High-quality audio equipment can really hollow out your pockets. It makes sense, then, that musicians, engineers, and producers of all skill levels constantly seek ways to save a buck here or there. Fortunately, many modern DAWs feature hundreds of built-in plugins and sounds that can be used to your heart’s content at no extra charge. Still, while most of these tools function well and exhibit versatility, you might find yourself wanting more. The good news is that there is no shortage of unique, well-designed, Mac free plugins available for download this very instant.
The only downside to this renaissance of digital audio software is that there’s simply too much to comb through all by yourself. The number of brilliant coders and designers grows every day, and along with it vast swaths of new Mac free plugins and other hardware. But don’t get too overwhelmed. We’re here to make it easy for you by laying out 25 of the best Mac free plugins out there right now. We can’t name them all, of course, but this list has something for everyone, so take a good look!
EQ Mac free plugins
Getting those frequencies just right presents one of the greatest challenges for any producer. Whether you’re mixing or mastering, EQ plays a major role. These Mac free plugins make mixing with EQ a bit easier.
Audio Units, VST and VST3 Plugins for macOS. The Audio Units (.component), VST (.vst) and VST3 (.vst3) formats are distributed via Internet in an Apple Disk Image (.dmg) or ZIP (.zip) files, c ompatible with macOS Sierra, macOS High Sierra, macOS Mojave, macOS Catalina, macOS Big Sur, macOS Monterey.
Super Destroy FX is a collection of Audio Units and VST plugins by Sophia and Tom 7. These plugins are free for you and your friends to use. You can use them for whatever you like, but we'd appreciate it if you: tell us if you use them in a song that you release. Let others know where they can find this website. Add an Audio Units instrument plug-in to a software instrument track. In GarageBand on Mac, in the Plug-ins area of the Smart Controls pane, click the Instrument slot, choose either AU Generators or AU Instruments, then choose a plug-in from the submenu. The plug-in window opens, showing the plug-in’s controls.
HOFA 4U + DynamicTiltEQ
You won’t find another free tilt EQ plugin out there right now. This works out because the DynamicTiltEQ does the job well. This sleek equalizer makes the process enjoyable. A single control allows you to visually EQ in real time by placing a single point and rotating a straight line on its axis to filter out certain frequencies. The line can also be curved tangentially on either side of the point, allowing for more nuanced EQ control. As the name suggests, this tool also features dynamic EQ, meaning it can add compressed high or low frequencies. Overall, this tool makes EQing easy to grasp and fun to perform.
Code Red by Shattered Glass Audio
For a great, free 60s EQ emulation, check out Code Red. This EQ mimics the classic Abbey Road Studios REDD console used by The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and countless other legends. Unlike the original version, Code Red also adds control for the middle frequencies. This plugin sounds great, looks cool, and works wonders.
TDR VOS SlickEQ
Unsurprisingly, the SlickEQ by Tokyo Dawn Records is indeed pretty slick, and great for both mixing and mastering. This free EQ plugin provides smooth transitions with minimal phase interference. It even allows for five output stages: Linear, Silky, Mellow, Deep, or Toasted. These settings slightly change the harmonic and dynamic responses. You’ll also find four different EQ models: American, British, German, and Soviet. For a free EQ, this one boasts several features.
Voxengo Marvel GEQ
Marvel Graphic Equalizer by Voxengo is particularly useful for linear phase EQ. This tool supports all sample rates, allows for freehand drawing, and compensates for latency. This one is worth a download for its level of control and ease of use.
Audio Units Mac Free Online
Compression
Anyone who’s serious about mixing knows the importance of proper compression. This tool helps regulate dynamic range and maintain consistency between mix elements. Some brilliant designers have been gracious enough to share their digital compressors online at no charge. Take a look at these Compressor Mac free plugins.
TDR Kotelnikov
Here’s a compressor with an elegant, intuitive interface and the ability to remarkably alter the dynamic range of a song. As an added perk, the TDR Kotelnikov doesn’t aim to emulate any pre-existing compression hardware. Rather, it’s been built from the ground up as an original entity. With plenty of control, this free compressor competes with hardware compressors on the market.
MJUCjr by Klanghelm
Airing more on the simple side, the MJUCjr only features two knobs (compress and make-up) and a three-tiered switch at the bottom (slow, fast, and auto). Simplicity aside, this compressor works well, and its central display accurately represents an analog compressor’s output meter.
Xfer Records OTT
This multi-band compressor has a unique layout and is optimized for electronic genres. The first knob on the plugin, “depth” controls how deep you want the compression effect to go. The “time” knob controls attack/release time. Standard input and output gain options are here as well. Xfer Records OTT also includes upward and downward ratio knobs at the bottom, controlling the directionality of the compression.
GMulti by GVST
Another multi-band compressor, the GMulti offers three separate bands. Each band has its own knobs for threshold, ratio, attack, and release, as well as gain reduction. There is also an overall mix knob that controls the combined wet and dry signals. This tool allows you to maintain the dynamics of the original dry signal while reaping the benefits of compression, sort of like with parallel compression. One caveat here for Mac users: the Mac version of this plugin is still in beta.
Reverb
Reverb is that subtle effect that can make a song feel much bigger than before. While Logic Pro X features reverb controls, it never hurts to explore other options for added versatility and different types of reverb. Here are some Mac free plugins for all your reverb needs.
Ambience by Magnus
You can’t ask for much more than a fully-featured reverb plugin that costs nothing to download. Ambience holds its own against some of the best paid-for reverb plugins, all while showing off an elegant display. Unfortunately, this presentation gets lost with Mac hardware, but all of the functionality of Ambience remains. This functionality includes gating, decay (with a “hold” feature), shape, EQ, and damping. The wetness or dryness of the signal can also be tweaked in small increments. If you’re looking for a great free reverb plug-in, this fits the bill.
TAL Reverb II
This simple reverb plugin doesn’t overwhelm the senses with too many knobs, numbers, or jargon. The TAL Reverb II still gives you plenty to work with, however. Six EQ knobs line the left of the interface. In the center lie three more knobs, one for room size, pre-delay, and stereo width. Then on the very right, you’ll find the wet and dry signal faders.
Acon Digital Reverb Solo
If the TAL Reverb II is simple, then the Acon Digital Reverb Solo is downright minimalist. With just one knob and one slider, the Reverb Solo makes adding space to your track fiendishly easy. The central knob controls how small and bright or large and dark the sound will be, while the slider at the bottom dictates how dry or wet the signal is. No numbers, no specific frequencies–this plugin is all about ease of use and feel. If you rely less on technical details and more on the way a track sounds, this one’s for you.
Voxengo Oldskoolverb
As its name suggests, this free reverb plugin from Voxengo offers a more classic reverb sound. Oldskoolverb features several parameters, making it as versatile as other high-end reverbs. This reverb is optimized for gentle attack, meaning it works best with vocals, piano, etc. For a classic reverb sound with the ability to achieve plate, room, and hall reverbs, you can’t do much better than this.
Delay
There are so many types of delay out there. The best delay plugins can achieve multiple delay types with relative ease. Lucky for you, we rounded up a few of the best Mac free plugins. Don’t delay!
Voxengo Sound Delay
Voxengo not only makes a great reverb, their delay leaves an impression, too. The free Sound Delay plugin allows for precision control (to the millisecond), sample delay, A/B comparison, mid/side channel processing, stereo and multi-channel processing, preset control, a maximum of three seconds of delay, and more. Due to its precision control, it’s fairly easy to achieve a chorus effect with the proper parameter setup as well.
Valhalla FreqEcho
On the surface, this delay doesn’t look as versatile as the Sound Delay, but it does offer some unique qualities that make it worthwhile. In particular, the Valhalla FreqEcho can do wonders with its feedback knob. When cranked, the knob allows audio to feedback into itself, creating an infinite, ever-building signal. This signal can be manipulated in real time, resulting in some trance-like, perhaps nightmarish loops. The plugin also features delay sync, meaning the signal will repeat at different note lengths. There’s a lot to discover and mess with here.
KR-Delay FS
Admittedly, the KR-Delay FS might not be the flashiest plugin of the bunch, but that doesn’t negate its functionality. In addition to standard delay time and feedback controls, this tool is complete with panning, EQ, resonance, low- and high-pass filters, dry/wet signal control, and output gain. The simple visual display makes it easy to see how these parameters play out in real time. The KR-Delay is surprisingly useful and versatile. Plus, it’s free.
Voxengo Latency Delay
Sometimes you don’t want delay. In fact, when recording, delay (latency) can be a great adversary. Latency is often caused by a lack of processing power. When too many plugins are running at once, latency enters the equation, making recording difficult at times. Voxengo has another trick up its sleeve with this Latency Delay plugin. Without getting too technical, it allows you to trick the DAW into compensating for its own latency, by either milliseconds or samples. In other words, it artificially eliminates any potential lag while recording. This comes in handy for most producers.
Guitar Effects/Amp modelers
Most guitarists love their effects pedals and various tones. While it’s fun to collect physical pedals and heads, tinker with their functions, and build the perfect board, stomp boxes and amps can get pricey. Logic Pro X already comes packed with different amp simulations and effects, but if you’re looking for some free alternatives, check out these guitar effects and amp modeler plugins.
Guitar Rig 5 Player by Native Instruments
The Guitar Rig 5 Player might be a free bite-sized version of its bigger brother, Guitar Rig 5 Pro, but that doesn’t mean it lacks in features or functionality. This free amp modeler offers 17 different cabinets to play with, along with 13 effects. If you want to plug and play, the plugin also comes equipped with 50 effects presets. For a free version, the Guitar Rig 5 Player has a lot to offer.
FuzzPlus 3 AAX by AUDIODAMAGE
The FuzzPlus 3 is a nifty little digital fuzz pedal with tons of control options. Its interface allows you to tweak frequency, response time, distortion, feedback, and level. Additionally, the screen shows you the waveform output in real time, so you can clearly see the level of distortion. This is an impressive free plugin that can hold its own compared to physical fuzz and distortion pedals on the market.
LePou Plugins
Few software developers are more skilled or generous than Poulin Amplification. The LePou Plugins are a series of amp simulators that run the gamut of rock and metal tones. You’ll find simulations of Marshall, Mesa, Orange, EVH, and much more. Every single one is free, though you can donate if you want to return the love. You might be compelled to after seeing how much Poulin has to offer.
Limiters
While a limiter is a type of compressor, compression and limiting are not to be conflated. Limiters are defined by their high ratio and attack time. In other words, limiters completely block a signal from exceeding a certain threshold. They’re more akin to walls while compressors are more like sponges. Limiting can be a useful tool for mastering and when dealing with extremely hot signals that risk clipping or distorting. There are quite a few Mac free plugins out there for limiting purposes. Take a look.
Limiter No6 by Vladislav Goncharov
This might be the most popular free limiter plugin out there, and for good reason. The No6 by Vladislav Goncharov can compete with any paid for limiter on the market. With both brickwall and soft limiting options, an analog looking display, mid/side and multi-band modes, and five modules, this free limiter has it all. The interface might overwhelm those new to limiting, but fortunately a free manual is available too.
Thomas Mundt’s LoudMax
For a simpler interface, check out LoudMax by Thomas Mundt. This limiter is mainly for mastering, though it serves standard limiting purposes for mixing as well. The plugin only features two faders, one for threshold and the other for output level. There isn’t much to this one, but that’s part of its charm. For some quick and easy limiting, this fits the bill.
ClipShifter by LVC Audio
The LVC ClipShifter plugin doesn’t only look cool, it functions in a unique way, too. This limiter sort of works backwards. In other words, its goal is to distort the audio rather than prevent distortion. In some ways the ClipShifter is effectively a distortion plugin, but with more versatility. The plugin can produce both clipping distortion as well as transparent compression. The paid version of this plugin offers even more features, but the free version already boasts quite a bit. For a different kind of limiting and distortion, ClipShifter has you covered.
Stereo Effects
There is more than one way to widen your mix across the stereo field. That said, plugins can come in handy in this process. Whether you want to make a mono track stereo, vice versa, or just control the overall spaciousness of your track, check out these stereo effects and control Mac free plugins.
Voxengo Stereo Touch
Voxengo makes the list yet again with another great free plugin. Their stereo touch plugin allows you to artificially create spacious stereo sounding tracks with ease. On the technical end, this plugin utilizes a mid/side coding technique. The plugin also features built-in high-pass and low-pass filters, A/B comparison, two delay lines, and supports all sample rates.
STC-3 by RAZ Audio
Mac Audio Recording
The Spatial Expander STC-3 by RAZ Audio simplifies things a bit further. This stereo expander takes an existing stereophonic track and can widen it even further. The bold visual display makes it easy to see how wide and at what angles the left and right sides are going. The STC-3 can even turn a stereo track into a mon track, if desired. This free plugin is yet another useful tool in your mixing arsenal.
A1StereoControl by A1 Audio
Like the STC-3, the A1StereoControl plugin offers a central visual display that makes tinkering with a track’s panning simple and fun. Additionally, it features a large knob for the amount of stereo width, as well as a smaller knob above indicating pan control. A unique feature, the safe bass button, allows for full stereo modification without affecting the low end. In other words, this plugin will keep the bass tones in the center of the mix while widening the field for the rest of the track. For a free plugin, this stereo controller offers great versatility and functionality.
Conclusion
And there you have it! These are 25 of the best Mac free plugins, and we haven’t even mentioned all the free instrument plugins for Mac yet. Still, this list should keep you Mac users busy for a while. Remember that most of these are also compatible with PC. Let us know of any other Mac free plugins or other devices worth our while. Happy downloading! And don’t be afraid to throw a donation or two at those hardworking developers who make this all possible.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus isan award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you useyour other music apps together. Chain effects on your favouritesynth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app likeGarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface outputfor each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive asynth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDIkeyboard — 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.
I've been playing around with moving my workflow to my laptop, trying out Ableton & Bitwig. I always have a huge problem discovering good effects and instruments to start sketching stuff out, and this seems way worse on desktop.
On iOS my workhorses are Zeeon, Redshrike (and the other Icegear plugins to a lesser extent) and Model D. But I don't know anything about synth sound design, so I'm not looking for 'an analog modelling synth, an FM synth, a Minimoog clone'. I'm looking for 'rich and complex, noisy and abrasive, warm and fuzzy'. A good set of presets is an absolute must; I need to be able to dive in and make anything that sounds good otherwise I just lose interest.
I don't mind paying for plugins (you should see my App Store bills...) but on the other hand I can't justify dropping £hundreds on one.
Any thoughts/ideas?
Audio Units Mac Free Software
Comments
- edited April 2018
There's a huge variety on desktop but one good way is to get one which is available on both ipad and desktop so have a look at DRC which sounds great if you're after an analogue sound but is available on both platforms and can share presets. They often have discounts too.
or try PPG infinite. Both platforms..... and very complex sounds possible
I'll definitely check out DRC, it's been on my list to try on iOS for a while. As for the others, they look great, but they're out of my price range right now. I'm really just looking for something cheap (free to $20ish) that sounds good enough that I can try out desktop workflows.
(I know these have free trials but time limits and lack of state saving are a dealbreaker)
Use your iPhone/iPad as a sound source via USB cable?
- edited April 2018
@quarterto said:
I've been playing around with moving my workflow to my laptop, trying out Ableton & Bitwig. I always have a huge problem discovering good effects and instruments to start sketching stuff out, and this seems way worse on desktop.On iOS my workhorses are Zeeon, Redshrike (and the other Icegear plugins to a lesser extent) and Model D. But I don't know anything about synth sound design, so I'm not looking for 'an analog modelling synth, an FM synth, a Minimoog clone'. I'm looking for 'rich and complex, noisy and abrasive, warm and fuzzy'. A good set of presets is an absolute must; I need to be able to dive in and make anything that sounds good otherwise I just lose interest.
I don't mind paying for plugins (you should see my App Store bills...) but on the other hand I can't justify dropping £hundreds on one.
Any thoughts/ideas?
Did you see this article?
Apple's project 'Marzipan' will let iOS apps run on the Mac in 2018 - report
Edit... Think I will have to get a Mac..
@Jocphone said:
Use your iPhone/iPad as a sound source via USB cable?Yes, this. Studiomux works for some (I haven’t tried).
If you spend a bit of time with Simpler or Sampler, you can make Ableton instruments using your favourite iOS sounds and keep that warm fuzz going.
If you’re just after presets and not really interested in crafting your own sounds, then maybe just hunt around for Ableton Live packs? It’s not something I do, so I can’t really say where’s best for this, but I’ll point you at Sonic Bloom anyway:
http://sonicbloom.net/en/category/freebies/U-he makes fine softsynths (but yes, money).
- edited April 2018
You could just buy Logic and you have more synths and presets and FX and and and you ever will get for a grand on iOS even.
But i also think Abelton and Bitwig stock tools already should cover a lot ground.
So no need really to buy anything else if you learn your tools.
Since you didn´t search for a specific synth/tool you can go quite far with free tools (and f.e. U-he free synths are amazing and you get tons of presets for it).
If you search for the Zeeon sound Dagger get you there (and in terms of filters even better). It´s mono but there are ways to make mono synths polyphonic as well.
DRC has iOS and mac versions. Infinite has a Pro version for mac as well.
Model D is hard to cover for cheap or free. The free minimonster is quite nice.
There are tons of options but you might already covered. - edited April 2018
@RajahP said:
@quarterto said:
I've been playing around with moving my workflow to my laptop, trying out Ableton & Bitwig. I always have a huge problem discovering good effects and instruments to start sketching stuff out, and this seems way worse on desktop.On iOS my workhorses are Zeeon, Redshrike (and the other Icegear plugins to a lesser extent) and Model D. But I don't know anything about synth sound design, so I'm not looking for 'an analog modelling synth, an FM synth, a Minimoog clone'. I'm looking for 'rich and complex, noisy and abrasive, warm and fuzzy'. A good set of presets is an absolute must; I need to be able to dive in and make anything that sounds good otherwise I just lose interest.
I don't mind paying for plugins (you should see my App Store bills...) but on the other hand I can't justify dropping £hundreds on one.
Any thoughts/ideas?
Did you see this article?
Apple's project 'Marzipan' will let iOS apps run on the Mac in 2018 - report
Edit... Think I will have to get a Mac..
I wish i could believe that but it all sounds more like someone looked into the crystal ball.
- The user and all related content has been deleted.
- edited April 2018
@Cib said:
You could just buy Logic and you have more synths and presets and FX and and and you ever will get for a grand on iOS even.Confirmed 100%
But i also think Abelton and Bitwig stock tools already should cover a lot ground.
So no need really to buy anything else if you learn your tools.I don't know Bitwig, on Ableton it depends what version you have. Ableton Suite is very powerful, including Analog (a good virtual analog synth), Operator (FM synth), Electric (electric piano model) and a few other physical models and a good selection of effects.
Model D is hard to cover for cheap or free. The free minimonster is quite nice.
There are tons of options but you might already covered.You can start with Steinberg's free 'VST Classics Volume 1' from https://www.steinberg.net/en/support/unsupported_products/vst_classics_vol_1.html
Not really an authentic Minimoog emulation, but all the authentic ones I know aren't free.On the other hand, as you've described the sound you're after, there are many fantastic freeware synths worth trying, like:
U-he TyrellN6 + Zebralette + TripleCheese, TAL BassLine + NoiseMaker, Dexed, Tunefish 4 (or Sprike), Datsounds OBXD, buchty SQ8L, and most synths from www.fullbucket.de. @Dawdles said:
@RajahP said:
@quarterto said:
I've been playing around with moving my workflow to my laptop, trying out Ableton & Bitwig. I always have a huge problem discovering good effects and instruments to start sketching stuff out, and this seems way worse on desktop.On iOS my workhorses are Zeeon, Redshrike (and the other Icegear plugins to a lesser extent) and Model D. But I don't know anything about synth sound design, so I'm not looking for 'an analog modelling synth, an FM synth, a Minimoog clone'. I'm looking for 'rich and complex, noisy and abrasive, warm and fuzzy'. A good set of presets is an absolute must; I need to be able to dive in and make anything that sounds good otherwise I just lose interest.
I don't mind paying for plugins (you should see my App Store bills...) but on the other hand I can't justify dropping £hundreds on one.
Any thoughts/ideas?
Did you see this article?
Apple's project 'Marzipan' will let iOS apps run on the Mac in 2018 - report
Edit... Think I will have to get a Mac..
So if/when this happens will there be 'mac version' IAP or something? If not it'll be a really confusing situation for pricing. Either -
- People with macs getting super cheap desktop apps ported from ios (dunno how Fabfilter etc will feel about that?)
- People without macs paying a lot more for some currently 'cheap' ipad apps (If devs start to charge equivalent desktop software prices)
- Some kind of universal reshifting of software pricing evaluation in general to somewhere inbetween current ios vs desktop prices.
Seems like it'll probably be bad news for at least one sector of devs or users? Though considering that things like Reaper, VCVRack (+ now Sonar on Windows) and so on are basically free, maybe it'll have no effect at all in practise and just carry on as things are.
I think it would depends on how this integrates. So if you could run iOS AUv3 as plug-ins in Logic or other DAW´s it could kill a market for some developers maybe. If you need to record them as audio stream and lost the DAW integration you have with plug-ins it doesn´t change much.
But i still doubt iOS apps on mac happen anytime soon.
It all has pro and contra. IOS and mac store apps let you load all licenses on all your devices. Not possible with most desktop plug-ins. But i prefer to buy from developers there instead of the app store.
We will see how it goes. One for sure....windows users are doomed anywayThis synth kind of reminds me what I love about ios, great for experimenting.
Also viking synth on ios has a desktop counterpart that is donationware.
Reaktor is a good option too as it's modular, you can roll your own hybrid monster synth or fx beasty, can also download loads of synths and fx from the user library for free, some have great presets, others leave you to find your own way noodling.
- edited April 2018The user and all related content has been deleted.
- The user and all related content has been deleted.
Wow, thanks for all the suggestions folks. Lots for me to try out this evening!
- The user and all related content has been deleted.
First, I would do some searches for best free or cheap VST/AU instruments available. Particularly on YouTube, so you can get see demonstrations. There are hundreds, but do check out:
Free Oberheim Clone - http://www.discodsp.com/obxd/
Syntronik Free
All U-he free synths
The Synthmaster Free Player has 500 presets. The paid one (now $14, often $ 9) has 1250. There are also free demo versions of Synthmaster and Synthmaster One.
Free Kontakt Player.I recommend buying a copy of Computer Music magazine on your iPad for $5. You will then get access to a ton of first-class instruments (including Alchemy Player), drum machines, effects, and utilities.
Also, don't neglect the free and cheap effects.
I highly recommend Black Cat Audio and Klanghelm (3 great freebies), AudioThing Filterjam, Softube Saturation knob, and Valhalla FreqEcho
I use the Black Cat Gain Suite all day long, every day.If you ever reach the point when you are ready to spend money, IMHO the absolute best purchase you can make is to get full Kontakt. First, it comes with a lot of great synth, drum and acoustic sounds, enough to keep you busy for years. Then it allows you to get hundreds of amazing instruments free all year round and even more during brief offers, particularly during the holidays. The only limit to the free stuff with Full Kontakt is how big your hard drive is, and how much time you spend finding out about freebies.
You can save money on Kontakt by upgrading from the free library Sennheiser Drumica, and then cut that price in half during one of their sales. Usually, there is one during the summer and one at Black Friday. The best deal is to get it with Komplete, but that sounds too rich for your taste.
@Dawdles it's a 3-4 year old i7 Macbook Pro, it should handle things just fine. Sonar looks great but I am on macOS, thanks anyway.
Although if anyone has DAW suggestions for Mac I'm all ears. Bitwig and Ableton look closest to what I'm looking for so far, but I'd prefer something simple with a really solid workflow to something with the depth and complexity of those two. The only absolute must-have is a session view/clip launcher that can record clips to tracks.
- edited April 2018
If you don't mind using Soundflower: nothing beats https://www.apple.com/mainstage/
You'll get all of the Logic goodness excluding the DAW / sequencer for 30 bucks.
I'm using it as an 'external' 'sound module' in Live.
@quarterto said:
@Dawdles it's a 3-4 year old i7 Macbook Pro, it should handle things just fine. Sonar looks great but I am on macOS, thanks anyway.Although if anyone has DAW suggestions for Mac I'm all ears. Bitwig and Ableton look closest to what I'm looking for so far, but I'd prefer something simple with a really solid workflow to something with the depth and complexity of those two. The only absolute must-have is a session view/clip launcher that can record clips to tracks.
Speaking as a Bitwig user, it sounds like it has all you need; a reasonably simple interface, with a clip launcher/recorder, and a huge library of built-in instruments, effects and samples.
It does have some very complex features, but you don’t have to use them all.@quarterto said:
@Dawdles it's a 3-4 year old i7 Macbook Pro, it should handle things just fine. Sonar looks great but I am on macOS, thanks anyway.Although if anyone has DAW suggestions for Mac I'm all ears. Bitwig and Ableton look closest to what I'm looking for so far, but I'd prefer something simple with a really solid workflow to something with the depth and complexity of those two. The only absolute must-have is a session view/clip launcher that can record clips to tracks.
I also use a macbook i7 from 2013 and it can handle still a lot. Synths like Repro are really next generation stuff but mostly you can turn HQ mode off and also they offer multi-core support which helps a lot.
Repro is really not cheap (i got for €69 Repro-1at intro and got the free update with Repro-5) so it was a very very good value for me). U-he synths are all just great from sound to GUI to workflow to options like microtuning etc.
Better not try them....or you want themThe Legend is a Moog clone and is $100. Rob Papen Predator 2 is $150. D-16 Lush 101 is $150. Sonic Academy ANA 2 is $140. Hard to get 'really good, really cheap'.
Here's a site that might be helpful https://bedroomproducersblog.com/
Also KVR https://kvraudio.com/plugins/windows/macosx/vst-plugins/vst3-plugins/audio-units/aax-plugins/rack-extensions/instruments/paid/most-popular
Which version of OS are you using? iOS 11 and High Sierra (and I believe iOS 10 and Sierra) support InterDevice Audio/MIDI, or IDAM. This effectively turns your iOS device into a fully-integrated sound module. Plug your iPad into a free USB port, open up Audio MIDI Setup on your Mac, and click “Enable” on the iPad icon. After this, just set your audio ins and MIDI outs and you’re good to go.
If you want native AUs, I’m a big fan of Sinevibes. They’re well-designed, affordable, quirky, and CPU efficient. I don’t use very many of their instrument plugins but their effects are top-notch.
Korg Gadget for Mac also nets you nearly 40 plugins. It’s pricy up front but there are no in app purchases and seriously — you get roughly 40 instruments and effects, all of which sound good and most of which sound great.
- edited April 2018
I'll say it again: nothing beats https://www.apple.com/mainstage/plugins-and-sounds/
Really good. Really cheap. Mac only though.