Yet another list for 2021. This time for software. This is iOS/Apple heavy, so……you were warned.
Logic Pro X – You need a DAW. To record. To make music. This program does it all. And it is ridiculously cheap. Apple updates it a lot. No subscription required. Tons of sounds. If you are a student or have access to get the educational discount from Apple, get it with Mainstage and Final Cut Pro for $199.
Transcribe! – This is an essential tool to help you figure out music. It runs on Mac or PC. I can’t tell you how much I use this (a LOT). Essential.
Amazing Slow Downer – Sometimes you need to SAVE things slower. Or put it in a different key. This program does that. Also runs on iOS.
Audio Hijack – When the pandemic hit, this piece of software has been essential. Lets you do audio routing, and apply plugins or effects to your audio. Makes teaching over Zoom bearable. Loopback is another item to consider as well.
forScore – This is THE iOS gigging music program. Make set lists. Sync them to your computer. If you use an iPad for music, you need this. Period.
Downie – Essential tool to get video or audio off the web.
iStroboSoft Tuner – There are a lot of tuners out there. And I have a TON of them. But this is the one I keep going back to. The Strobe tuner. Simple, effective, accurate.
Finale – Yes, there are lots of other software that you can use to notate music with. But Finale is really a mature, stable platform. I’ve been using it since version……2.5 I think? I have the floppy disks here somewhere…..
Band in a Box – Yes. This ALWAYS makes my list. This software is so much fun to use. And essential for any musician. I mean, you can throw it a chord progression, and boom, you have something to practice with. And it sounds GREAT.
Backblaze/Arq Backup– You NEED to backup your stuff. Most of us have laptops, so, it makes sense to back it up to the cloud. For those of us with ONE machine with a LOT of files, I’d recommend Backblaze. It’s $7 a month for UNLIMITED storage. So if you have terabytes of files, this is the one to go to. If you have multiple computers and UNDER a terabyte of stuff, I can totally recommend Arq Backup. I have my laptop, my mom’s laptop, and some other machines backed up with this. BOTH of these just do their work in the background, and hopefully the day will not come when you need to retrieve files from them. But it DOES happen (accidentally deleting a file perhaps), and on BOTH services, it is really easy to restore backed up files.