cool tools i like

Cool Tools

Music

Alexander Zolotov

https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=6791817400205972629

https://warmplace.ru/about.php

Paid Android app music apps. Unfortunately Alexander is based in Russia, and due to recent changes to google play store, you cannot buy his apps directly from the store.

Instead you can make a "donation" him through his site, and he will send a gift code for the app on the app store. I tried this, and got access within an hour of contacting him.

SunVOX, PixiTracker, etc etc

Audacity

https://www.audacityteam.org

FOSS

"Audacity is the world’s most popular free software for recording and editing audio. So if you're producing music, a podcast, or just playing around with audio, Audacity is for you."

Fantastic audio editor. I've used it for cleaning up vocals and live music recordings. Spectral editor allows very powerful and easy noise edits like removing coughs, de-essing.

BandLab

https://www.bandlab.com/

Freemium

This is what I used to make my first music tracks. You don't need a full-fledged DAW, in fact I find it can be very distracting/overwhelming. Free BandLab provides the essentials in a relatively clean and intuitive layout. I've never messed with it for sharing music so not sure how great it is or isn't there.

Tbh I paid for a year of their premium version, which also includes Cakewalk Next and Sonar. This isn't a bad deal at all. BandLab->CakeWalk Next (basically bandlab with more features)->CakeWalk Sonar (or another pro DAW) isn't a bad path.

FamiTracker

http://famitracker.com

"FamiTracker is a free windows tracker for producing music for the NES/Famicom-systems. The interface is based on MadTracker and should be easy to use if you've been using trackers before."

http://famitracker.com/links.php other stuff worth checking out

FL Studio

https://www.image-line.com

frankly i don't necessarily have any more love for this daw than any other. I remember playing with FL studio when I was 13. So now that I'm 37 and trying again, I stuck with the name I remembered. It is cheaper than some of the other options, but there are even cheaper options like Reaper or the FOSS options Ardour and LMMS

Furnace

https://tildearrow.org/furnace/

FOSS

"the ultimate chiptune music tracker"

Mixxx

https://mixxx.org

FOSS

Haven't played with too much but seems like a very cool dj app. 2 or 4 "turntable" configs, record scratching, sampling, and tons more. Also very useful BPM, key detection tools

strudel / tidalcycles

https://strudel.cc

FOSS

"strudel is a JavaScript version of tidalcycles , which is a popular live coding language for music, written in Haskell."

VCV Rack 2

https://vcvrack.com/Rack

Freemium

virtual eurorack studio

modular studio

Other Stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbUbx9cJPX0

https://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21c/MusicTheory.html

Free

totally free comprehensive music theory course created by Robert Hutchinson

Notes: stuff to check out

https://www.scales-chords.com tools for finding chords, scales, progressions, and hearing demos

https://www.hooktheory.com

https://www.chordwarepa.com/?page_id=648

https://siennasphere.acustica-audio.com/blog/3-websites-every-music-producer-should-know/

Game Dev

Adventuron

https://adventuron.io

create html adventure games in your browser

Godot

Unity

Unreal Engine

Twine

GameMaker

RPGMaker

Mudlet

Pico-8

https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

Paid

"PICO-8 is a fantasy console for making, sharing and playing tiny games and other computer programs."

Evennia

Voxatron

https://www.lexaloffle.com/voxatron.php

"Voxatron is a fantasy console and collection of games made entirely out of voxels (little colourful cubes, kind of)."

Other Stuff

https://natureofcode.com

Full online interactive book on using p5.js library for programming natural processes; fractals, conway's game of life, evolutionary computing, etc etc etc

https://devpods.itch.io/hands-on-intro-to-game-programming-textbook-pdf-with-js-source-code

getting started programming video games using javascript

Image Editing

Krita

Gimp

aseprite

3D

Blender

Video

Davinci Resolve

OBS Studio

ffmpeg

stacher 7 / yt-dlp

Words

Electric Zine Maker

https://alienmelon.itch.io/electric-zine-maker

name your own price

The Electric Zine Maker (⚡️📝✂️) is a printshop and art tool for making zines.

LibreOffice

Obsidian md

Logseq