MusicRadar

Quality freeware for Mac is now plentiful

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The quality of modern freeware for making music often rivals that of commercial products - but there is a preconception that the best music-making freeware is PC only.

With this in mind, we've picked out the very best music freeware for Mac, and compiled the handy list below. It's divided into the loose categories of synths, effects, real instruments, sequencers, samplers and utilities/other.

Synths

SonicBirth
Format: VST, AU
SonicBirth is a modular plug-in development environment similar to SynthEdit and SynthMaker. The aforementioned programs enable users to cobble together their own instrument and effect VST plug-ins from the included modules, but are sadly PC-only. SonicBirth is a Mac equivalent.

Above: SonicBirth is necessarily deep and complicated, but it still looks cool

Fxpansion Orca
Format: VST, AU, RTAS
This experimental analogue synth may look odd, be monophonic and only feature one oscillator and filter, but believe us when we say this thing is a leviathan. Staggeringly realistic analogue basses, all squelch and squeal, are a speciality, as are gargantuan unison leads.

Audjoo Helix
Format: VST
Every so often we stumble across a freeware synth of such quality that it gives us reason to re-evaluate exactly how much we should be paying for commercial offerings. Audjoo Helix is that kind of instrument. It's a spectral morphing four-oscillator synth – it sounds amazing and it's rammed with advanced features, too.

Togu TAL-Bassline
Format: VST, AU
Togu's TAL-Bassline is a clone of Roland's SH-101, one of the biggest-selling monosynths of all time. It's a nearly pixel perfect recreation of the SH-101's signal-path, although it omits the original's simplistic sequencer. The TAL-Bassline doesn't sound exactly like the real thing, but it pleases in precisely the same way.

Effects

Luxonix LFX-1310
Format: VST, AU
Luxonix's LFX-1310 multi-effects processor takes its cue from the multi-effects modules of old. It offers a trio of slots into which you can insert any one of 24 effect algorithms. Effects include reverb, delay, chorus, tremolo, distortion, auto-wah, EQ, compression and more and they sound good across the board. It's also incredibly light on your CPU.

Above (click to enlarge): The LFX-1310 recalls classic rack multi-effects units