welcome

“Music I won’t listen to, games I won’t play…”

I used to be as guilty as the next person when it came to using plugins, believing equal better. And indeed when it comes to free plugins, you don’t get a much better deal – in terms of quality quantity – than our very own Suite. The more the merrier, we cry! But over recent years – and brought much more sharply into focus with my recent upgrade to Monterey that necessitated a big plugin clear out – I’ve come to appreciate the quality versus quantity thing. So we’re in the midst of a Suite review – more on that in two issues – and for this issue’s regular, biennial (yes, I thought it was biannual too) freeware feature, we’ve decided not to review hundreds of the best free music apps, but instead focus on the best half dozen or so you should use for each of a variety of different musical tasks. That way you don’t have to trawl through so many to download – just grab what you need according to the music you make, and home in on the (as Arturia might say) ‘plugins you will actually use’ rather than filling your drive full of crap. This new lean, mean plugin philosophy has sped up my music making (ie I’ve actually made some), and it’s also allowed me to fill all the bonus hard drive space up with music I won’t listen to and games I won’t play! Thank you Monterey! (And look out for next month’s issue where we’ll be exploring how to have a hit single with a one kick drum sample, a piece of string and some sticky-back plastic.)