FL Studio is an all-in-one digital audio workstation (DAW) for recording, mixing, editing, and mastering music. You can use it to record audio from a microphone or other audio instrument.
Editing audio clips is straightforward with this audio workstation. You can trim, paste, or cut a clip without much effort. Adding effects to audio is a common practice among musicians. It can also help you add effects such as delay, distortion, or reverb.
FL Studio’s other incredible uses include mixing several audio tracks, creating melodies, arranging and composing songs, and using various virtual instruments.
But FL Studio isn’t the only digital audio workstation that can help you compose and refine music. Alternatives to FL Studio include Audacity, Ohm Studio, LMMS, Waveform Free, REAPER, MuLab, and more.
The best free alternative to FL Studio is Waveform Free because it’s open-source, making it customizable. It’s also stable, has more plugins and audio effects, and features high-quality instruments. Moreover, it has plenty of use cases.
Why Explore FL Studio Alternatives?
While most users prefer FL Studio for its versatile and powerful features, its limitations may make you consider alternatives.
Most users find FL Studio too expensive. It doesn’t have a free version, and the paid plans are between $99 and $374, making it unsuitable for casual users.
It has complex routing and mixing. Beginners could find the audio workstation’s mixing and routing system challenging to master. With its complex learning curve, achieving the preferred sound for your music can be tricky.
FL Studio integrates poorly with analog equipment. The software lacks native support for analog music gear like outboard processors and hardware synthesizers. Thus, using this tool can be difficult if your studio environment depends on analog gadgets.
The digital audio workstation has limited audio editing features. For starters, it doesn’t support inline audio editing. In other words, you can’t edit audio clips on the timeline but must use the Edison editor, which can interrupt the workflow.
It lacks other audio capabilities, such as audio quantization, analysis, restoration, and batch processing.
FL Studio’s buggy nature makes it vulnerable to occasional crashing, which can frustrate users handling a project. A common reason for the crashing is that the software overloads the CPU.
Besides, its user interface isn’t friendly to beginners. It has many features that require time to learn before use.
Now, let’s discuss FL Studio’s free alternatives that address some of these shortcomings.
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Best Free Alternatives to FL Studio
1. Cakewalk by BandLab
If you want to take your music recording to the next level, consider using this free FL Studio alternative. Cakewalk has an intuitive interface that makes customization and navigation effortless. You can select from various layouts and themes and use them for your needs.
Cakewalk has insane recording capabilities. First, it supports multi-track recording with an audio quality of up to 24-bit/192Hz.
Additionally, it has various recording options like loop recording, input monitoring, and punch-out/in.
Cakewalk makes music editing easy with its assortment of editing tools, such as MIDI, track-based, and clip-based editing. You can also use various plugins and effects for your recordings, such as reverb, compression, EQ, and delay.
The digital audio workstation contains built-in instruments like drum machines, synthesizers, and samplers. Besides, it supports VST plugins, giving you access to an extensive instrument library.
Cakewalk has similar features to FL Studio; they include mixing, editing, and recording. However, its interface is more user-friendly than FL Studio’s, making it perfect for advanced users and newbies.
2. LMMS
LMMS (Linux Multimedia Studio) is a free and open-source digital audio workstation with features that new and experienced users will enjoy.
LMMS lets you compose music on Linux, Windows, and macOS. FL Studio only works on macOS and Windows.
You can mix, sequence, compose, or automate songs in a clean interface. It also lets you fine-tune notes, patterns, melodies, and chords via the Piano Roll Editor.
It supports note playback using a typing keyboard or MIDI, and the Beat+Bassline Editor lets you consolidate instrument-based audio sounds.
When working on a project that requires the importation of MIDI and Hydrogen files, don’t worry, as LMMS will let you import them. It also supports computer-based and user-defined track automation.
The most exciting feature is the number of musical instruments this audio workstation supports. It comes with a 64-bit VST instrument support compatible with 64-bit Windows.
It also has 16 integrated synthesizers, including emulations for Yamaha OPL2 chip, Roland, Commodore 64, Nintendo, SID microchip, NES and GameBoy, and more.
LMMS also comes embedded with the ZynAddSubFx plugin consisting of microtonal, polyphonic, subtractive, multi-voice additive, multitimbral, and pad synthesis.
LMMS’s top features that you won’t find on FL Studio are a user-friendly interface, support for the VST plugin, and MIDI support.
3. Waveform Free
Waveform Free is a free digital audio workspace with unlimited features. Its rapid mixing features and simple recording workflows make it the perfect tool for recording a multi-track band.
Using this audio workspace gives you access to 15 audio effects and third-party plugins, such as VST, AU, and VST3. FL Studio doesn’t support all these plugin types.
Are you into electronic music production? Waveform Free could work for you; it offers Step Clip and MIDI access, enhancing speedy programming, sound design, and a robust rack environment.
It also comes with various instruments, including a micro drum sampler, a micro sampler, a 40SC synth, and a new rompler. Also, tags and smart lists in the search bar let you quickly manage sample libraries and find preferred instruments and plugins.
Podcasting is possible with Waveform Free, too, thanks to the dialogue editing and multi-track recording functionalities.
This tool makes sequencing and recording a piece of cake, making it fit for singers and songwriters. Composition tools, such as the pattern generator, inspire you. Once song ideas start flowing, you will find suitable mix-and-render tools to prepare and upload the song.
You can use the Recording Engineer feature to record, mix, and edit your music. Other stunning features are the DJ mix software, synth pack, and MIDI producer.
Waveform Free runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
4. Ardour
Ardour is an open-source and free digital audio workspace suitable for recording, editing, and mixing music on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
To record music, access Aardour’s interface, plug in your keyboard or microphone, add your favorite track, and press record. You can also import MIDI or audio from the Freesound database or a hard drive.
Ardour has many tools for editing. You can stretch, move, copy, cut, paste, delete, trim, align, crossfade, zoom, rename, snapshot, swing, transpose, quantize, drag, or drop. While at it, you can redo or undo an action, all in one window.
Incredible, isn’t it? Now, let’s talk about mixing.
With Ardour, you can mix sounds using fader, mute, solo, insert, post-fader, pre-fader, dynamics, EQ, send, isolate, monitor, or sync. The mixer architecture is flexible, with many plugins and control surfaces.
After recording, mixing, and editing, you can export your work.
Who can use Ardour? This tool will be helpful for composers, musicians, audio engineers, soundtrack editors, radio producers, and podcasters.
You will work with many plugins in diverse formats, including LV2, LADSPA, and LinuxVST. Ardour has software instruments, MIDI processors, and other automation parameters to simplify your work.
Being open-source gives Ardour more customization and extensibility than the proprietary FL Studio. Also, Arduor’s simple design makes it more performant and stable than FL Studio.
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5. Audacity
Audacity is one of the best free alternatives to FL Studio that you can use to edit, record, and mix audio.
You can use it for live audio recording with a mixer or microphone, digitize a recording from various media types, record playback on a Windows computer, and select the Windows WASAPI to record up to 192,000 Hz.
Audacity supports audio editing, too. It lets you copy, cut, mix and splice sounds, adjust a recording’s pitch or speed, and remove hiss, static, hum, and other background noise.
You can also apply filters and effects to specific parts of a recording, change volumes using an envelope tool, and use the spectrogram view mode to visualize and analyze frequencies.
Besides, you can use Audacity to mix as many tracks as you want. It also creates stereo, mono, or other multi-channel surround sounds.
The mixer helps in panning and fine-controlling over levels. Using built-in functionalities, you can add instruments and effects using the VST plugin and generate pink noise, white noise, and other sound types.
Audacity has an edge over FL Studio because it’s free and open-source, supports the VST plugin, and is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux. FL Studio runs on Windows and macOS only.
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6. Ohm Studio
Ohm Studio has incredible features that make music production fun. It has numerous built-in instruments like samplers, drum machines, and synthesizers. If you need more instruments, you can access them via VST plugins.
Ohm Studio has a vibrant mixing console, giving you much control over panning, levels, and effects. You can use it to mix surround sounds, too.
This digital audio workstation makes online collaboration a breeze, allowing users to work on the same projects in real time.
Ohm Studio’s module environment lets users customize their workflow and workspace. You can remove or add modules as you wish, adding flexibility to your music production.
Ohm Studio and FL Studio have similar features, like sound mixing and instrument support.
However, what makes Ohm Studio unique is that it’s free, supports remote collaboration, and has a modular workflow and workspace customization environment.
Ohm Studio’s free version allows you to export compressed audio and record 16-bit audio. While it comes with the basic UVI and FX instrument, it still supports third-party VST plugins that you can use to compose complete songs.
For more features, upgrade to the Pro and Pro XL versions.
7. GarageBand
GarageBand is a free, entry-level digital audio workspace available on every new Apple computer. While GarageBand is designed for casual producers and musicians, anyone can use it to create music.
You can use it if it’s your first time exploring music production software or are unfamiliar with music technology basics like MIDI and plugins. If you have used Apple apps such as iMovie, you will find GarageBand easy to use.
GarageBand’s instruments include smart bass, smart guitar, drums, keyboard, smart strings, drummer, sampler, world, and more.
Don’t know where to start? No worries; GarageBand comes with 40 built-in lessons for guitar and piano in different genres, such as rock, classical, pop, and blues. You can also learn various hits from the artists who recorded them and get instant feedback to help polish your playing skills.
You can use plenty of editing and recording features to fine-tune your performances to the note and decibel.
Besides, you can use audio effect plugins to finesse your sound and handle rhythm issues with a single click. After doing all that, you can finish the track using visual EQ and compression effects.
Once you perfect your song, GarageBand lets you share the finished song online using social networks.
Did I mention you can use it to record MIDI and edit it with piano roll, too? Simply put, GarageBand is a simple yet powerful digital audio workspace.
GarageBand’s intuitive user interface makes it easier to use than FL Studio.
8. MuLab
MuLab is one of the best free alternatives to FL Studio. MuTools, a Belgium company, developed and maintains this digital music production studio. It works on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
MuLab is an easy but powerful tool designed to compose, edit, record, and finalize music. You can use it as a stand-alone application or plugin that integrates with other apps.
This free application supports flexible sub-tracks and tracks containing MIDI, audio, and automation parts, encouraging straightforward editing of various track elements.
You can use MuLab to record MIDI and audio up to 32-bit/192HZ quality. It also supports advanced recording options, such as punch-in/punch-out, loop, overdub, and pre-count and post-count recording.
When editing audio in MuLab, you can use tools like cut, trim, copy and paste, normalization, compression, fade in/out, equalization, pitch shifting, and pitch stretching.
You can use MuLab’s MIDI editing tools to add finesse to your creations. The MIDI editor lets you quantize the MIDI data, edit the controller change data, and edit the note’s length and velocity.
For mixing, consider using various built-in effects processors to shape the individual track’s sound. The effects include EQ, reverb, delay, and compression.
After routing the tracks and applying the effects, it’s time to balance the levels to ensure they sound together. You can take it a notch higher by creating crossfades and fades between your tracks.
MuLab’s internal architecture is designed around a modular system that lets you customize effects and instruments, enhancing customization in sound creation. FL Studio doesn’t have this capability.
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9. Mixxx
Mixxx is a free and open-source software for DJ mixing. It integrates digital music files with the tools DJs require to perform a live mix.
There’s no company behind Mixxx. Instead, a community of DJs, artists, and programmers developed and maintains it.
While FL Studio is a versatile digital audio workspace for music producers, Mixxx is exclusively designed for DJs.
The software supports the mixing techniques and styles of new and experienced DJs, making it versatile.
You can use the BPM and music key detection to spot the next track from your collection. The master sync matches the beats and tempo of four songs for effortless mixing.
Mixxx features the DJ controller hardware that lets you customize your workflow and setup. For example, you can customize your workflow using the programmable mapping system, adding support for HID or MIDI devices.
You can also use sound effects to add a distinctive spin to the tracks and unleash your creativity by chaining several effects and twisting their knobs.
Mixxx has vinyl record control where you can use time-coded turntables to control playback while scratching those digital tracks like you have pressed them on vinyl. It doesn’t end there. Toggle the vinyl mode to add music vinyl to your set.
The other features include hot cues, beat looping, quantization, crossfader control, beat rolls, and broad format support.
You can download Mixxx on macOS, Linux, or Windows.
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10. Reaper
Reaper is among the best free alternatives to FL Studio, known for its stability and extensive features. You can use it on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
It allows more customization, letting you tailor the workflow and interface to your preferences. Use it to create custom toolbars, macros, and actions. It comes with Lua, a scripting language that allows you to write your scripts.
Reaper also features multi-track recording that supports audio quality up to 64-bit/192Hz. It also offers other recording options, such as input monitoring, punch-in/punch-out, and loop recording.
Its mixing console lets you control effects, levels, and panning. It also offers surround sound mixing with at least 64 channels.
The free FL Studio alternative provides diverse editing tools, such as MIDI, track-based, and clip-based editing. You can apply various effects and plugins to your recording, such as compression, EQ, delay, and reverb.
The built-in instruments are samplers, synthesizers, and drum machines. It also supports VST plugins, unlocking access to more instruments.
Reaper offers higher customization and lower CPU usage than FL Studio.
Reaper is available for free download and comes with 60 days of evaluation. Once the evaluation period ends, you can keep using it, although a nag screen will keep showing up whenever you launch the software. This screen doesn’t affect Reaper’s functionality at all.
Conclusion
Waveform Free is the best free alternative to FL studio. Its open-source nature makes it highly customizable. For example, you can modify the existing scripts and plugins or create your own.
Waveform Free’s simple design enhances its stability and performance. That’s why it’s less prone to crashes.
It has powerful instruments, including a drum sampler, a 40SC versatile synthesizer, a rompler, a micro sampler, and a large variety of VST plugins. You can also locate any of these instruments and plugins quickly.
Besides, it has more use cases than most digital audio workspaces. It’s perfect for podcasting, DJing, songwriting, MIDI producing, multi-track band recording, audio engineering, electronic music production, synthesis, and more.
