Episode 40: Free Stuff!

Exploring Free Music Production Tools: DAWs, Instruments, Effects, and Loops

In this episode of the Face Your Ears podcast, hosts Justin Ho and Rich Bozic discuss the abundance of free digital recording resources available for music production. They recount their recent musical projects, including performances and upcoming releases. The main topic explores various free digital audio workstations (DAWs), software instruments, audio effects, and loop resources. Justin and Rich highlight specific tools such as BandLab, Audacity, DexEd, Vital, Valhalla Super Massive, Circle drum loops, and websites like Freesound.org and Looperman.com. They offer practical advice for both beginners and experienced producers looking to expand their toolkit without breaking the bank. The episode underscores the idea that high-quality music production need not be prohibitively expensive, with a wealth of free tools and resources available for creative exploration.

00:00 Welcome to Face Your Ears Podcast
05:17 Recent Events and Performances
07:57 Podcast Milestones and Listener Appreciation
08:45 Today's Topic: Free Digital Recording Tools
09:49 Exploring Free DAWs
17:12 Free Virtual Instruments
22:06 Free Audio Effects
23:55 Free Loops and Samples
27:05 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

For links to the resources mentioned in the episode follow this link where you'll find them all collected together:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ohS7ajH8xHgkHiLVkRsrkrvN6vUUwkOxWedQZ3U8TJY/edit?usp=sharing

For Production Services, Coaching and Lessons, visit:

www.rjbmusicproduction.com

For help prepping your songs/voice for the studio:

www.bozicvoicestudio.com

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Transcript

Justin 5:01

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Face Your Ears podcast. My name is Justin Ho and I'm joined here with my good friend, Rich Bozic.

Rich 5:13

Hello.

Justin 5:14

Hello sir. How are you?

Rich 5:16

I'm doing well. We just did Klif Tober Fest

Justin 5:20

Yes.

Rich 5:21

just happened.

Justin 5:23

Yes.

Rich 5:23

A successful big event over five hours of music, Justin came on down to help out with sound and to perform.

Justin 5:34

Yeah. I was there. was so fun. I performed with my project called Same, not Same. It's a duo, my friend Jay Pevonis, and I had that up as an industrial electronic outfit and it was really fun to be there. We

Rich 5:51

It was great to have you. You guys did great.

Justin 5:53

you. you. We were so glad to be able to perform and provide a little spice, a little something different Everything else going on that night, but it was such an amazing event. So many amazing musicians, so very appreciative to be a part of it.

Rich 6:06

Hey man, it's always great to have you here, whether it be for some music or just for a visit,

Justin 6:12

Yeah.

Rich 6:13

but things have been going well here. right after that gig after that performance had another gig the following weekend, and this week I'm headed into some teaching and I got some recording sessions

Justin 6:24

Excellent,

Rich 6:25

for this week.

Justin 6:26

excellent. That's exciting.

Rich 6:29

How about you?

Justin 6:30

What, let's see, I have a single, actually the group I mentioned same. Not same. we have a single coming out on Halloween,

Rich 6:38

Ooh.

Justin 6:39

That's exciting. So another single coming out there. I actually, I haven't told you this, but I did a remix reproduction different version of lighthouse, which is by an artist named Amy Camille. So I finished that and shared it with her. She thought it was pretty cool. So I'm gonna just put that up on my YouTube, just as a casual like thing. And I really just did it as a fan. I just love the song. I think she's a great singer songwriter. And so it was just a off the cuff thing I did last week, just over a couple of days. And so yeah, I'll put that out. And what else? I've got another single I did called Repellent did that under my manmade random. Moniker. So that was a lot of fun. I've got that out on streaming platforms and I created a cool visualizer kind of video for it. And I worked with my friend Brian, who's an amazing animation graphic artist. And that up on YouTube. He goes by Lux Lumen. And yeah, it was really fun to work with him and put that together. So all kinds of fun little creative projects going on here on my end, which I'm really enjoying. I

Rich 7:57

Excellent. I wanted to give a little bit of an update right now our podcast lies at over 3,600 downloads, which is

Justin 8:05

wow.

Rich 8:06

We've got 40 episodes over 40 episodes. 40 episodes. 40 episodes published.

Justin 8:13

is the 40th.

Rich 8:14

Yes, this will be the 40th.

Justin 8:16

to, dear listeners, number four zero.

Rich 8:18

So we're on a roll here. We wanna thank everyone for continuing to. Check on in with us and to listen and spread the word.

Justin 8:27

It's been over three years at this point, right? Because we started this adventure. I wanna say it was like summer-ish.

Rich 8:34

Yes. Yeah. A fun little adventure.

Justin 8:37

yeah, it's been great. thank you to everyone who's listening and participating in the face of your ears.

Rich 8:45

So on to today's topic.

Justin 8:48

Yes.

Rich 8:49

I'm tired of having to buy stuff. Justin.

Justin 8:54

Aren't we all in this economy Paying for plugins and software?

Rich 9:01

I think it's due time we talk about free stuff in the.

Justin 9:07

Hmm.

Rich 9:08

Digital recording realm. What do you think about that?

Justin 9:11

I agree. There's a lot of great tools out there for folks that are either sick of paying premium for tools and resources, but also for people that just aren't there yet in their life for whatever reason. And there's plenty of great. Free stuff out there, and we're going to dissect that a little bit, share some of our favorites,

Rich 9:31

Yes.

Justin 9:32

links and to these resources in our show notes. So we hope to be able to offer some great tools and resources for free in this episode that you can check out and utilize in your own studio.

Rich 9:47

what shall we start with?

Justin 9:49

I think we should start with with DAW Going back to our episode on DAW little call back there. DAWs or Digital Audio workstation is the centerpiece of any studio. It's the tool that is used for recording and mixing and. of that good stuff. so we have some pretty cool resources that we like and we found and I'll kick it off by mentioning band Lab. So Band Lab is cool. It works on all different platforms. So it works on Windows, it works on Mac, it works on iOS and Android. So it actually is a web-based DAW, which is unique about

Rich 10:39

What web-based really?

Justin 10:41

Yeah. So you can use it on like Chrome, the Chrome web browser. I'm not sure if it works on Safari, but it definitely works on Chrome. Or you can download an app to your mobile device. But it's pretty robust. It has virtual instruments. You can record, audio into it. You can use loops and different, audio sounds and so forth. It has a sampler in it. It's pretty extensive. I guess one downside to it though is that it doesn't support third party plugins. So if you have third party plugins that you like to use or want to use unfortunately it doesn't seem to support those, It's a free DAW. All the sort of things you'd expect to find in a doll, like virtual instruments, recording access to loops editing, all of that stuff is there.

Rich 11:27

So I got a question about that. So like I, as I was doing my research for this episode, I stumbled upon Cakewalk Next and

Justin 11:36

huh.

Rich 11:36

Cakewalk Sonar, which also said it was by Band Labs. Is Band Lab different than Band Labs or is that the same?

Justin 11:44

I think it's the same. I saw that too. I think those are like the paid versions or you

Rich 11:49

I noticed,

Justin 11:50

or something like that.

Rich 11:51

I did notice that there, they were, there were free versions of those as well.

Justin 11:56

Tell us about that Rich.

Rich 11:57

Yeah.

Justin 11:58

What? What'd you find out?

Rich 12:00

I went on the on the site and I noticed that'cause Cakewalk was a daw, actually probably my first DAW ever back in the day.

Justin 12:09

It goes back a ways. Yep.

Rich 12:10

And as I was browsing on some of these forums and listening to what people were mentioning with regard to free stuff that came up and I went to the site and I did see that they were offering free versions of these of Cakewalk Next and Sonar. Now, I, what I did gather as actually when I was, as I was looking at a lot of these different daws, was that it's like you get a lot, but you don't quite get. Everything. So there are some limitations, obviously, if I think with Cakewalk Next and Sonar, the impression I got was that you get the daw, but then if you want extra plugins and all that stuff, then you gotta if I'm thinking correctly of that, of the right one you have to like. Subscribe or buy from them the other extensions and whatnot.

Justin 13:00

Yeah.

Rich 13:01

but that was interesting to see the cakewalk still going and still relevant in 2025.

Justin 13:07

Yeah, I think band Lab very much like an online, it has a social media, kind of social component to it and totally free. And I think cakewalk might be like a, an actual app that you download. So maybe that's the key difference there.

Rich 13:26

Yeah, it seemed like there was two different ones next and Sonar. But anyways, something to check out.

Justin 13:31

Yeah.

Rich 13:31

Obviously the one we mention often is Audacity, open source free. It's for someone who just wants to get their foot in the door. It's basic, but it's good for a starter DAW for someone who's just. Getting into it and want something free.

Justin 13:48

Yeah, and audacity, just to be clear, is for audio recording so it doesn't support midi virtual instruments, that kind of thing. So Are just doing like a multi-track where you've got guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, that kind of thing, it'll totally work for that. And it's free so you can, that up and do some multi-track recording with Audacity, which is great.

Rich 14:12

I also noticed a sound bridge. Sound bridge is one that was coming up a lot in discussion and that one is a free 10 track daw, so it's like free with some limitations. They're probably trying to entice you, I imagine, to buy the full one, but nonetheless, free starter DAW or someone.

Justin 14:34

Excellent. That's cool.

Rich 14:35

So, Another thing I wanna mention is that some of the daws are coupled with hardware that you might buy. for example I have the Apollo twin, and because of that I have access to Luna, which is a free. And then of course if you have a Mac, you get GarageBand with Mac. And then another one that was coming up a lot and I never actually plugged it in or tried to use it, but the MPK mini you can get the MPC. It's the Akai DAW.

Justin 15:08

Okay. Yeah, I've heard of that.

Rich 15:10

And it seems like some of these DAWs, like I think the MPC one is. It's better for just digital instruments. So if you are using all software instruments And you're just doing beats and stuff like that, that one seems to work well for that.

Justin 15:23

Like loops and so forth.

Rich 15:26

Yeah, so like if you got your, AKA MPK mini, you use the daw, you could use all of the onboard instruments to compose. It Didn't really mention much about audio, so that's interesting. yeah, sometimes some of the free stuff is limited. Sometimes they'll restrict plugins or they'll do a track limit or MIDI compatibility. Is GarageBand still, does it still not have midi compatibility?

Justin 15:52

No, it does. You can do MIDI

Rich 15:54

I. I last time it's been years, but I recall trying to get it to communicate I think you could do midi in, but not out or something. I, yeah.

Justin 16:03

that's a okay. I wasn't sure what you meant. It definitely supports like plugging in a midi keyboard

Rich 16:09

Ah, okay. Okay.

Justin 16:10

as far as it sending midi out. Let's do some does, I'm gonna, I'm gonna check the yield. Google here. Does garage band support MIDI out? And we can edit this if need be.

Rich 16:22

Sure. I'm surprised they've gone this long. But then again, it might be a way for them to tell you, Hey, you should get logic.

Justin 16:32

okay. No, GarageBand does not support MIDI output. It is designed to accept mid in to control software instruments, but it cannot send MIDI data to external hardware. Okay. That's weird. But it does have plenty of virtual instruments included, and

Rich 16:47

Yes.

Justin 16:47

about some free instruments as well,

Rich 16:51

Actually, let's jump into that next. Go ahead and start us off. Justin, what do you got in that department?

Justin 16:56

I think personally, I feel like the DAW space is a little there, there's nothing that's like a silver bullet. This is the best, like this is great. There's some good stuff and it'll get you by. But I feel like with instruments it's a different. Case, it's a different story here, like you can get some awesome free virtual instruments, and one of them that I love I'll love it forever, is called DexEd. It's a free FM synthesizer and it's basically a total recreation of the Yamaha DX 7. And so the Yamaha DX 7 was like the sound, I wouldn't even call it the synthesizer. It was like the sound. Of the 1980s, like so many number one hits, like 40% of number one hits in the 1980s featured the DX 7. Something like that. I don't know, but yeah it's a total recreation of it. And so it being a recreation of the Yamaha DX 7, you can actually go out and find free sounds on the internet, download them, and import them into DexEd.

Rich 18:01

So is that user generated sounds.

Justin 18:03

It can be they can be, user generated sound banks or existing, sound banks from the Yamaha DX 7 that you can download and import into it and load'em up. Like for example, there's a famous producer that you may have heard of Brian Eno and Brian Eno. Produced these sounds for the Yamaha DX 7, and I was able to download them open them in DexEd like

Rich 18:33

Nice.

Justin 18:33

sounds that he created, 40 years ago or whatever. Very cool synth and I love it. So that's definitely one I recommend.

Rich 18:42

That's great. I, as I was digging around for sound libraries I stumbled upon a Reddit thread, and I'm actually gonna include that Reddit thread in our links where people were just going to town mentioning. Sites that had stuff for download, but there was one particular user on there. It was music_and_physics. He had created a spreadsheet where he went through all of the free instruments that he, software instruments that he had downloaded through the years and included. Like a, a brief description and a review on all of them. It was very meticulous, so I thought that was great. So I'm gonna include that

Justin 19:27

Great.

Rich 19:27

in, in the description as well. But the forums for this stuff are booming, so if you, there should be no problem finding these things. If you go to the, if you just type it into a Google search, you'll stumble upon something.

Justin 19:42

yeah. It speaks to what I was saying before there's so much in this regard versus DAWs. I feel like far more robust.

Rich 19:49

What others do you have to mention?

Justin 19:51

one, one I wanted to mention was Vital. So a really, really popular synthesizer out there right now is Serum. Serum's a paid plugin, but it's wildly popular, like ubiquitous across production nowadays, across genres. And so vital is a free. Plugin free software synth that you can pick up. I was messing around with it the other day and was quite impressed with some of its capabilities and sounds, and it is something that you can purchase higher degrees of features and functionality if you want to. but the free version is fully functioning and, tons of great presets and features in it. So that's one I'll link to as well in our show notes.

Rich 20:41

Nice. How often do you find yourself using some of these things?

Justin 20:45

Pretty often like DexEd. I've definitely used. The other free synth I've definitely used here and there. At the end of the day, if it sounds good. I've paid a lot of money a lot of these synthesizers I use, so I tend to use those. But hey man, if I find a free synth that sounds great. I'll definitely use it. I'd say about 10 to 15% of the time picking up and using one of these.

Rich 21:09

You know what a, any listeners out there, do you use this stuff? Anyone make an album completely with free? Audio effects and software instruments and daw, let us know. Please comment on our social media. Let us know.

Justin 21:25

Did you know as the legend goes, there's a Gorillaz album, so the Gorillaz are alternative hip hop ish kind of group, but they created an entire album using GarageBand.

Rich 21:42

Oh, nice.

Justin 21:45

They made an entire album with an iPad, it was in 2010, actually, it was an album called The Fall. It was almost entirely created with an iPad, I should say. But yeah that's one of the famous claim to fame for the garage Band

Rich 21:58

Nice.

Justin 22:00

yeah.

Rich 22:02

So we talked instruments. Do you have anything to say about audio effects?

Justin 22:06

Yes. One of my favorite. Plugins that I use, and I use this plugin actually pretty regularly. It's called Super Massive, and that's by a company called Valhalla. So the Valhalla super massive reverb slash delay plugin. Excellent plugin. can't say enough about it. It does have a robust. Engine in it where you can get different sort of iterations of reverbs and delays within it. It's shocking to me that it's free, basically. It's very capable has a huge array of presets and it does different reverbs, it does different delays really well. So that's one that I love and wanted to mention.

Rich 22:49

Nice. Yeah. Once again, on that forum, that Reddit forum that I had, they were talking instruments. They were talking plugin effects.

Justin 22:56

Nice. Okay.

Rich 22:57

Yeah, I'll include the link, but it's like there's so many out there and I know even every once in a while some of the bigger companies will throw out, throw a bone to us the common folk. And like I think UAD every once in a while drops something that people can get. I don't know if you have to use a UAD device, but I,'cause some companies get specific about that. But I know some companies will throw a bone.

Justin 23:21

I found Waves Audio, they do that. I've gotten some plugins from them for free. they're, they released one called Berzerk. It was this really cool distortion plugin that they gave away for free sound Toys is another one. released a plugin recently. called. Space Blender. Awesome Plugin. is now a paid plugin, but when they launched it, it was free. So yeah, you're right. These companies give stuff away occasionally.

Rich 23:52

Fantastic. So onward we go. Can we talk about loops?

Justin 23:57

Yeah. There's a couple of things that I found that I wanted to share. One is Circle drum loops. So Circle is a company that produces paid loop packs for drums, and they're. drums are based off of like an actual player, playing a drum kit in different settings and you get very different sounds and so forth. So the majority of their stuff is paid. However if you go to their website, sign up for their newsletter, you can get a nice sampling, quite a robust array, if you will, of free drum loops from their various sound packs. So it's a great way to sample some of what they've got going on. So if you're looking for some very cool, real, sounding drum loops actually played on drum kits. Circle is great. One shout out there is circle was used by what's his name, Finneas? Yes. Finneas. Who's the, producer for Billy Eilish, I guess Billy Eillish's brother, if I'm

Rich 25:00

Yeah.

Justin 25:01

Yeah. So Finneas used some of the circle drum loops on Billy Eilish recent album. so they're great they're, they passed the Finneas Seal of approval, so that's nice to know. And I've been using'em for years. They sound terrific. So sign up for the newsletter. It's worth it Anyway, just to hear what they're doing. They're a really great company. another thing that I found is simply Free sounds.org. It's a no frills, user generated kind of forum for people to upload. and samples and stuff and you can go on there and sign up and download'em at your leisure. And what I like about Free sounds.org is that it's pretty well organized so you can find different styles and tempos and you can do like a keyword search and that kind of thing. So worth checking out. Free sounds.org goes well beyond drum loops. And it's far more. In that sense. There's a couple really cool resources and like for the other ones, we'll put those links in the show note descriptions.

Rich 26:10

Yeah, the one I stumbled upon the name was actually familiar to me. I had a student mention this to me years ago, and I guess they're still going and probably a lot of you might know, it is looperman.com. That seems to be one that is. Frequently visited by people desiring loops. It's a robust collection. And from what the look of it, all you gotta do is create a create an account or with them and then you have access to these things. I.

Justin 26:40

I was actually looking at that last night. It was really cool. I like that. looperman organized. You could search by instrument or genre or like BPM, that kind of thing. And I like that you could preview the loops and you can do that on free sounds.org too. You can preview it before you download it. So I like that about both of those resources. So very cool stuff.

Rich 27:03

There we go folks. There we go. We have done a survey of. The things that are out there for free. So today we covered free DAWs. We also talked a little bit about software instruments and effects, and we just ended it here with some discussion on loops. Is there anything else we're missing here, Justin?

Justin 27:31

I don't think so. I think it just bears saying that these days there's no stopping. You,

Rich 27:37

Yes, we live in a land of plenty.

Justin 27:42

Yes. I also, I would just say check these out. Even if you've like me, you've got. A bajillion synthesizers and drum loops and stuff. Check this stuff out. There's always inspiration in this stuff. And, it's no, no loss out of your wallet, I guess, to check some of this stuff out. You can come across and find some really inspiring tools and resources. So dive into our show notes on this one and check out some of these resources and links and thank you. So much for listening and we will catch you in the next episode. So bye for now.

Rich 28:17

Take care now.