Resource Free DAWs that are as good as paid ones to start making music.

[SeleDreams]

Hi, I'm making this thread as I often notice people asking if there are any good free DAWs getting answers like "It's not worth it" or "just get fl studio/studio one/etc"
I personally believe that there are enough good free DAWs to find some that can be as powerful as the giants on the market.
That's why I'm going to list multiple DAWs that are able to provide a level of quality comparable to the paid options ( I may update this list if I find other softwares, don't hesitate to suggest more) :
All of the suggested softwares support third party plugins for both instruments and effects as I don't consider softwares that lock the user to specific instruments like studio one prime to be on par with commercial ones.

WINDOWS ONLY

Cakewalk By Bandlab
The most stable and full featured free DAW software that supports most plugin formats (both x64 and x86 architectures out of the box), it also includes an amazing set of strings, electric pianos and drum kit out of the box if we chose to install the Instrument Suite and a lot of high quality effects .
It is really an amazing piece of software for mixing, live recording, and composing. Its only main inconvenient is that it's "too big for its own good"
What I mean is, it can do so much and has so many features it can feel overwhelming at first, it takes some time to get used to.

You can download it here (You will need to make a bandlab account but it is fully free, and it personally made me like bandlab as it's in fact a really nice soundcloud replacement but with unlimited free uploads) :

BandLab - Make Music Online

The cloud platform where musicians and fans create music, collaborate, and engage with each other across the globe

www.bandlab.com

Podium Free
The free version doesn't have any limitation compared to the paid v except the fact the free version doesn't use multithreading and rewire, it supports VST2 plugins.
Its strength comes from how customizable its interface is, we can really make it look like anything we want and it really is something cool.
I personally think its workflow for composing is similar to studio one and it is really nice to cut and move audio tracks with it, it also allows to stretch midi clips to make them slower or faster, a feature that I find REALLY cool.
You can download it for free here :

Podium Free

Podium Free is a freeware edition of Podium. It is fully functional with only a few feature limitations. Download and installation does not require registration. Podium Free 3.2.1 Released: March 1…

zynewave.com

FOR ANY OS (Windows, OSX, Linux)

LMMS
Open source software that supports windows VST2 plugins on both windows and linux and has A LOT of integrated instruments, presets and effects, there are so many I can't list them.
it is an amazing software for composing electronic music by default and with plugins on top of it, it becomes very versatile.
It is unfortunately not great at mixing, which is why I would recommend to export the tracks separately to mix them in an other software (although it is doable on LMMS if you still want to)

LMMS | Download

LMMS is a free, open source, multiplatform digital audio workstation.

lmms.io

Tracktion T7
Supports a lot of plugins like Cakewalk and is also full featured, this is, I believe the best competition to Cakewalk that is cross platform.
I didn't get to use it that much, but from my first impressions, this is very solid
You can download it here, you will need to make a tracktion account but it is fully free, it may ask you to "activate" the software when launching it for the first time but in fact you just need to login to your account and it'll be activated for free, this isn't a trial.

Waveform Free | digital audio workstation band editing software - Tracktion

Waveform Free is the world's best, fully featured, completely unlimited free DAW for all music creators. Mac, Windows, Linux.

www.tracktion.com

UPDATE : IT NOW GOT REPLACED BY TRACKTION WAVEFORM FREE
Waveform Free | digital audio workstation band editing software - Tracktion
Tracktion Waveform supports vst2 and vst3, it also supports rewire, compared to options like studio one, you aren't locked on this level

all of the DAWs I talked about aren't lite or limited editions (except maybe Podium Free but it has no real constraint) and all of them are compatible with third party plugins
when it comes to difficulty curve, I'd say it's something like this (from easiest to learn to harder)

LMMS -> Podium Free -> Tracktion T7 -> Cakewalk By Bandlab

but I'd recommend you to try all of them as you'll be able to chose the one that suits the most to what you want to do, after all they are all free so nothing prevents you from trying them all.


VST wise, the developer of Podium Free made a nice list of amazing free vsts for any kind of purpose (a lot of instruments and a lot of effects) that work on all daws.
You can find them here :

Recommended Freeware Plugins

This page contains download links and installation instructions for a selection of high quality third-party freeware VST plugins known to work well with Zynewave Podium and Podium Free. If you are …

zynewave.com

 

[Scarlet Illusion]

Oooh! What a great resource!! I have a couple things to add:

For my fellow Mac users, I highly suggest Garageband since it comes preloaded with most Macs (and I think you can get it for free of the app store, but I'm not sure).

Also, a lot of people seem to recommend Reaper as DAW due to its never-ending demo (but you do have to pay for it before you can make money off of something you made in it). (Works on Mac and Windows. They have experimental Linux builds, too.)

 

[peaches2217]

LMMS was my go-to before getting FL, and it was pretty easy to figure out, so I'd highly recommend it! And like Kazumi said, Reaper is another great option, but it's like SynthV in that you have to pay to monetize from it.

I'm probably gonna stick to Studio One for now, because, hey, it came free with my Cryptonloids, but this is such an amazing resource. Thank you so much for compiling these!

 

[cafenurse]

I recommend LMMS too, I used it before FL Studio and it was really easy to use, my only problem was my computer was weak so sometimes when I opened VSTs the whole thing would crash.

 

[SeleDreams]

Oooh! What a great resource!! I have a couple things to add:

For my fellow Mac users, I highly suggest Garageband since it comes preloaded with most Macs (and I think you can get it for free of the app store, but I'm not sure).

Also, a lot of people seem to recommend Reaper as DAW due to its never-ending demo (but you do have to pay for it before you can make money off of something you made in it). (Works on Mac and Windows. They have experimental Linux builds, too.)

The reason I didn't add Reaper was that it is still a demo, I can't really consider it a free software.
For me I only consider free software software provided free of charge for any usage.
I could add Garageband to the list but I don't know if they allow to use commercially the integrated instruments.

LMMS was my go-to before getting FL, and it was pretty easy to figure out, so I'd highly recommend it! And like Kazumi said, Reaper is another great option, but it's like SynthV in that you have to pay to monetize from it.

I'm probably gonna stick to Studio One for now, because, hey, it came free with my Cryptonloids, but this is such an amazing resource. Thank you so much for compiling these!

I also own Studio One Artist but it requires an 80$ vst to be able to use third party vsts so I still use Cakewalk most of the time.

I recommend LMMS too, I used it before FL Studio and it was really easy to use, my only problem was my computer was weak so sometimes when I opened VSTs the whole thing would crash.

LMMS had some stability issues in the past with some vsts, it improved with v 1.2 and now the latest v is v 1.2.1 it is nowadays pretty stable.

 

[peaches2217]

I also own Studio One Artist but it requires an 80$ vst to be able to use third party vsts so I still use Cakewalk most of the time.

Oh wow. I never knew! I'm still really new to Studio One. I'll check some of these out in that case...

 

[peaches2217]

How do you install Piapro into Cakewalk. I've managed to get Vocaloid and SynthV in but not Piapro, and that's the one I need. Please help this ignorant fool. It's been half an hour of fruitless effort.

 

[Scarlet Illusion]

How do you install Piapro into Cakewalk. I've managed to get Vocaloid and SynthV in but not Piapro, and that's the one I need. Please help this ignorant fool. It's been half an hour of fruitless effort.

Have you made sure that you've got the latest update of Piapro? That's what ultimately caused the problem for me when I installed it on my new computer. Also, try having your daw scan for plugins again (idk how to do it in Cakewalk, tho), and make sure it's activated/enabled. If it is, but won't show up, try restarting your computer. Hopefully this'll help! :D

 

[DefiantKitsune]

For the record, I've seen some complaints about the middleware required to install Cakewalk. I'm not exactly sure if people just find it annoying or if there's another problem.

 

[peaches2217]

Have you made sure that you've got the latest update of Piapro? That's what ultimately caused the problem for me when I installed it on my new computer. Also, try having your daw scan for plugins again (idk how to do it in Cakewalk, tho), and make sure it's activated/enabled. If it is, but won't show up, try restarting your computer. Hopefully this'll help! :D

How do you check for updates? I remember being notified a while back that I needed to update it, but I wasn't given the option to update.

I've added just about every path that leads to Piapro and run the scan multiple times. Piapro's also in my Steinberg folder, so I scanned that, and that's how Vocaloid and SynthV showed up. I'm willing to bet I need to update it, I just... don't know how.

For the record, I've seen some complaints about the middleware required to install Cakewalk. I'm not exactly sure if people just find it annoying or if there's another problem.

The middleware is basically just a Soundcloud alternative. All I had to do was make an account and download the given app manager to install Cakewalk. It's no different than having to use ZeroG's file downloader when you buy directly from them, so I didn't mind!


EDIT: Piapro's updated to the latest version, and it apparently has been for some time (as the last Windows update was made available in 2016, two years before I even got my first Cryptonloid). So I'm at a loss. I'll figure it out! Somehow.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

I think it had to do with it's insistent updater. Like, it won't even let you BOOT Cakewalk if it isn't installed and will turn off sound if you go too long without updating.

Ftr, having used both LMMS and Cakewalk I would recommend the first, but not the second.
Only a few of the included instruments in LMMS are actually good but the ones that are good (especially ZynAddSubFx) are more than enough for most music you'll want to make (and you can find free/cheap VSTs to fill out the gaps. The newest updates are probably the first time it's been stable as well!

 

[SeleDreams]

How do you install Piapro into Cakewalk. I've managed to get Vocaloid and SynthV in but not Piapro, and that's the one I need. Please help this ignorant fool. It's been half an hour of fruitless effort.

Depends where you installed piapro, you can find the settings for where it searches vsts in Edit > Preferences > VST Settings

 

[SeleDreams]

How do you check for updates? I remember being notified a while back that I needed to update it, but I wasn't given the option to update.

I've added just about every path that leads to Piapro and run the scan multiple times. Piapro's also in my Steinberg folder, so I scanned that, and that's how Vocaloid and SynthV showed up. I'm willing to bet I need to update it, I just... don't know how.


The middleware is basically just a Soundcloud alternative. All I had to do was make an account and download the given app manager to install Cakewalk. It's no different than having to use ZeroG's file downloader when you buy directly from them, so I didn't mind!


EDIT: Piapro's updated to the latest version, and it apparently has been for some time (as the last Windows update was made available in 2016, two years before I even got my first Cryptonloid). So I'm at a loss. I'll figure it out! Somehow.

That's weird, as you can see, Cakewalk sees Piapro in my case

 

[peaches2217]

Depends where you installed piapro, you can find the settings for where it searches vsts in Edit > Preferences > VST Settings

That's what I'm doing. Like I mentioned above, it's in a couple of different files, but Cakewalk just refuses to load it. I tried uninstalling Piapro and reinstalling the 32-bit version, because that's the version of SynthV and Vocaloid it loaded, but I haven't had luck with that either.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

That's what I'm doing. Like I mentioned above, it's in a couple of different files, but Cakewalk just refuses to load it. I tried uninstalling Piapro and reinstalling the 32-bit version, because that's the version of SynthV and Vocaloid it loaded, but I haven't had luck with that either.

Like sele, it just showed up in Cakewalk for me.
...Perhaps file a bug report?

 

[SeleDreams]

I think it had to do with it's insistent updater. Like, it won't even let you BOOT Cakewalk if it isn't installed and will turn off sound if you go too long without updating.

Ftr, having used both LMMS and Cakewalk I would recommend the first, but not the second.
Only a few of the included instruments in LMMS are actually good but the ones that are good (especially ZynAddSubFx) are more than enough for most music you'll want to make (and you can find free/cheap VSTs to fill out the gaps. The newest updates are probably the first time it's been stable as well!

The reason cakewalk requires the launcher is that in the first place it was a 300$ piece of software that had an activation drm to work so they need something that does the authentification for the drm ad it would be too much work for them to fully remove the drm from the software so they instead use it to be their authentification method

 

[SeleDreams]

That's what I'm doing. Like I mentioned above, it's in a couple of different files, but Cakewalk just refuses to load it. I tried uninstalling Piapro and reinstalling the 32-bit version, because that's the version of SynthV and Vocaloid it loaded, but I haven't had luck with that either.

Are you sure the piapro studio vst is not like in C:/Program Files/VSTPlugins ? because that's the usual install directory for piapro, not the steinsberg one

 

[peaches2217]

Yeah, I've tried that file too. Nothing.

Maybe it's just me. I could always try uninstalling and reinstalling, or maybe just giving up and living as a solitary sheep herder in New Zealand...

 

[SeleDreams]

Free plugins to use in Podium this is an other thread containing free vsts, they can work on any daw

 

[SeleDreams]

For those who want to try Podium, this is a playlist full of tutorials about it
I personally like Podium as it is an indie project, this is why I bought it, even more since it's only 50$ and DRM free so we can install it on as many pcs as we want

but it is still available for free, the only difference is that it is some versions earlier than the commercial v, doesn't have rewire and it doesn't use multithreading so the free v is still completely fine