List of music software

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This is a list of software for creating, performing, learning, analyzing, researching, broadcasting and editing music. This article only includes software, not services.

Contents

For streaming services such as iHeartRadio, Pandora, Prime Music, and Spotify, see Comparison of on-demand streaming music services.

For storage, uploading, downloading and streaming of music via the cloud, see Comparison of online music lockers.

This list does not include discontinued historic or legacy software, with the exception of trackers that are still supported. [1] [2]

If a program fits several categories, such as a comprehensive digital audio workstation or a foundation programming language (e.g. Pure Data), listing is limited to its top three categories.

Types of music software

CD ripping software

Choir and learn-to-sing software

This section includes both choir software and learn-to-sing software. For music learning software, see music education software.

DJ software

Digital audio workstation (DAW) software

Computer music software

Internet, RSS, broadcast music software

This section only includes software, not services. For services programs like Spotify, Pandora, Prime Music, etc. see Comparison of on-demand streaming music services. Likewise, list includes music RSS apps, widgets and software, but for a list of actual feeds, see Comparison of feed aggregators. For music broadcast software lists in the cloud, see Content delivery network and Comparison of online music lockers.

Lyrics and vocals

Audio plug-ins

Music analysis software

Music circuit software

Music composing software

Music conversion software

Music education software

Music gaming software

Music mathematics software

Music notation software

Music player software

Music research software

Music technology, synthesis and o/s software

Music visualization software

Orchestration software

Drums and percussion

Guitar

Piano

Pipe organ

  • Hauptwerk produces audio in response to MIDI signal from attached keyboard or from a MIDI sequencer [5]

Automatic composition software

Samplers and sequencers

Soundtrack creation software

Trackers

Historical tracker software:

NameLatest updateLicense OS  versions File format  support VST
support		 ASIO
output
Windows OS X Linux MID MOD XM IT S3M
Renoise 31 July 2023 Proprietary YesYesYesLoadLoadLoadLoadNoYesYes
OpenMPT 22 September 2024 BSD YesYes-WineYes-WineYesYesYesYesYesYesYes
SoundTracker 1 October 2023GPLNoNoYesNoYesYesNoNoNoNo
MilkyTracker 5 July 2023GPLYesYesYesNoYesYesLoadLoadNoYes
Buzztrax 30 December 2015 LGPL YesYesYesLoadLoadLoadLoadNoYesYes

Virtual Studio Technology hosting software

Virtual synthesizer and studio software

Wave editors

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music tracker</span> Type of software for creating music

A music tracker is a type of music sequencer software for creating music. The music is represented as discrete musical notes positioned in several channels at chronological positions on a vertical timeline. A music tracker's user interface is traditionally number based. Notes, parameter changes, effects and other commands are entered with the keyboard into a grid of fixed time slots as codes consisting of letters, numbers and hexadecimal digits. Separate patterns have independent timelines; a complete song consists of a master list of repeated patterns.

Cakewalk, Inc. is a former music production software company based in Boston, Massachusetts and currently a brand of Singaporean music company BandLab Technologies. The company's best known product was their professional-level digital audio workstation (DAW) software, SONAR. SONAR integrated multi-track recording and editing of digital audio and MIDI. The company also offered a full range of music software products, including Pyro Audio Creator—a digital music management program, and Dimension Pro—a virtual instrument.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FL Studio</span> Digital audio workstation

FL Studio is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by the Belgian company Image-Line. It features a graphical user interface with a pattern-based music sequencer. It is available in four different editions for Microsoft Windows and macOS.

Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH is a German musical software and hardware company based in Hamburg. It develops software for writing, recording, arranging and editing music, most notably Cubase, Nuendo, and Dorico. It also designs audio and MIDI hardware interfaces, controllers, and iOS/Android music apps including Cubasis. Steinberg created several industry standard music technologies including the Virtual Studio Technology (VST) format for plug-ins and the ASIO protocol. Steinberg has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha since 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pro Tools</span> Digital audio workstation

Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture and, more generally, sound recording, editing, and mastering processes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital audio workstation</span> Electronic device or application software used for recording, editing and producing audio files

A digital audio workstation is an electronic device or application software used for recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software program on a laptop, to an integrated stand-alone unit, all the way to a highly complex configuration of numerous components controlled by a central computer. Regardless of configuration, modern DAWs have a central interface that allows the user to alter and mix multiple recordings and tracks into a final produced piece.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Audio editing software</span> Computer system for manipulating audio

Audio editing software is any software or computer program which allows editing and generating audio data. Audio editing software can be implemented completely or partly as a library, as a computer application, as a web application, or as a loadable kernel module. Wave editors are digital audio editors. There are many sources of software available to perform this function. Most can edit music, apply effects and filters, and adjust stereo channels.

Reaktor is a graphical modular software music studio developed by Native Instruments (NI). It allows musicians and sound specialists to design and build their own instruments, samplers, effects and sound design tools. It is supplied with many ready-to-use instruments and effects. In addition, free instruments can be downloaded from the User Library. All of Reaktor's instruments can be freely examined, customized, or taken apart, encouraging reverse engineering. The free, limited version called Reaktor Player allows musicians to play NI-released Reaktor instruments, but not edit or reverse-engineer them.

ReWire is a software protocol, jointly developed by Propellerhead and Steinberg, allowing remote control and data transfer among digital audio editing and related software. Originally appearing in the ReBirth software synthesizer in 1998, the protocol has since evolved into an industry standard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Logic Pro</span> Digital audio workstation

Logic Pro is a proprietary digital audio workstation (DAW) and MIDI sequencer software application for the macOS platform developed by Apple Inc. It was originally created in the early 1990s as Notator Logic, or Logic, by German software developer C-Lab which later went by Emagic. Apple acquired Emagic in 2002 and renamed Logic to Logic Pro. It was the second most popular DAW – after Ableton Live – according to a survey conducted in 2015.

Synapse Audio Software is a software company located in Germany. Previously known as Sonic Syndicate and headed by Richard Hoffmann, they develop music production software for the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows platforms. They started developing software in November 1998 as Sonic Syndicate and changed their name to Synapse Audio with the release of Orion Platinum in 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ubuntu Studio</span> Derivative of the Ubuntu operating system

Ubuntu Studio is a recognized flavor of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, which is geared to general multimedia production. The original version, based on Ubuntu 7.04, was released on 10 May 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mixcraft</span>

Mixcraft is a digital audio workstation for Windows, developed by Acoustica since its first release in April 2004. It is as a digital audio workstation, MIDI sequencer, virtual instrument host, non-linear video arranger, and music loop recording program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Logic Studio</span> 2007–2011 professional music production suite by Apple

Logic Studio is a discontinued professional music production suite by Apple Inc. The first version of Logic Studio was unveiled on September 12, 2007. It claims to be the largest collection of modeled instruments, sampler instruments, effect plug-ins, and audio loops ever put in a single application.

The stutter edit, or stutter effect, is the rhythmic repetition of small fragments of audio, occurring as the common 16th note repetition, but also as 64th notes and beyond, with layers of digital signal processing operations in a rhythmic fashion based on the overall length of the host tempo. The Stutter Edit audio software VST plug-in implements forms of granular synthesis, sample retrigger, and various effects to create a certain audible manipulation of the sound run through it, in which fragments of audio are repeated in rhythmic intervals. The plug-in allows musicians to manipulate audio in real time, slicing audio into small fragments and sequences the pieces into rhythmic effects, recreating techniques that formerly took hours to do in the studio. Electronic musician Brian Transeau is widely recognized for pioneering the stutter edit as a musical technique; he developed, coined the term, and holds multiple patents for the Stutter Edit software plug-in.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magix Samplitude</span> Digital audio workstation

MAGIX Samplitude/ Sequoia is a computer program made by MAGIX for recording, editing, mixing, mastering and outputting audio. The first version was released in 1992 for the Amiga and three years later for Microsoft Windows. The latest versions of the software are Samplitude Pro X5, Samplitude Pro X8 Suite and Sequoia 17. Samplitude is an example of a digital audio workstation (DAW).

This article deals with music software created for the Amiga line of computers and covers the AmigaOS operating system and its derivates AROS and MorphOS and is a split of main article Amiga software. See also related articles Amiga productivity software, Amiga programming languages, Amiga Internet and communications software and Amiga support and maintenance software for other information regarding software that run on Amiga.

Soundtrap is a freemium online cross-platform digital audio workstation (DAW) for browsers that allows users to create music or podcasts. The DAW is operated by Soundtrap AB, which was bought by Spotify in November 2017. Soundtrap is offered in 15 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, and Swedish, with the latter four being added in 2017.

References

  1. ↑ "Short History of Computer Music". UCSC.edu. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  2. ↑ Twells, John. "The 14 pieces of software that shaped modern music". Fact Mag. Archived from the original on Apr 23, 2014. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  3. ↑ "Music & Math" . Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  4. ↑ Intelligence, new visions of artificial intelligence in practice. Vol. 11. Association for Computing Machinery. 2000.
  5. ↑ Thomas Wichmann, The Hauptwerk Computer Program, Review in The American Organist , July 2004
  6. ↑ "VST plug-ins". Audacity Wiki.
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