One big downside is that most of the higher functionality of this DAW is hidden, though still accessible. You can even take the drum track, convert it to MIDI, and use your own sampler with your own sounds, saving you from coming up with a pattern and all the tedious fills! It may sound cheesy at first listen, but with a little processing (try OTT by Xfer it’s free!) it can be a saving grace for people like me who loathe the idea of hand-programming drums for an entire song. Now imagine that you had more than one drummer, with different kits and styles. Imagine that you had a drummer with you at all times who knew where to put fills on their own, could listen and adapt to your track, and could even differentiate between the chorus and the verse, with no yelling across the room. The real treat that is exclusive to Garageband is the Drummer track. You can get full control of all the synth parameters, and start creating your own sounds right away, and the sampled libraries can be delightfully authentic sounding with the right touches.

It comes with a multitude of synthesized sounds, as well as a number of basic sampled libraries to get you started. Secondly, it’s far more capable than most people know. It gets the first spot on this list simply because if you have a Mac, you already have the software, no need to hunt down a download file.

No doubt you’ve already heard about Garageband, given that it comes pre-loaded on every Mac sold. Garageband | Image credit: Apple Check & download

Best free music production programs