Free Music Creation Software

[Matt Young]

Basically, I'm looking for what the title says. I know there are those $200 programs out there like Cakewalk and Fruity Loops, but I can't afford that sort of investment right now. I do have a copy of Fruity Loops that I downloaded, but I can't save anything.

 

I'm wanting to be able to create a rough recording of the music in my head as soon as I think of it, without having to wait to get people together to try to play it.

[Guest "Go, Mordecai!"]

Finale NotePad is a good composition program if you can write music notation. I can, so I work with it from time to time. It's a little tedious to drop every note in one by one, though. I'm sure you can read and write music at your age--I learned the notes on the treble clef like 15 years ago--but if you need some help, I can probably give you some pointers.

[BUTT]

Basically, I'm looking for what the title says. I know there are those $200 programs out there like Cakewalk and Fruity Loops, but I can't afford that sort of investment right now. I do have a copy of Fruity Loops that I downloaded, but I can't save anything.

 

I'm wanting to be able to create a rough recording of the music in my head as soon as I think of it, without having to wait to get people together to try to play it.

At the very least with the free version of FruityLoops you can export your file to an MP3.

[The Man in Blak]

There are a lot of options out there, depending on what OS you're working from. The Wikipedia article on free audio software has a pretty good list of applications for you.

 

If you're looking for free software to edit and mix recorded tracks from Windows, Audacity is worth checking out. It exports out to multiple formats, supports multi-tracks, and can take in plug-ins for effects as well.

 

I know it's not free, but the commercial version of Fruity Loops is actually a great value, depending on what you want to use it for. If you're just looking for a software-driven drum machine/sequencer, you can pick up the Express version for something like $50, I think.