings, DarkWave Studio may feel a little difficult to use at first.

The good news is that you can find plenty of tutorials and support online, making this one of the best free music-making software programs for beginners. Unlike the free music software that we've already covered, Audacity is a digital audio editor, not a digital audio workstation. There are many creative uses for Audacity , though its main purpose is manipulating audio data. But if you're looking for a combination between music production software, free EDM software, and something to edit your media in a technical sense, Audacity is the way to go.

It's great if you're looking for free music-maker software to put together beats and samples for songs. The interface is simple to use, but the variety of effects and settings can be tough to wrap your head around. It might take you a few days to get comfortable with everything. Audacity is available for download on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It's one of the most popular music production software options and a great way to get started making music for free. It's suitable for all kinds of music production and is a great free software option for beginners.

LMMS uses multiple windows to help you create music. Get an overview of your song's structure in the Song Editor, and then mix everything together with the FX Mixer. You can even automate effects and volume using the Automation Editor. LMMS also offers a wide variety of instrument synthesizers, so it's a great piece of software to make music for free using MIDI controls. Among most music-making software, free music production apps are usually limited in their ability to integrate with other music-making software.