With a huge selection of open source software available, Linux offers the ideal environment for audio enthusiasts.
Audio Analyzers - This type of software lets you visualize audio spectrum for real-time signals. Some of the programs also lets you analyze amplitude and phase spectrum as well.
Audio Converters - This article covers tools to convert music files to a different audio format.
Audio Editors - The best free audio editors make it simple and easy to manage audio files for a variety of different purposes.
Audio Samplers - A sampler is an electronic or digital musical instrument which uses sound recordings (or “samples”) of real instrument sounds (e.g., a piano, violin or trumpet), excerpts from recorded songs (e.g., a five-second bass guitar riff from a funk song) or found sounds (e.g., sirens and ocean waves).
CD Audio Grabbers (Graphical) - Extract ("rip") the raw digital audio with software offering a graphical user interface.
Console Based Multimedia - There is a wide range of console based software which performs the same or similar functions to their graphical equivalents.
Digital Audio Workstations - If you want to record, edit, mix and master audio and MIDI projects, a DAW is the tool you need.
Disc Jockey Tools - Software for both professional and amateur DJs. If you’re starting out as a DJ, you’ll probably want to try free software, as proprietary solutions can be very expensive. Fortunately, Linux has some useful software for music production.
Drum Machines - Electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns.
Guitar Tools - Applications that are targeted at guitarists. Whether you are a causal strummer, or can give a virtuoso performance with beautiful chord embellishments in the style of Bobby Jo or Jimi Hendrix, there should be something of interest here for anyone interested in guitar music.
Internet Radio: Graphical Clients, Terminal-Based Clients (also known as web radio, net radio, streaming radio, and online radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet.
Music Tag Editors - A tag editor (or tagger) is an application which allows users to edit metadata of multimedia files. Metadata is the data about the audio data. It lets information about the audio file such as the title, artist, conductor, album, track length, lyrics, embedded images, and other information be stored in the audio file itself.
MPD Clients (Graphical) - GUIs for controlling a powerful server-side music application. MPD runs in the background playing music from its playlist. Client programs communicate with MPD to manipulate playback, the playlist, and the database.
Music Players - The finest music players. There is an extremely wide range to choose from.
Music Players: Terminal Based - The finest music players in your terminal. They are light on system resources, fast, and efficient compared to many graphical counterparts.
Music Servers - Turn your Linux box into a music server, distributing digital tracks over a network. A home computer makes an ideal appliance to store and stream music.
Music Trackers - A music tracker is a type of music sequencer software for creating music.
Pandora Radio Clients - Pandora Internet Radio is a music streaming automated music recommendation service.
Podcast Tools: GUI Podcast Tools - Terminal-Based Podcast Tools - A podcast is a form of digital media consisting of an episodic program downloaded or streamed over the Internet using an XML protocol called RSS.
Scorewriters - Open source alternatives to Sibelius and Finale. A scorewriter (often known as notation software or music notation processor) is software used with a computer for creating, editing and printing sheet music.
Speech Recognition Tools - These toolkits are meant to be the foundation to build a speech recognition engine. We rate 10 free speech recognition tools.
Speech Tools - Speech synthesizers, speech recognition software, speech recognition engines, and speech analysis are explored.
Sound Systems - A sound system is software that manages the use of and access to audio devices (usually a sound card). It commonly runs as a background process.
Spotify TUI Clients - Listen to Spotify from the terminal without using the semi-official bloated GUI app.
Synthesizers - A software synthesizer, also known as a softsynth, is computer software which creates digital audio. Create a known or unknown, common or unusual sound experience.
Web-Based MPD Clients - Web apps for controlling a powerful server-side music application. MPD runs in the background playing music from its playlist. Client programs communicate with MPD to manipulate playback, the playlist, and the database.
Tools for Musicians - Produce professional quality recordings. With a good background in music, talent, and patience, coupled with open source software you can be truly creative and innovative.
Music Streaming Clients - Forget about vinyl and CDs, digital streams almost totally command music listening.
