Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Freeware/cheap Drum Synth/Beatbox programs for Windows?
So, this is a great and diverse forum full of musicians who know a lot more about music software than I do, and many of whom come from a background of making music on Windows PC before they started on iOS. I have most of the good drum and synth drum machine apps on iOS, but since I'm endlessly curious about this sort of thing, I wondered if there was free software out there (or affordably priced software) for Windows that would allow me to experiment further without simply buying EVERY app I can get my hands on. My iPad is a little older and also very full. Also, programs like AudioShare (via DropBox) allow desktop projects to be swapped into iOS and vice versa actually quite easily.
An example of this would be something like Caustic or SunVox (which have paid iOS equivalents), but which are entirely free for Windows. But are there other drum/rhythm apps I could discover to find something new on PC? I barely know what a VST is, but I found a few freeware options that should allow me to play them. Standalone programs would be even better. Thanks much!
Comments
Nanostudio has a free desktop version and a paid iOS version. It's certainly a capable app worth owning.
Hi.
Pixitracker: http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/pixitracker/
Ignite was free. I don't know if it's free now. I get it for free buying a M-Audio keyboard. http://www.airmusictech.com/product/ignite
And working with blocks, Magix Music Jam, only Windows 8: http://www.magix.com/int/apps/music-maker-jam/
Mixcraft 6 and Beatcraft are free to use and not much to buy the full versions. Work nicely on XP upwards too.
http://www.acoustica.com/mixcraft/
http://www.acoustica.com/beatcraft/download.htm
More free software:
Hammerhead drum machine: http://www.threechords.com/hammerhead/download.shtml
Hydrogen drum machine: http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/node/21
And if you have patience enough, you can get Rebirth!
http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/
Forgot this! Nodebeat: http://nodebeat.com/
Wow, this is great! Thank so much everyone - keep 'em coming if you have more!
Rebirth (discontinued around 2005) was mentioned above, and I do have that, but the interface is very low res and feels like 1998. Haha. That's basically a straight 303/808/909 machine, too, which we all have plenty of.
I did not know that there was a free NanoStudio on PC - I have the iOS version for $6.99 but don't use it much, as great as Eden synth is.
Alchemy also has a free PC version apparently, and as much as I complain about the file sizes required for it on iOS, that is not a concern on my PC!
http://www.camelaudio.com/AlchemyPlayer.php
(Edit: This may actually be a 4-week demo, with a $200+ cost for the full version afterwards)
Was looking for something in drum synthesis, but open to everything (samples, more traditional drums, etc.). Some of these suggestions look great!
Agree about Rebirth, but you have A LOT of tracks and mods in the museum, most of them compatibles with iOS version.
Still, building the ISO disc is painful.
@StormJH1 said:
This (VST plugin) is free: http://vst4free.com/free_vst.php?plugin=DigiDrum_Pro&id=396
You can play it with Savihost: http://www.hermannseib.com/english/savihost.htm
@Thanks, @fjcblanco - was looking for a good VST host. Pretty intimidating to just Google search for something like that and come up with 15+ years of good/bad/antiquated results. This should be hours of fun.
Great VST's here
http://delamanchavst.wordpress.com/
Thanks, @thinds
Not usual, but sometimes there are some paid VST for free, for a limited time.
@fjcblanco said:
Yes sorry, I haven't looked at the site for a while and it seems to have changed a bit. It was previously all discontinued stuff.
Drumatic3 remains one of the best freeware drum synth:
http://www.e-phonic.com/plugins/drumatic3.php
I ussually check on kvr site for plugins. It has nice tag-filter which helps finding what you are looking for...
Thanks, @Korakios
Maybe check out the free version of mulab. You can load some vsts in it.
Wejaam Designer, is my favourite free drum synth and sample player.
In standalone mode, you get six tracks that can be used to play synth or sample.
It can create patches for Wejaam the free IOS Groove box and in VST mode you can have as many instances as you like.
http://www.wejaam.com/#!wejaam-designer/cvvt
@Multitouch said:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wejaam/id583704382?mt=8
Wow, that looks really intriguing! Free universal download - looks like a $4.99 download for a pro mode and some other IAP's.
Can you really design drum instrument sounds (synth engine?) on PC and then send them over to the app? I will check this out.
Nice find, @Multitouch. Thanks!
Edit: When I push PC download, it shows: "this page is forbidden ". What I'm doing wrong?
So, I have the free version of the App for now. AudioCopy/Paste does seem to work, but I'm a bit confused by the interface for Wejaam. In 2013, they tried to add AudioCopy and AudioBus as paid IAP's, but now those seem to be included features in the free version. In fact, I see sound pack downloads in the shop, but nowhere to download the "Pro" version, so I wonder if that was abandoned.
Not iOS cheap but FLStudio Fruity Edition offers an awful lot of stuff for $99, including a drum synth and life time free updates. One of the few programs I still miss since moving to OSX a few years back.
From the suggestions above, I was having trouble getting the VST hosts to work. But I was in a hurry before work, and one of them required some kind of work around, where you rename the thing to the name of the .dll file you are loading. (Yuck) I'll try some more later.
Ignite I will checkout for sure because it seems to be compatible with the MPK Mini controller I just bought used. Curious to see if there is a latency issue with it running proprietary software, however. I had it going with Caustic 3 and it was a bit too laggy to use (works great on iPad).
Mixcraft and Beatcraft are free trials, but I think I have them for about 7 days and then they cost $50 - $75. I understand some of this software can cost hundreds of dollars, but this is just for fun - so it's not really my goal to have the "best" stuff.
Weejam - the free iOS app is surprisingly cool, but I'm curious to see if I can get the desktop Designer program running. It looks like a pretty neat beatbox with some sound design/synth options to it as well.
http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/ is supposed to work on Windows too. I've never tried it there but it's a pretty feature rich app and it's free.
@syrupcore said:
It does! That was actually the one I got to work. As best I could tell, though, it's just a sample player. It looked nice and easy to program, but functionally not much different than DM-1, iMPC Pro, EasyBeats 3, or even Caustic BeatBox. The website did seem to have a nice pile of content though.
Big props to @fjcblanco for directing me towards "Ignite" - I was able to download it for free using the serial number on my Akai MPK Mini (which I purchased used). So that's a MIDI controller and a full music suite with all kinds of instrument samples for $40. Not half bad!
Ignite is basically a glorified instrument app, but in many ways it looks and feels like a DAW. You can arrange parts and very easily drag them around like a sketchpad. I heard drum, bass, and keyboard samples that sounded terrific. Haven't tried my controller yet, but the app has piano rolls for everything - it's kind of like Caustic meets SampleTank. Very impressive program.
Yes, Ignite is very interesting in how tracks can be laid out, and there are some great sounds there too.
I forgot this one was for free (not a DM, just a VST):
https://tone2.com/html/firebird vsti vst synthesizer plugin.html
Thanks @fjcblanco. I'm having so much trouble getting VST's to actually work with these hosts. I downloaded the ASIO4All driver and then several free VST instrument hosts that should have worked (Podium Free, Psycle, DarkWave, etc.) There are also hosts that aren't DAW's like SAVIHost and miniHost. Several of them just give errors when I try to load the .dll files, and miniHost loads them but doesn't produce sound. I'm a bit frustrated right now! There's a lot of cool VST stuff for free but I haven't been able to figure it out.
@StormJH1 You could check Reaper for hosting vst's
http://www.reaper.fm/download.php
Not freeware but the demo is fully working and never expires. Very light and stable DAW....
New one that is getting good reviews.
http://hintonandfairchild.co.uk/bigroomkix-synth/
Thanks, I will check both those out!