Audiosity is a free music workshop for your computer: scales, chords and rhythm, a synthesizer, drum machines, a tracker, a sequencer, a small studio and sheet music, all in one app that works offline.
The deal
Audiosity is not trying to replace a professional DAW, a notation program or a hardware synth. It puts the ideas behind all of them in one place, so you can learn how they work and play around with them: what makes a chord sad, why a groove swings, how a filter shapes a sound, how a song is put together.
Every page explains itself as you use it, and everything you make can be sent to the next tool: a chord progression to the sheet music, a drum groove to the tracker, a generated song to the studio. When you move on to professional software, you will already know what the knobs do.
No ads, no accounts, no paid tier, nothing to unlock.
The pages behind the Theory button teach by sound. Every example plays, and you can send it on to make something with it.
Start from First steps, then work through harmony, time and composition.
Each genre comes with its groove, chords, bass line and sound, notes on rhythm, harmony and arrangement, and famous pieces to listen to. Play it, change the tempo, or generate a whole song from it.
Type a progression and hear it as a four-part chorale, an Alberti bass, a canon or first-species counterpoint, written by the rules the textbooks teach.
The pages behind the Create button are instruments and tools. Use them on their own, or move your ideas between them.
Write scores, or generate one from any genre, then practise with it.
Subtractive, wavetable, FM, additive, physical models and samples. The signal flow lights up as you play, so you can see where a sound comes from.
A six-operator FM synth, plus programs that turn number sequences and formulas (Fibonacci, primes, pendulums) into melodies.
Every drum is synthesized, so you can shape a kick or a snare from the ground up, then program it in the step sequencer.
Songs, chains and phrases typed from the keyboard, in the spirit of handheld trackers. Generate a song from a genre to see how one is built.
A small multitrack studio with clips, a piano roll, automation and a mixer. Bring in parts from the other pages, hum a melody to turn it into notes, and export your song as audio or MIDI.
Also inside: a sequencer, a sampler, vocals, drones, arranged scenes, a producer helper and live coding.
Download
One installer. No account to create, nothing to sign in to. After installing it works offline.
Windows may warn that the app is from an unknown publisher, because it is not code-signed. Choose More info, then Run anyway. You can check the file against its SHA-256 checksum.