The Greatest Freeware Apps Of All Time

As part of this month’s Make Music For Free, it’s time to look at the incredible world of free music software. What better way to do that than round up the 100 all-time greatest freeware music titles? Time to put your wallets away…

It’s our Make Music For Free issue so it’s time to round up the best music software out there that won’t cost you a dime. And it’s a pretty crowded one, with a tonne of freeware synthesisers, effects, drum machines, ROMplers, guitar effects and much, much more available. So much, in fact, that we have managed to round up 100 amazing free plugins for you over the following pages that could (indeed should!) transform your music making. A couple of caveats first though…

Before we enter the sometimes murky world of freeware, we should point out that it’s a world that is not so essential as it once was because of this very magazine! That’s because you could argue that the Plugin Suite – that huge and free selection of Mac and PC plugins that we give away to every reader, every month – is so well endowed, with close to 100 plugins, that you really have no need to download anymore. Add to that the very real problem of plugin bloat – the issue faced by producers these days whereby having too much choice when it comes to plugin instruments, can actually get in the way of music production – and you could argue that freeware has had its day

Yes, you could argue that, but we’re not going to, because freeware can be great and, if you pick the right titles, can be inspiring, productive and creative, so that’s what this feature is about – picking the right, choice titles from a sea of freeware.

So in order to give you a usable picture of this vast world of free music making we’ve – broadly speaking anyway – broken it down into sections covering the best 100 plugins to download for free, so over the next 16 or so pages you’ll find best synths, best drum machines, effects and so on, but we’ve also scattered some step-by-step tutorials in there too so you can get the best from them.