If you’re looking at getting into home studio recording or maybe you just want to change up your music production software a bit. Here we are going to look at five of the free beat making software options for music production on Windows 10 in 2021. There are many premium DAW software but if you don’t want to spend any money right now then these free DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software for Windows will help.
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5 Best Free Beat Making Software DAW 2021
Cakewalk by Bandlab
The first up on the list of free beat making software is probably the most complete free DAW you can get and this one is Cakewalk by Bandlab. There’s a good reason why this one is very popular. It used to be a paid for premium digital audio workstation before it became a free DAW it was known as Sonar Platinum. It doesn’t have any limitations as you can have unlimited audio, MIDI instruments, and auxiliary tracks in all of your projects. You also get some decent effects plugins included with free beat making software along with an interesting channel strip that has some cool tape emulation and saturation effects.
Home studio guitar players may like the included guitar amp simulator called th3. You also get some free virtual instruments with Cakewalk, such as a bass guitar instrument, a drum kit, a piano, and a string instrument. They all have some decent presets that cover a variety of styles of music. Cakewalk by Bandlab gives you everything you need to start making beats and doing music production inside the box. You are required to download the Bandlab assistant software in order to install Cakewalk. But that’s a very small price to pay for the audio production software that you’re getting for free.
Tracktion T7
The next on the list of top free beat making software for Windows is Tracktion T7. This is another program that was once paid for digital audio workstation and Tracktion released it for free in late 2018. You can have unlimited tracks including MIDI and audio. You don’t get as many free plugins with Tracktion T7 but the ones that it does come with, are fairly decent. You will want to download third-party plugins especially if you’ll be using virtual instruments and there are a ton of free plugins out there so that’s not really a huge deal breaker with this free DAW.
One of the things that you may either love or hate is the user interface and layout of Tracktion T7. Everything is laid out on one screen. There isn’t a separate screen for the mixer or piano roll or anything like that. You can access it all from the main page. Once you will use this free beat making software, you will find that the interface doesn’t get in the way of making music.
Reaper
The next on the list of best free beat making software or DAW is Reaper. This DAW has been making its way into more and more studios all the time. It gives you the traditional workflow that some musicians really like. If you’ve worked with Pro Tools or like the looks of Pro Tools, Reaper is very similar but you can customize it quite a bit more. You get a large variety of effects but no instruments. However, you can find free instrument plugins all over the internet so that’s not really a huge negative.
Reaper is a great choice for bands and home studio owners that want a budget-friendly but very powerful digital audio workstation but of course solo musicians and beat creators can get great results with this too. This free DAW for Windows will give you professional audio recording and editing and it is pretty budget-friendly. A license is just $60 for an individual or just over $200 for commercial use. You can actually download the Reaper demo which is completely unlocked and use it for 60 days.
LMMS
LMMS is a lot like FL Studio. It’s very easy to start making music in this free beat making DAW software as long as you don’t plan on recording instruments too much. You just want to use virtual instruments for your music production as LMMS does not allow you to record audio into it. You can record audio in another program and bring it into LMMS so you’re not completely limited to virtual instruments. This is an open-source digital audio workstation that is completely driven by its community.
It is being speculated that as this free DAW software continues to grow and update, they may be adding audio recording in the very near future. LMMS does come with some instruments and effects plugins but you’ll want to add third-party plugins to give you more variety. You can use your computer keyboard to control instruments if you don’t have a MIDI keyboard yet and of course, you can use a MIDI controller if you do have one. You also have the other option of drawing your entire MIDI in on the piano roll.
Soundbridge
The next free digital audio workstation on the list is Soundbridge. This free beating software focuses on simplicity. They wanted to create a DAW that is full-featured and easy to use. The channel strip has many presets and you can also add third-party plugins for more variety. One of the biggest highlights is the free Ritmix drum plugin that you get with Soundbridge. This is probably the best free drum machine plug-in out there. You get the MPC style pads that you can load your sounds into and edit however you like plus, you can also use it as a sequencer. So if you’re looking for that MPC style plug-in to make your beats or program drums, then Soundbridge and the Ritmix is a must-download for you.
Conclusion
There are many other similar DAW software for Windows and Mac but these are some of the best you will need. You may download these free music software and can decide which one suits you the best. If any free beat making software has a free demo for a limited period and you love it then you can go for the full licensed version as well.
