Music Software #
Live Coding Tools #
Name & Link | Description | Screenshot / Demo |
---|---|---|
SonicPi | ||
ORCΑ | Learn Orca Extra Tools for ORCA: |
|
Noton | A minimal logic gates playground, written in ANSI C. Made by the same developers as ORCΑ | |
Chuck | “Chuck is a programming language for real-time sound synthesis and music creation. It is open-source and freely available on MacOS X, Windows, and Linux. Chuck presents a unique time-based, a concurrent programming model that’s precise and expressive (we call this strongly-timed), dynamic control rates, and the ability to add and modify code on-the-fly. In addition, ChucK supports MIDI, OpenSoundControl, HID device, and multi-channel audio.” | |
Mutateful Requires Ableton Live | “enables live coding in Ableton Live’s session view. Set up transformations that trigger whenever a source clip is changed, including arpeggiation, shuffling, and ratcheting/retriggering.” | |
Pure-Data and Purr Data (a better fork) | ||
Zerobrane Studio and Moonlet | ||
Krill | Krill is a livecoding environment inspired from TidalCycles. | |
TidalCycles | ||
Mosaic | ||
Overtone - Live Code | ||
Tweakable | ||
Siren (Github) | Tracker meets livecode | |
FoxDot | Livecoding with Python | |
Extempore Lang | “Extempore is a programming language and runtime environment designed to support cyberphysical programming” | |
Bespoke | Software modular synth | ![]() |
Music Pattern Generator | Music Pattern Generator is an app to create musical rhythms. It sends MIDI data, so it won’t make any sounds by itself. For that you need to connect it to MIDI soft- or hardware that can handle MIDI data to produce sound. | ![]() |
DAWs and almost-daws #
Name & Link | Description | Screenshot / Demo |
---|---|---|
VCV Rack | ||
Reaper | ||
Bitwig-Studio | Bitwig is a lot like Ableton, but has the neat idea of ‘The Grid’- basically a little built in modular synth system. It’s not like VCV, as it’s a bit lower level but it can still be used for Generative Music or doing complex routing, like fading between effects. It also has really easy to use routable modulation, basically letting you drop an LFO, envelope, etc. onto any parameter of a VST. It also has good MPE support, which can be abused to do rhythmic drums as well: ![]() |
https://www.bitwig.com/overview/ |
Audacity | Not a full DAW, but super useful for trimming audio and quick fixes | |
Renoise | ||
Deflemask | ||
Sunvox | ||
FL-Studio | ||
Oscistudio | ||
Ableton Live | ||
Reason | ||
GarageBand | ||
Pro Tools | ||
Marabu | “Marabu is a free and open-source music tracker built from Soundbox.” |
NOTE: this list is far from exhaustive. Instead, I’ve tried to list the main ones and some that I think are particularly cool.
Digital Audio Workstations or ‘DAWs’ come in many flavors, so let’s look at the differences between the above in depth [TODO]
Trackers, vs non liner, vs modular, etc.
How To Ableton Like a Pro (YouTube)
VSTs and other Plugins #
[TODO] Daws usually have built in instruments and effets I Made A Song Using Only Ableton Stock Plugins (YouTube, Composerily)
This is probably where the most bias of any of the lists on this page will show as I obviously can’t list every possible VST. Instead, I’ll list those that I think are particularly good both in terms of value and function.
VSTs are a really weird standard, for one, unlike most standards that are ratified by a collection of involved interests, VST is the child of a single company - Steinberg.
Generally, there are a few things you need to know:
- Some VSTs are distributed as VST2 others as VST3, obviously one is newer than the other. Unfortunately, not all DAWs support VST3 and worse, new applications by new devs have to be VST3 due to Stienberg no longer issuing new licenses. Generally, VST2 will be downloaded as
.dll
files while vst3 will be.vst3
- VST3 does support a few extra features, and tend to perform better
- Some VST3’s can do neat stuff so that if multiple instances are loaded they can communicate together, this is useful for some mastering plugins.
- Some VSTs are 64 bit, some are 32 bit. Not all modern DAWS support running 32bit VSTs
- VSTs can do 1 (or a mix of) three things
- act as a virtual instrument (guitar, synth, etc.)
- act as a virtual effect (delay, reverb, etc.)
- act as a midi effect (arpeggio, quantizer, etc.)
There are some other, not-VST plugin formats you may encounter, namely LV2 and Apple’s Audio Units, as well as the various plugins for particular DAWs, like Reason’s ‘Rack Extensions’ or Ableton Live’s M4L (Max For Live) Devices.
While VST3 does have a linux SDK, most plugins aren’t released for Linux. You may still be able to make it work using a bridging program like Yabridge.
You may also see VSTi or VSTfx, these aren’t anything new, ‘i’ or ‘fx’ just denote if the plugin is an instrument or effects plugin.
Free (But might have better paid version) #
Audio Sources #
Name & Link | Description | Screenshot |
---|---|---|
Ample Percussion Cloudrum | Steel Tongue Drum | |
Alter Ego | Virtual Singer, Text to Speech | |
Dexed | Yamaha DX-7 Emulation | |
Surge Synthesizer | FOSS hybrid synth | |
Daichi Synth 1 | Emulation of Nord Lead 2, but better. You’ll probably want the preset pack | |
Distocore Bazz::Murda | Bass Drum maker, looks like it fell right out of 2004. | |
Kairatune | ||
Lord Of The Springs | Physically modeled synthesis with a bunch of Springs | |
Helm | ||
Vital | Spectral warping wavetable synth (Free and Paid tiers) |
Effects #
Name & Link | ||
---|---|---|
Other #
Name & Link | Description | Screenshot |
---|---|---|
Signalizer VST | An amazing VST Oscilliscope, Vectorscope, and general analysis tool | |
Paid (But might have limited free version) #
No prices are listed below because they can fluctuate so much. VSTs and other music software tends to go on sale a lot, and usually quite good sales at that. You probably shouldn’t pay full price!
Audio Sources #
Name & Link | Description | Screenshot |
---|---|---|
ABL3 | Emulation of the classic TB303. You can buy a Behringer hardware clone for not much more, but this is easier to use imho, and Behringer is a horrible company so please don’t support them. | |
Various from SugarBytes | I really like |
|
Various from Artuira (Go to Software Instruments) | ||
Effects #
Name & Link | Description | Screenshot |
---|---|---|
Other #
Name & Link | Description | Screenshot |
---|---|---|
Kontakt Libraries #
Visualization Software/Tools #
Name & Link | Description | Screenshot/Demo |
---|---|---|
music_visualizer (Github) | Shader viewer / music visualizer for Windows and Linux | Too many variations to easily show, look at the github repo. |
Soundshader (Github) | Uses fancy ‘AutoCorrelation’ - info on the github page | https://soundshader.github.io |
Metagroove (Itch.io) | ||
Signalizer VST | Listed above in Free VSTs, but it’s so good I’m listing it here again. An amazing VST Oscilliscope, Vectorscope, and general analysis tool, looks very good too. Has full screen modes. |
Note that most of the fancy music animations you see on YouTube are probably made in Adobe After Effects, with the exception of some that are done in programs like TouchDesigner or other node-based programming environments. You can read more about these in Design Chapter 6 - Generative Tools
Some people also use hardware such as the Sleepy Circuits ‘Hypno’ or Critter & Guitari ‘Eyesy’ - though both of these platforms are really just running a Raspberry Pi (a lil’ computer) under the hood.
On very rare occasion you may also see some outright analog video synthesis, but this is generally very, very expensive. Just search YouTube for ‘Analog Video Synthesizer’.
I also recomend making your visuals in weirder ways. Here are some videos with visuals I really like:
Music Apps (Android) #
Name & Link | Description | Screenshot/Demo |
---|---|---|
FractalBits | ||
Sunvox | ||
Grainstorm | ||
WaveEditor | ||
Kaossilator | ||
Hexpress | ||
SynprezFM | ||
NodeBeat | ||
OSCSurface | ||
Spectroid |
Max4Live Devices #
These devices only work inside of Ableton Live using Max For Live
Norns Devices #
These ‘plugins’ only work on Monome’s Norns hardware
oooooo - 6x digital tape loops (demo below)