Audio Music Production
- Music players
- Digital Audio Workstation
- Music notation
- Audio editing / post production
- Tracker Favorite proprietary, open source or freeware tools
Music players
VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
Features:
Simple, fast and powerful media player. Plays everything: Files, Discs, Webcams, Devices and Streams.
Plays most codecs with no codec packs needed: MPEG-2, DivX, H.264, MKV, WebM, WMV, MP3...
Winamp is a media player for Windows developed by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev by their company Nullsoft, which they later sold to AOL, who sold to Radionomy in January 2014. Since version 2 it has been sold as freemium and supports extensibility with plug-ins and skins, and features music visualization, playlist and a media library, supported by a large online community.
Audio editing / post-production
Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. You can use Audacity to record live audio, convert tapes and records, edit sound files, change the speed or pitch of a recording and much more.
Edit, mix, record, and restore audio. Audition is a comprehensive toolset that includes multitrack, waveform, and spectral display for creating, mixing, editing, and restoring audio content. This powerful audio workstation is designed to accelerate video production workflows and audio finishing — and deliver a polished mix with pristine sound.
LAME is a high quality MPEG Audio Layer III (MP3) encoder licensed under the LGPL. It is considered the best MP3 encoder at mid-high bitrates and at VBR. Both quality and speed improvements are still happening, probably making LAME the only MP3 encoder still being actively developed.
Mike Cheng started it as a patch against the 8hz-MP3 encoder sources. After some quality concerns raised by others, he decided to start from scratch based on the dist10 sources. His goal was only to speed up the dist10 sources, and leave its quality untouched. That branch (a patch against the reference sources) became Lame 2.0, and only on Lame 3.81 did we replaced of all dist10 code, making LAME no more only a patch.
The project quickly became a team project. Mike Cheng eventually left leadership and started working on tooLame, an MP2 encoder. Mark Taylor became leader and started pursuing increased quality in addition to better speed. He can be considered the initiator of the LAME project in its current form. He released version 3.0 featuring gpsycho, a new psychoacoustic model he developed.
In early 2003 Mark left project leadership, and since then the project has been lead through the cooperation of the active developers (currently 4 individuals).
Links where the latest compiled binaries are always available: http://lame.sourceforge.net/links.php#Binaries http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php
Meda MP3 Joiner is a free mp3 merger tool. Use this tool you can merge mp3 files to one. It is easy to use, just drag mp3 files from Windows Explorer and drop to main window, and adjust the sequences of each mp3 files then you can merge them into one mp3 file. Meda MP3 Joiner is completely free, and very easy to use. Drag each mp3 file in the main window, you can adjust the sequences. It contains a small id3 tag editor, you can setup id3 tag for output mp3 file.
DAW
Cubase is a computer program for music production/recording. The program offers recording, producing and mixing of sounds in order to make music production for distribution on CDs or the internet.
Cubase is a series of MIDI, music sequencer and digital audio editing computer applications (commonly known as a DAW - Digital Audio Workstation).
FL Studio (originally known as FruityLoops) is a full-featured Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) offering a complete range of professional tools for everything from audio editing and beat creation to advanced arrangement, composition, mixing and mastering. Sporting a fast, high-tech UI that runs at native speed, the DAW defaults to a relatively simple drum pattern sequencing interface while more advanced features are just a click or keypress away.
One of its most notable and distinguishing features, FL Studio is available through a lifetime license where a one-time purchase grants users continued updates forever after. The license is available across several editions providing access to an increasing number of bundled plugins with the mid-range tiers covering everything needed for pro quality music. The top tier includes the complete line of high-end synthesizers and effects developed by Image-line.
FL Studio is also highly recognized for several other features like its intuitive and responsive piano roll sequencer, fully vector-based UI with multi-touch support that extends the already adept mixer with full screen scaling and the ability to easily adjust multiple track levels simultaneously when mixing and mastering. The DAW also includes a unique visualizer plugin to create ultra-high resolution, 60fps music videos using an easy template-based approach powered by a highly configurable, modular visual system capable of producing practically any visualization imaginable.
LMMS is a free cross-platform alternative to commercial programs like FL Studio , which allow you to produce music with your computer. This includes the creation of melodies and beats, the synthesis and mixing of sounds, and arranging of samples. You can have fun with your MIDI-keyboard and much more; all in a user-friendly and modern interface.
Rosegarden is a well-rounded audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment.
Rosegarden is an easy-to-learn, attractive application that runs on Linux, ideal for composers, musicians, music students, and small studio or home recording environments.
Music Notation
MuseScore is a free music notation and composition software available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
It allows for fast and easy note entry on a virtual note sheet. It has an integrated sequencer to allow for immediate playback of the score. MuseScore can import and export MusicXML and standard Midi files.
MuseScore is available in more than 40 languages and is rapidly becoming the leading free music notation software and often praised as a cost effective alternative for expensive software.
MuseScore features a direct connection with the sheet music sharing site MuseScore.com via the MuseScore Connect panel. This gives users direct access to thousands pieces of sheet music shared by the community.
MuseScore.com also invites users who share sheet music frequently to upgrade to MuseScore.com PRO, which features more onlinemixing tools and no ads. It also allows users to upload and share more sheet music, since the free version offers space for at most five scores stored online. It must be noted that while MuseScore.com has a paid subscription model, the actual software, MuseScore, remains completely free and open source software.
Tracker
OpenMPT (short hand for Open ModPlug Tracker) is a popular tracker software for Windows. OpenMPT is completely free and allows you to create and play back some great music on your computer. Based on the original ModPlug Tracker written by Olivier Lapicque, OpenMPT is free software and supports a wide variety of module formats and offers an intuitive, native GUI as well as advanced features such as VST plugins and ASIO output.
