Music Production Apps for Linux

Free cross-platform DAW supporting VST plugins, MIDI, and lossless audio. Offers music loopers and sequencers with privacy, no ads, and offline capability.

Create, notate, and playback music with free, open-source software for Windows, Mac, and Linux supporting MIDI, MusicXML, PDF export, and community sharing.

A digital audio workstation, MIDI sequencer and video editing software application created by Cockos. The current version is available for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Ardour is a hard disk recorder and digital audio workstation application. Record, edit, and mix on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

Bitwig Studio is a multi-platform music-creation system for production, performance and DJing, with a focus on flexible editing tools and a super-fast workflow.

Carla is an audio plugin host, with support for many audio drivers and plugin formats. It has some nice features like automation of parameters via MIDI CC (and send output back as MIDI too) and full OSC control.

Zrythm is a digital audio workstation designed to be featureful and easy to use.

Bespoke is a software modular synthesizer. It contains a bunch of modules, which you can connect together to create sounds.

A Multitrack tablature editor and player.

Qtractor is an Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer application written in C++ with the Qt framework. Target platform is GNU/Linux, where the Jack Audio Connection Kit (JACK) for audio, and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) for MIDI, are the main infrastructures for...

Every track includes real time equalization and dynamics processing to sweeten and fine tune your mix. This is in addition to your six real time track effects, making Fairlight far more powerful than other digital audio workstation software!

VCV Rack is a modular synthesizer inspired by Eurorack systems. It acts a host for virtual modules which perform various audio processes. E.G. oscillators, filters, envelope generators, sequencers and more that can be connected freely in almost limitless combinations.

Waveform is a commercial, cross-platform DAW. With a focus on design and composition, it offers tools to greatly simplify everything from initial inspiration to the final mix.

FamiStudio is very simple music editor for the Nintendo Entertainment System or Famicom. It is designed to be easier to use than FamiTracker, but its feature set is also much more limited. It is targeted at both chiptune artists and NES homebrewers.

Helio is a cross-platform lightweight music speed-painting tool. It features linear-based sequencer with clean UI, integrated version control to sync the projects between devices, export to midi and more.

Studio One is an advanced digital audio workstation for Mac and Windows featuring a bevy of powerful composition, editing, mixing and mastering tools on top of standard multi-track DAW features. Highly praised for its intuitive chord track that lets users drag and drop both...

OpenUtau is an open source editing environment for UTAU community with modern user experience.

MilkyTracker is an open source, multi-platform music application for creating .MOD and .XM module files. It attempts to recreate the module replay and user experience of the popular DOS program Fasttracker II, with special playback modes available for improved Amiga ProTracker...

Vital is a spectral warping wavetable synthesizer with drag'n'drop modulation workflow and animated preview of the synth's inner workings where needed. Comes with many modulation sources (including audio-rate), MPE support and FX chain.

Helm is a free, cross-platform, polyphonic synthesizer with a powerful modulation system. Helm runs on GNU/Linux, Mac, and Windows as a standalone program or LV2/VST/VST3/AU plugin.

Pd (aka Pure Data) is a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing. It is the third major branch of the family of patcher programming languages known as Max (Max/FTS, ISPW Max, Max/MSP, jMax, etc.

Giada is a free, minimal, hardcore audio tool for DJs, live performers and electronic musicians. Just pick up your channel, fill it with samples or MIDI events and start the show by using this tiny piece of software as a loop machine, drum machine, sequencer, live sampler or yet...

Schism Tracker is a free reimplementation of Impulse Tracker, a program used to create high quality music without the requirements of specialized, expensive equipment, and with a unique "finger feel" that is difficult to replicate in part.

Guitarix is a simple Linux Rock Guitar Amplifier for JACK Audio Connection Kit with one input and two outputs. Designed to get nice thrash/metal/rock/blues guitar sounds.

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