Ableton Forum

I was musing earlier about how many astonishingly good audio software products there are available as freeware for download on the internet these days.

Then, I got to wondering if it would be possible to assemble a DAW setup which is capable of professional results for no money.

To that end, I'd like your suggestions for freeware audio software which I could gather together and make a record to disprove [or possibly prove] the notion that having all the latest gear makes for better records.

I'd need a sequencer/DAW, some synths/samplers and some fx - EQ, Compressors, 'verbs, etc.

It must be freeware - not shareware or crippleware or time-limited demos and certainly not cracked commercial software.

I'll be doing my own research too and I'll be searching KVR and other places but I'll bet some of you know of some absolute gems that you could point me to as well.

Thanks in advance.

P.s. - I'm PC based.

I'm very interested in this too.

I'm an almost annual traveler to tanzania, where I'm usually recording swahili rappers and try to involve people in the beat production as much as possible. Almost teaching - but in a very informal, get the job done type of situation

When I come across groups with access too a computer - old or new, would be very cool to leave a working setup behind without the issues of "try before you buy". Buying a copy of ableton in tanzania is about half a years rent! not likely!

I was looking at this OLCP project too ( one laptop per child ). billed as a $100 dollar laptop that can be distributed to schools/kids in developing countries. Seems to come installed with linux and some very basic music software. I'd be really interested in seeing how far you could take them.

When you look back at the electronic music of 15 - 20 years ago... so fresh even now, - I often feel there might be something in that theory of limitation being conducive to creativity.



I need to check my book marks and get back to you about any cool freeware I've come across - was a few months ago since I was looking

Excuse me if I'm rambling - Just got home and having a beer after 6 uni lectures and 3 night shifts in 4 days!

http://laptop.org/

a link to the OLCP project

babkubwa wrote:
Excuse me if I'm rambling...

Not at all - good tangent. I'd love to get hold of one of those $100 laptops and see what could be done with it.

For the purposes of this experiment, however, I shall be using a Intel Q6600 quad core with 4gb of RAM and a terrabyte of HD.

For a sequencer you could check out Reaper http://www.reaper.fm/
For a sampler you could check out http://vemberaudio.se/index.php
For a synth people seem to put a lot of stock in to synth 1 http://www.trippler.net/music/Download/ ... ynth1.html
there are also loads of free plugs, but i'm not that up on those,,

I'm not sure there is any thing that is actually free,,, i think the best you'll get is donation wear,,,

If you really want to test the boundaries of "Free" you should take a look down the open source route. Ardure is about to get a big update and will include MIDI, and there are a couple of VST to LADSPA wrappers that seem to work,, there was also an "Unofficial" Ardure that has been compiled to run VST's natively,, but i haven't checked that for a long time and the link i have is no good,,,
Rose garden is also getting better,, and there is another suite that runs on Linux that i can't recall the name of right now,,

Kjaerhus Audio's Classic Series of plugins is free quite useful in a utility sort of way.
They have a good part of the basics covered!
http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/classic-series.php

Nice idea

The "Computer Music" DVD that comes with the magazine has a suite of freeware apps - though I've never used the sequencer, it might be worth investigating

Gotta love crystal too.

http://www.angryredplanet.com/temper/index.html Looks like it might work as a freeware DAW for you.
http://www.gvst.co.uk/downloads.htm has a lot of free utility effects
http://www.u-he.com/TripleCheese/index.html nice freeware synth

good luck

http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

this one is a little gem

Bloody brilliant. Thanks everyone.

Keep em coming - looks like I've got some testing to do.

Hello,

do you know about Ardour?
http://ardour.org/

It comes from Linux world, but a Mac Os X version is available. I don't know about Windows.

Personally, you would be better off with a comercial daw, has exta features which help you reduce time to market, time is MONEY!

for a 'posh' reverb, the good old SIR , Impulse reverb.
http://www.knufinke.de/sir/sir1.html
bit of a nasty latency (of 8960 samples) for PDC to choke on, but hell it's a lot cheaper than Altiverb.

load up those Lexicon/tc impulses and listen to the loveliness.
http://www.echochamber.ch/responses/index.html

i like that approach, great idea!

Here is list of developers who offer tools for basic processing which are up to par or even surpase the quality of some commercial products:

http://www.tinbrooketales.com

http://www.digitalfishphones.com

http://ddmf.eu

http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com


Good luck

babkubwa wrote:Buying a copy of ableton in tanzania is about half a years rent! not likely!

What? no cracked software in Tanzania? it's everywhere...