Ultimate List Of Free iOS Music Making Apps
Whether you're just getting started or already making a living making music there's no shortage for a need of useful free apps.
From effects like EQs and Compressors to full blown Soft Synths such as Audiokit's Synth One, there's really something for everyone here regardless of where you are in your musical journey.
In addition to the list of free apps provided below we also show you how and where to find even more free apps if these ever fall out of your favor. So come along with us now let's make some professional sounding music for free.
Top 5 Best FREE iOS Instrument and Synthesizer Apps
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Spectrum Synthesizer Bundle by Thomas Burns
Spectrum is a collection of 3 Audio Unit synthesizers and one Audio Unit effect and is based on popular eurorack synthesizer modules made by Mutable Instruments.
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Factory by Sugar Bytes
Factory was made for complex and organic sounds sporting a big modulation matrix with all kinds of features to create a wildlife of sounds. A vast array of DSP is ready to play: Analog style oscillators and filters, but also different flavors of wavetable synthesis, Wavetable driven Waveguide resonators and a 3-FX-Chain in a dynamic signal flow.
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BASSalicious by MIDIculous LLC
BASSalicious is a dedicated monophonic synth bass synthesizer featuring one of the most exhaustive synth bass libraries for your iOS Device and all of the synthesis and filters are custom tweaked with our own personality and our urban ear.
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Noise by Roli Ltd
Noise is a free app that makes music mobile, so you can sketch musical ideas anywhere you take your connected device. Using easy-to-learn gestures you’ll create beats, melodies, and songs with a diverse library of sounds — all on the touch screen of your phone or tablet.
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Primer synth by Audible Genius
Primer synth is a synth equipped with the most essential controls and nothing more. Created by Audible Genius, it is an exact replica of the synth used in their award-winning synthesizer training app, Syntorial. As such, Primer contains the most common controls found on most subtractive/analogue synths, allowing for a wide variety of patches and sounds, while presenting a simple and easy-to-understand interface and layout.
Top 5 Best FREE iOS FX Apps
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RoughRider3 by Audio Damage, Inc.
RoughRider3 compressor from Audio Damage is one of the most popular plugin effects on the planet with almost a quarter million downloads and expands on the original RoughRider and RoughRider2. New features include External Input, Sidechain HPF control, I/O level controls, Full Bandwidth control and much more.
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EQ560 by Red Rock Sounds
EQ560 is based on Classic American EQ from the late '60s, the 10-band graphic equalizer features precision filtering and high headroom, ideal for signal enhancement. The EQ560 comes as time-limited Demo-version for you to try giving you 5 minutes of Free play time.
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Blamsoft suite by Blamsoft, Inc
Blamsoft suite of plugins are authentic emulations of classic synthesizers and effects coming in the popular AUv3 format. These free plugins consist of an overdrive, filter, bitcrusher, chorus and reverb plus the popular Viking Synth software synthesizer.
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Nembrini free plugins by Nembrini
Nembrini has a ton of professional quality free guitar effect plugins including classics such as the Black Distortion, Clon Minotaur and CrunchV2 as well as some extremely useful utility plugins including Delay, Noise Gate, Overdrive and more.
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Tape Cassette by Caelum Audio
Tape Cassette is an easy to use audio plugin that gives your music warmth, noise and character. Whether it’s an effect on the master for an overall lofi / indie texture, or as an insert to warm up individual channels, Tape Cassette gives you the tools to turn your music into a cosy, nostalgic listening experience.
Even More FREE Apps!
New music making apps are coming out all the time and since we can't make a video each time a new app gets released we've been updating a list of even more amazing free apps below.
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Groovebox: Beat & Synth Studio by Ampify Music
Groovebox is a free, beautifully designed music studio app packed with inspiring synths and drum machines. In minutes you’ll be making beats, melodies, and playing with world-class instruments. Expand your own collection with more sounds and instruments available in the store. From the creators of Launchpad, Groovebox helps you produce music on iPhone & iPad.
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Synth One by Audiokit Pro
Synth One is the first completely free & open-source professional iOS Synthesizer app in history. No Ads. No IAP. It will always be free. Created by over 100+ volunteers around the world (including sound designers for M83, Rihanna, Kanye West, Neon Trees, Mike Posner, Tycho, and more), this app includes MIDI support (play it with a MIDI keyboard or controller), sequencer, vintage-inspired analog filters, expressive arpeggiators, warm analog delays, and, over 300+ presets to get you started!
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DRC - Polyphonic Synthesizer by Imaginando Lda
DRC is a powerful virtual analog polyphonic synthesizer that recreates the characteristic sound of an analog synthesizer providing a minimal but powerful set of parameters for limited but incredible sonic capabilities.
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Harmonus by Julien Faure
Harmonus was originally inspired by a Magnus Model 300 Harmonium / organ (a brand of the "Magnus Harmonica Corporation") from our collection in perfect condition. It delivers a warm and unique sound between an accordion and a harmonica. The samples have been meticulously captured in stereo and denoised in order to render all the naturalness of the original organ without the noise of the mechanical fan.
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Mynth by Fingerlab
Mynth is the new intuitive and powerful synthesizer by Fingerlab. Draw the oscillators waveforms, adjust frequencies using filters, and control any parameters with the LFOs to create unique sounds, possibilities are endless! If you prefer, just explore the 132 factory presets to discover Mynth's wide sound palette. Of course, you can use your favorite keyboard with MIDI!
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SDS-x — Simple Drum Sampler by Ryan Robinson
SDS-x is a drum machine that makes it easy to play drum samples and fun to make beats. SDS-x is also extremely feature rich, with advanced controls for crafting your sound and building complex sequences. Whether this is your first iOS music app or you are an avid AUv3 enthusiast, SDS-x has something for you.
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Endlesss - Multiplayer Music by Endlesss Ltd (Tim Exile)
Endlesss is a free-to-use collaborative music studio with built in drums, synths, fx and much more. Easy to get started for the novice electronic musician with boundless opportunities for the seasoned creative.
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Dorico - Compose Music by Steinberg
Dorico allows you to compose your own music for free. Create beautiful music notation for one or two instruments quickly and easily with the on-screen keyboard, drum pads and fretboard. Play back instantly with the included sounds and shape the performance with powerful MIDI editing tools. When your piece is finished, share it as PDF, audio or MusicXML, or print directly to your AirPrint-enabled printer.
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MixBox CS by IK Multimedia
MixBox allows you to create, compare and save your own custom channel strips or multiFX chains, or choose from over 600 presets (with the Full version) to give your creativity a kickstart. Whether in your favorite host app or stand-alone, MixBox CS combines a massive range of effects and powerful workflow to supercharge your mixes.
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PlayScore 2 by Organum Limited
PlayScore 2 allows you to play all kinds of music direct from photos, images and PDF scores. Export as MusicXML and MIDI. Snap music with your camera or import images and PDFs. PlayScore will play them right back to you, scrolling through the song following measure by measure.
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Monolit by BLEASS
Monolit is a Mono Synthesizer inspired by BLEASS Alpha & BLEASS Omega Synthesizers and combines the rich analogue sound and intuitive ease-of-use of BLEASS Alpha with the creative expressiveness of BLEASS Omega. The result is a compact, efficient, mono-synth tailor-made for creating thunderous basses, searing leads, sparkling arpeggios and other-worldly SFX.
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Multiband Bluemangoo (MultibandMani Consulting)
Multiband splits an audio signal into separate channels: one for each of up to four frequency bands. It is useful for doing multiband processing using effects plugins that were not designed for multiband processing. For example, you could do multiband compression using two different compressor plugins, one for bass and a different one for treble frequencies. Or you could process a chorus or flanger effect on the midrange frequencies only, leaving the bass and treble clean.
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LRC5 by Neon Silicon
LRC5 is a five-band EQ. It includes low shelf, high shelf, and three parametric peak/cut filters. The filters can boost or cut by 24 dB. The frequency range for each of the filters is 10 Hz to 20 kHz. LRC5 isn't really designed for surgical frequency work but rather is aimed primarily at coloring of the signal.
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Flux Mini 2 by Caelum Audio
Flux Mini 2 is an AUv3 audio effect that adds life, character and dynamism to your tracks. The customisable graph creates a shape which affects either the amplitude, low-pass filter or high-pass filter. You can emphasize the frequency modulation with the resonance knob too!
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Pure Synth Platinum by MIDIculous LLC AKA Gospel Musicians
Pure Synth Platinum is NOW FREE!!! It has evolved into one of the only Virtual Instrument Players on iOS and has emerged as the only substitute for your Rompler/Synth needs. All engines are fully capable as a romper, synthesizer, and wavetable mangler.
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Numa Player by Studiologic
Numa Player is a completely free AUv3 virtual instrument containing 4 parts with 4 sound libraries containing keys, strings, pads, pianos and much more. Customize those sounds further with 9 insert effects and 3 master effects.
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Filterstep by AudioModern
Filterstep is a creative motion filter plugin which provides all kinds of intricate rhythmic movement to any input in real-time. It can give you incredibly complex and nuanced results based on various filter effect settings, and almost infinite possibilities for sonic exploration through filter randomization.
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Gatelab by AudioModern
Gatelab allows you to choose from a variety of randomization modes, density values, Flow or Gate mode and Built-in presets. Gatelab randomizes a unique combination of parameters and is delivering ever-evolving patterns and endless rhythmic effects. Chop up any audio signal through a number of music-creation and sound-mangling features. and generate fresh new ideas on the spot.
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Panflow by AudioModern
Panflow is a Creative Panning Modulator & Stereo rhythm generator plugin designed to Shape complex, evolving panning patterns and add random, rhythmical movement to any audio track in real-time.
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Physicles by AudioModern
Physicles is a container of physics-based Audio Unit MIDI plugins. These AU MIDI plugins generate MIDI messages through the use of an underlying physics engine, which models the physical interactions between various entities.
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ChowKick by Jatin Chowdhury
ChowKick is a kick drum synthesizer based on creative physical modelling of old drum machine circuits. The synth contains useful parameters for adjusting the tone and fundamental frequency of the synthesized kick drum. ChowKick installs as an AUv3 plugin that can be used in host applications like Garageband or AUM, or as a standalone application.
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ChowTapeModel by Jatin Chowdhury
ChowTapeModel is a physical model of an analog tape machine, implemented as an audio plugin. The model has parameters for tape distortion, playhead loss, wow/flutter, tape degradation, and more. Originally designed to emulate the Sony TC-260 reel-to-reel tape machine, the current version can emulate a wide range of tape machines and tape types.
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DLYM - Delay Modulator by Imaginando Lda
DLYM is a free ‘Delay Modulator’ plugin which produces flanger and chorus style effects using Imaginando’s powerful processing technology. Whether you’re looking to add just a touch of depth to your sounds or radically change them, DLYM can do both; we’ve even included over 20 presets/patches to get you started.
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Tape Cassette 2 by Caelum Audio
Tape Cassette 2 is an audio plugin that emulates the warmth, noise and character of old tape cassettes. Following up from our well received Tape Cassette 1, we’ve updated the plugin with a sleek interface and more changes under the hood too.
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DrumKnee 3D Drums by Music4Fun LLC
DrumKnee 3D Drums is the most realistic drums app. Now you can play the bass with your foot. Perfect for on-the-go drumming! It is like having a real drum set on the palm of your hands. Play drums, record, and share your songs with the DrumKnee 3D community.
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Scaler 2 by ScalerPlugin Pty Ltd
Scaler 2 is a multiple award winning music theory workstation redesigned from the ground up for iPad OS. Scaler 2 is an inspirational and creative music tool that gives you access to a world of new ideas, expressions and melodies.
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PaulXStretch by Sonosaurus LLC
PaulXStretch is most suitable for radical transformation of sounds. It is *not* designed for subtle time or pitch corrections! Ambient music and sound design are probably the most suitable use cases. It can turn any short audio into an hours long ambient soundscape without batting an eye!
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NA Tuner by Nembrini Audio
NA Tuner gives you fast, accurate tuning in a single plugin or app.
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TB GonioMeter by ToneBoosters
TB GonioMeter is a one-stop stereo image analysis plug-in. Easily identify stereo image imbalance or frequency ranges with negative correlation. Ensure that the content you create is of high quality and mono down-mix compatible, an essential requirement for mobile entertainment!
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AmpliTube TONEX by IK Multimedia
AmpliTube TONEX lets you experience breakthrough AI Machine Modeling™ Tone Models anywhere. Play, practice and record on the go using the most authentic and hyper-realistic gear models ever made. This free app lets you access your Premium Tone Model library anywhere with seamless sync, for a limitless supply of inspiration.
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IHNY-2 Compressor by Baby Audio
IHNY-2 Compressor is the 2nd generation of Baby Audio's popular parallel compression plugin and can be used to achieve true, hard-hitting, parallel compression without any complicated routing.
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Magic Dice by Baby Audio
Magic Dice generates random wet-FX textures on demand. The AUv3 plugin combines echo/delay, reverb and modulation effects from Baby Audio's award-winning Spaced Out product and puts them into a fast and creative experience.
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Magic Switch by Baby Audio
Magic Switch is a Lush one-button chorus effect loosely inspired by the Juno-60 analog chorus and is based on the "Magic" button in Baby Audio's Super VHS plugin. Magic Switch features a slider that let's you blend the effect to taste and is perfect for adding depth and dimension to your tracks.
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Pitch Drift by Baby Audio
Pitch Drift is a free AUv3 effect plugin by Baby Audio that introduces organic-sounding pitch fluctuations. It can range from subtle instabilities that make your instruments sound more natural and less sterile – to intense pitch drifting that will make your tracks clearly out of tune.
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Overdrive Synth by Moby Pixel
Overdrive Synth asks the question what does a synthesizer sound like through an overdrive pedal? To answer this great mystery, Moby Pixel visited NightSound Studios to re-amp a plethora of synth tones through various classic guitar pedals. The results are now available for your ears in Overdrive Synth!
How To Find More FREE Music Apps
Since there are always new apps coming out there are now a couple of dedicated app websites we've listed below that help you find, sort and favorite apps to download or purchase at a later date. In addition to these sites you can also simply browse the app store and set the filter to only return free apps which we demonstrate in the video above.
Conclusion
As you can tell from the list above there are a ton of amazing and professional music making apps available completely for free. There's even a bunch of apps that let you try before you buy further widening your sonic library. Plus iOS apps are known for their lower price point so now there are 1-to-1 re-creations of desktop apps coming to iOS for a fraction of their desktop cost. From effects to synths there's something for everyone to get started making professional sounding music on their iOS device without breaking the budget.
