The independent music producer depends on a lot of free and open source music programs; here are some.

Many music composers including the likes of Nucleya often gave in to independent and openly available softwares available in the internet like Frooty Loops. There was a time when, learning instruments meant investing thousands and practicing hours before finally being able to clinch in a reputation in the highly competitive music industry. Thanks to the talented bunch of coders around the world, who have given birth to these remarkable freewares.  Not only are these softwares gaining momentum in terms of use, but also, the world is transitioning fast towards distributing the end content on a professional level. In fact, developers have gone a step further to facilitate zero bottlenecking by making open source software which means it is virtually possible to do anything with the software at hand, one can skew and tax his creativity to a level where the technical juice is churned to the core and blended with the goodness of technical supports and technical versatility.

It would however, be awesome to have a head start with the right assortments of equipments before you dive into the softwares. So keep a MIDI keyboard, studio speakers, microphones and if possible maybe a MIDI drum handy just in case.

So add these weapons to your arsenal now and you could well be shouting loud your name as the next rockstar of the city. There are a  host of programs waiting to help you out:

AUDACITY

Audacity is one of the most popular and widely used software in the indie music and movie scene. Not only it has a surprisingly easy to use interface but also, making samplings and exporting them in various formats like WAV, AIFF, MP3 is breezingly refreshing. Audacity is easily available to download and use, thus democratizing the way how music has been stone walled through the complicated mathematics of samplings and bit rates.

DRUMBOX

Drumbox could be your high school crush and if fiddled well, it could well be the reason to fall in love with your hidden talents. Why wait, indulge and see already. This ware lets you assort various patterns into rhythms that can well sell off itself as originally composed tracks. Low pass, high pass filters, enveloppe ADSR powered controllers and VCO generators. It works cross platform across Windows, Mac and Linux and makes analog synth emulation ultra fast

HYDROGEN

For a bit more advanced user it becomes extremely important to understand and take full control of the entire musical graph of the composition. Hydrogen on the surface level is an out and out monster size drum machine packed in a computer program. One can actually layer both samples and patterns. It has a host of function open to its user, that can tweak and twist the right way of composing and experimenting the way an user would push it to. Add to that, the tacky zing of humanisations and swing options.

MIXXX

If DJing is your thing and you would compromise for anything but professional quality, you are in game for a tryst with Mixxx. The fun part about Mixxx is that it is available from Apple app store and boasts also of being the first open source software to be available widely from Apple store. DJing taxes the creative juices to another level altogether and you would want absolutely no snags whatsoever. Mixxx is super fast. Add to that the spicy mix of a powerful mixing engine and MIDI controller support. Mixxx welcomes most formats with open hands like WAV, MP3, FLAC, and OGG VORBIS to name a few, so what else can you ask for.

SPEK

This software uses a spectogram to analyze music. Sounds nerdily great, well it is. Its FFmpeg libraries boast of a large volume of lossy and losless audio file formats. Furthermore it uses multiple threads to fasten analysis. Users can save the spectrogram result as an image once the test has been taken. SPEK has well incorporated audio signal parameters. SPEK is translatable into 19 languages. It thrives on Windows and Mac OS X etcs.

SONIC BIRTH

Though these softwares make way for lot of innovations and wild experimentations it necessarily limits the extended use of the music across platforms. For this there are advanced softwares like the Sonic Birth. This is a software based on Mac OS X. SONIC BIRTH gives the freedom of exporting in VST or Audio Units plugins. Thus the user with additive and subtractive mixes of modules can give birth to awesome electronic synthesizers and audio effects. Sonic Birth is not the usual go getters lucky charm but it is of a certain charisma that is for the scholastic musician to tap in and explore.

MusE

MusE is largely a Linux based program. MusE takes the average recording and sampling to a more streamlined workflow. Graphical editing, importing several files, toggling along with several monos and streos and toying with the possibilities of realtime recordings. MusE is fully action packed but is pretty low profile at the surface. It digs in nicely plugins like the DSSI, LADSPA and VST.

ARDOUR

The teenager crush on automation of sounds, jolts to another level with more apps like ARDOUR, which compete to the level of softwares like Nuendo, ProTools and this software clearly has the potential of beating analog and digital tape systems. It gives more room and power for blazing fast and error free Anywhere-to-Anywhere signal routing. It has a fully functioning  MIDI multi track recording and editing facilities, coupled with Transport Synchronization and Control Surfaces. With Full Sample Accurate Automation the software packs a punch like no other in the industry.

MuLAB

This offers  power packed performances that juices out enough of creativity in the simplest looking app environment. MuLAB boasts of high functioning super-fat oscillators with 300 selected waveforms. It has a compelling multi core CPU support and unmatched and uncompromised sound engines.The best part of MuLAB is that it lets you easily automate and toy with any parameter in the modular tree structure. MuLab is indeed your little workstation functioning with equal repute in both Mac and Windows.

SUPER COLLIDOR

As the name suggests, this is one amongst the ultra performer beasts of today’s musical scene. It has been active since 1996. It is more of programming language and it focuses largely on the aspects of the algorithmic compositions rather than the simplified tweaking here and there. So to master this monumental feat one has to go up the ladder of a lot of researches and seminars and workshops which are actually conducted to facilitate more of  creative pursuits this. software.

GARAGEBAND

Oh, how can be GB missed out from this list. Garageband is again one of the most easy to use and popular music creation software which has been used in the television and digital video making industry all alike.

One can create great compositions with proper uses of virtual Drummers, Flex times and multi take facilities. The best part about Garageband is that it is future proof, the gesture controls on this software gives one the opportunity to control and use the software from their remote devices like the iPad.