T Mango
Jul 01st, 2023GarageBand is an extremely capable and versatile digital audio workstation (DAW) and it’s absolutely free! But you can only use GarageBand on Apple platforms (i.e., Mac or iOS).
So, what should you do if you’re a Windows user?
Fortunately, there are great GarageBand alternatives for Windows users that give you as much, if not more, functionality as GarageBand. And best of all, they’re also absolutely free!
In this post, we’ll take you through the best free GarageBand alternatives for Windows and highlight their features, their pros and cons, and the things to consider before using them.
Simply put, you can’t use GarageBand on Windows.
That said, there are ways to get around this and use GarageBand on Windows PCs. They usually involve using virtual machines (or other workarounds) and can be technically challenging. They won’t match the full experience of native Apple operating systems, however, and may not always be stable.
Virtual machines allow you to install a virtual copy of the Mac operating system on your PC. You can run Mac software packages, including GarageBand, once you’ve installed a virtual machine.
If you’d like to try a virtual machine, here’s a guide on how to install MacOS (Big Sur) in VirtualBox on Windows. Although this is a viable way to run GarageBand on your PC, it does come with some challenges and uses a lot of computing resources—make sure you have plenty of RAM (memory) and CPU power if you want to try this!
A better approach—and what we recommend—is to use one of the following free GarageBand alternatives on your Windows PC.
If you’re using free digital audio workstations (DAWs), be aware of what they’re missing compared with their paid counterparts. They may have track count limits, for instance, or other restrictions.
Features to look for when choosing a DAW include:
Free DAWs tend to have fewer features than paid DAWs, so check what’s available to cover your needs.
The following free DAWs may not have all the features of paid DAWs but they’re the best GarageBand alternatives for Windows users:
Ableton Live Lite is the free version of the popular Ableton Live suite of DAWs. Its approach to music production is different from most other DAWs as it favors live performance and production, but it offers many traditional features as well.
Ableton’s interface offers two views: Session View and Arrangement View. These allow users to approach music production in different ways, using a variety of software instruments and effects and a full suite of audio and MIDI editing tools. There’s also support for VST and AU plug-ins.
Session View gives you a non-linear approach to music production, i.e., you can experiment with musical ideas regardless of where your song starts or finishes. Arrangement View, on the other hand, gives you a more traditional linear production approach.
Ableton offers up to 8 audio and MIDI tracks—a base level for many audio production tasks but limiting for larger projects.
Since Live Lite’s version 11, there’s also support for MIDI Polyphonic Expression. This gives you control over pitch bends, slides, and pressures for individual notes in a chord, allowing more subtle variations of expression.
Pro Tools Intro is the latest edition to the Avid suite of DAWs and was introduced after Avid discontinued their previous free entry-level DAW—Pro Tools First—in late 2021.
Intro gives you an entry into the Pro Tool’s suite of DAWs, considered an industry standard and acclaimed for their reliability and scalability. Intro also offers several improvements over First, including:
While Intro is a free standalone application, after its 2022.9 update it’s automatically installed with any Pro Tools installation. This gives you continued use of Intro even if your Pro Tools subscription or trial expires.
You can also send sessions created in Intro to others using paid versions of Pro Tools and it will work seamlessly.
CakeWalk by BandLab (previously as known as SONAR) is a full-featured DAW that’s been free since BandLab took over in 2018. With a history of over three decades in various forms, CakeWalk offers many of the features you’d expect in paid DAWs, including:
CakeWalk offers an expandable library of effects modules called ProChannel giving you a highly capable selection, including:
A unique feature of CakeWalk is its Quick Grouping facility—by holding down the CTRL key and moving a control, other instances of the control will move as well. This helps you adjust settings across two or more channels more consistently and easily.
Waveform Free by Tracktion is a stripped-down version of Waveform’s flagship paid DAW (Waveform Pro) with no time limits or restrictions on:
Waveform Free is a powerful free DAW that offers a range of professional-grade features and provides an all-in-one solution for recording, mixing, editing, and MIDI sequencing.
The GUI features a browser that lets you set tags, favorites, and smart lists.
There are several audio effects plug-ins including a compressor, limiter, delay, distortion, reverb, phaser, and choices of EQ. There are also utility plug-ins such as a spectrum analyzer and a mono conversion tool. Plug-in racks are available for complex effects processing and sound design.
Waveform Free ships with a sampler, a (micro) drum sampler, a digital synth (4OSC), and a loop rompler. An included pattern generator lets you easily generate chords, baselines, arpeggios, and melodies with a few clicks.
It’s also easy to add pro-level expansion packs to Waveform Free by purchasing the modules that you need, e.g., the Recording Engineer Expansion pack for pro-grade recording and mixing tools or the MIDI Producer Expansion pack for additional instruments and a pro-level full MIDI editing suite.
Magix Music Maker is a DAW aimed at beginners to music production and has a simple and easy-to-use design. It comes in three versions: free, Plus, and Premium. Music Maker (free) contains a limited set of the features you’ll find in the Plus or Premium versions.
Music Maker uses a drag-and-drop interface for easy, fast, and flexible music making. Magix claims that you can get great results faster than any other DAW due to its simplicity.
Music Maker includes:
Music Maker is a relatively simple DAW, but its ease of use means that it’s versatile as a creative tool even for experienced music producers—you can quickly translate musical ideas into simple arrangements.
Audacity is a versatile, open-source, cross-platform DAW. Being open source, it undergoes constant development by a community of volunteers and users.
Audacity offers a range of features that you’d normally find in commercial DAWs. It works with audio data of up to 32-bit/384 kHz and has capabilities for audio recording, editing, mixing, and mastering.
Audacity’s other capabilities include:
Despite its rich feature set, Audacity is fairly easy to use and enjoys a long-standing community support group. Audacity was first introduced in 1999.
MPC Beats by Akai is a beginner-friendly DAW that’s primarily designed for beat making but also has a full range of editing tools. Beats uses the Akai workflow that’s been a feature of the MPC series of products since the 1980s.
The interface has a 4×4 grid for triggering drum samples (i.e., 16 pads), a piano roll, and an edit window. There’s also a sample library browser giving you access to over 2 GB of samples from the popular MPC Expansion Pack.
There are three plug-in instruments—Bassline, Tubesynth, and Electric—each with an array of sound-shaping options. There’s also support for external VST or AU instruments and effects plug-ins. Beats pairs well with a range of MIDI controllers and in particular with Akai’s MIDI or pad controllers.
A unique feature of Beats is that you can use it as a plug-in itself—plug it into your favorite DAW and access all of MPC’s functionality at your fingertips.
Image Line’s FL Studio isn’t a free DAW—it’s a full-featured paid DAW—but you can access it on a free trial without any time limits, so it’s worth a mention. There are some important restrictions, however, that you should be aware of when you use FL Studio in this way:
Being a paid DAW, FL Studio has a comprehensive feature set and extensive capabilities, including:
FL Studio is well-suited for producing electronic music, such as BDM or beats. Its origins go back to 1998 when it was first introduced as a MIDI step-sequencer.
While not directly comparable to the other free DAWs we’ve discussed, FL Studio is worth considering if you can work within the restrictions applying to the (free) trial version.
With the list of capable free DAWs that we’ve considered, you may be ready to jump straight into one of these amazing music creation tools.
But although they’re free, each DAW takes time and effort to learn and to integrate into your workflow, i.e., it’s a significant investment in non-monetary terms. So, it’s worth thinking through the following considerations before you get started:
GarageBand is a versatile and extremely capable DAW that’s absolutely free, but it only works with Mac or iOS platforms. If you’re a Windows user, you’ll need to deploy a virtual machine or find alternative DAWs.
In this post, we’ve listed the best free GarageBand alternatives for you to create music on Windows.
Although free, the DAWs we’ve considered are extremely capable and make it easy to produce studio-quality audio, whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out in the music industry.
