The Best Free Software Studio

Amazing Free Software Studio

Cakewalk by BandLab, previously known as SONAR, is a fully functional and completely free software studio. This DAW has been on the market for decades and is used by millions of people worldwide.
Cakewalk by BandLab is loaded with tons of free instruments and effects for your music production. It offers high-quality tools for music creation such as recording, mixing, and mastering. You can enjoy an unlimited number of Audio and MIDI tracks, as well as an unlimited number of instruments and effects in every project.
Cakewalk by BandLab is built on a 64-bit engine to offer high-precision audio technology and clean, consistent and accurate results every time you use it. The Cakewalk by BandLab software studio features VST3 and ARA support with superb audio quality. It loads both 64-bit and (most) 32-bit VST plugins.
Available for Windows 64-bit only.

High Quality Multiplatform DAW

Waveform Free is a great free DAW (Digital Audio Workstations) - without any limitations of any kind. You get unlimited tracks, including audio & MIDI, as well as loads of professional-grade processing, EQ and mixing effects. Waveform Free comes with a really good piano-roll, a number of virtual instruments, including a sampler and an FM synthesizer, plus free effects and sample libraries.
On top of this Waveform Free alows you to perform more complex tasks like MIDI learning and sync to video. Despite the endless possibilities of creative music production, Waveform Free is very intuitive and easy to use. One of the biggest drawbacks of Waveform Free is that it only supports 64-bit VST plugins, so you'll have to get a Plugin Bridge to run your 32-bit VST's.
Available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux: 64-bit only.

Versatile Open Source DAW

LMMS is a cross-platform DAW / sequencer that gives you all the necessary tools to produce great music for free. Basically LMMS is a free FL Studio clone. It features a song-editor for composing songs, a beat and bassline-editor for creating beats and basslines, a good piano-roll for editing patterns and melodies, and an FX mixer with 64 FX channels. On top of this LMMS supports import of SoundFont2, Giga, Gravis UltraSound, and MIDI files. You can't record audio in it though. LMMS ships with many instruments and effects out of the box, plus it offers full 32-bit and 64-bit VST plugin support.
Available for Windows, Linux and MacOS.

Software Studio Made Easy

SoundBridge is a DAW designed with one thing in mind - simplicity. It offers easy access to all the essential tracking, sequencing, editing and mixing tools required in a modern software studio.
With Soundbridge, you have an unlimited number of audio & instrument tracks, and third-party VST and audio driver support. On top of that SoundBridge offers a large variety of native effects as well as a drum machine and a sequencer.
SoundBridge can only run VST plugins with the same bit rate as the DAW. So if you downloaded the 64-bit version of SoundBridge, you'll have to get a Plugin Bridge to run your 32-bit VST's.
Available for Windows 32 bit and 64 bit plus Mac

Old School Tracker

MilkyTracker is a remake of the legendary Fasttracker II for DOS. It's not a real DAW by modern standards, and it does not support VST plugins either. But if you're interested in creating music on an old school tracker like it's 1992 you might want to give this baby a go.
MilkyTracker saves and loads both .xm and .mod files and loads more than 30 different classic mod-files. The MilkyTracker software studio features low latency audio driver support, MIDI In support and rendering of songs or patterns to wav-files. On top of this MilkyTracker features a sample editor perfect for making your own 8-bit drum sounds.