GarageBand: free DAW by Apple
Free on every Mac. The easy way to start recording and making beats, and projects open in Logic Pro later.
Opens Apple's own site.
Put SCRAMBLE. on your drums, 808s and vocals
One button rolls a new FX chain: glitch, stutter, tape stop, chops, reverb, delay and vocal tune. There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible chains, the same count as the positions of a 3x3 cube. Save 10,000 presets a day and 1% of them would take 118 billion years, over 8x the age of the universe.
Not just loops: drum buses, 808s and bass, hats, vocals and the master bus. 3,000+ downloads so far.
Other DAWs to compare with GarageBand
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FreeCakewalk
A full Windows DAW from the makers of BandLab, with a free tier.
Waveform Free
Free DAW for Mac, Windows and Linux with no track limits. Loads third-party plugins.
LMMS
Open-source beat maker for Windows, Mac and Linux with a pattern workflow.
FL Studio
The beat-making DAW behind a huge share of trap and hip-hop. Fast piano roll, pattern workflow, lifetime free updates.
Ableton Live 12
Session view for jamming ideas, arrangement view for finishing them. A favourite for electronic music and live sets.
Logic Pro
Apple's full studio DAW for Mac: a big stock instrument and plugin library for a one-time price.
Bitwig Studio
Modular-minded DAW with a huge modulation system. Popular for sound design and electronic music.
Reason
A virtual rack of synths and effects you can wire up yourself. Also runs as a plugin inside other DAWs.
REAPER
Light, fast and endlessly customisable. Low-cost licence with a long free trial.
Pro Tools
The recording and mixing standard in commercial studios. Strong for tracking vocals and editing audio.
GarageBand FAQ
Is GarageBand free?
Yes. GarageBand is a free DAW from Apple. You download it from the maker, linked on this page.
What is GarageBand good for?
Free on every Mac. The easy way to start recording and making beats, and projects open in Logic Pro later.
Which plugins should I add to GarageBand first?
Start with free ones that cover the basics: a synth like Vital, a reverb like Valhalla Supermassive, a dynamic EQ like TDR Nova, and a creative FX plugin like SCRAMBLE. for drums, 808s and vocals. Check each plugin's formats against what your DAW loads.