Links to Awesome Music Freeware!

I want to spread the word about my favourite freeware programs and stuff, because in an economy like this, few can afford programs like FL Studio, Reason or Record. There are oodles of free programs out there that work just as well as the commercial models, and sometimes they're just more user-friendly.

Here are my favourites, and you may notice that they all work on Windows, since it is the operating system I primarily use. I may put in a list of Linux programs sometime in the future, when I've had the chance to test them.

I will be putting in more links in the future.

If you are a programmer and want your creation featured here, or if you would like to see your favourite software on this blog, just post a request in the comment section or email me.

Project Dogwaffle

If you love painting and great freeware, there are many programs available on download sites such as snapfiles.com and download.com.

For the Corel Painter crowd, Dogwaffle is a great alternative. It has a freeware version and several levels of pay versions, which allow advanced brush creation and editing and special 'particle' brushes which can create organic-looking branches and roots, somewhat like the tube-brushes in Painter.

In the freeware version, the tools are basic but still very useful. You can create them using graphics files(as demonstrated in some of the 'organic effects' brushes) or using the 'custom brush' tool which allows you to manipulate the size and number of 'bristles' in the brush. Other brush types that can be created are the pastels, which are used with the paper texture feature. This feature can create pastel paper, canvas, watercolour paper, and other realistic or non-realistic patterns which resemble real paper while you paint.

The watercolour brushes in the free version are simple brushes, some with texture and some without, that bleed and blend with other colours for a realistic effect. The oils and tempera are similar to the watercolours, but less transparent. The commercial versions have more options for these brushes as well, including the thick(impasto) oils, dropshadows, and translucent and opaque watercolours. Dogwaffle even allows some animation, and even onionskins for animation cells in some versions.

Project Dogwaffle can be downloaded for free or bought for as low as $29 at this website: TheBest3D.

Sai Paint Tool

Sai Paint Tool is a welcome change from those Photoshop-type graphic editors. When all you want to do is draw and design, Photoshop or the GIMP(Gnu Image Manipulation Program) are fine, but some of the tools are downright frustrating to use. For example, the smear tool only works smoothly at smaller sizes, but make it too large and smudging with it will take a long time. The smudge/smear tools in Photoshop and most other programs like it take too much memory, especially when larger.

The Opencanvas style programs are a different story, with a less memory-consuming blur/smear tool. The bur and smear settings can be adjusted, and are as smooth as silk even in the larger sizes. With Sai, you can make your own brushes, including watercolour, brush, pencil, and marker. The tool types are few, but their options will allow you to customize them in many ways.

You can even make your own palette, work with some textures and layer options, and even select with a special selection brush. For the layer options, you can make a bitmap(like Photoshop) or vector(like Illustrator) layer. Layers can be grouped into sets and masked with special 'layer masks', and even duplicated. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and are worth checking out!

For Opencanvas, check out the commercial version here.
The free version can be found here.

For Sai Paint Tool, it can be downloaded and purchased here and here.