Free GarageBand Instruments GarageBand for MacOS comes with dozens and dozens of top notch virtual instruments for you to wrap your fingers around. That said, there will come a time when you want to broaden your sonic horizons with some new instrument sounds. Best free GarageBand for Mac plugins. GarageBand for Mac is an excellent tool for making music, and it can be made even better through these free plugins. By Martyn Casserly, Contributor. This is where GarageBand's software instruments come in handy. Just right-click on the left under the other tracks and select New Software Instrument Track or create one with the Option + Cmd + S keyboard shortcut. To select the instrument, click View Show Library or press Y. Here you can select from drum kits, keyboards, synthesizers and more.
I like nearly all of Apple’s $99 Jam Pack add-on sound libraries for GarageBand (Voices doesn’t do a lot for me), but I also like free. And when I think free and GarageBand I think SoundFonts, E-mu Systems’ sampled sound file format—a software instrument format supported by GarageBand.
- Garageband Instruments free download - Apple GarageBand, Pro Pack For GarageBand, Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller, and many more programs.
- While we can increase the quality of Garageband’s piano sounds using EQ, compression, reverb, and ambiance, the best way to get a superior piano is to simply download another plug-in that sounds way better right out of the box. The best free piano sounds for Garageband are the 4Front piano and the Soft Piano from Spitfire Audio Labs.
Here’s how to obtain and install SoundFonts:
New Garageband Instruments Free Download
1. Google “soundfont” to find one of the many sites that offer free SoundFonts—HammerSound is a good place to start.
2. Once you’ve downloaded a few SoundFonts, place them in this directory: /Library/Audio/Sounds/Banks.
3. In GarageBand create a new Software Instrument track, click the Details triangle, and from the Instrument Generator pop-up menu choose DLSMusicDevice and click the Edit button next to it.
4. In the window that appears, choose your SoundFont from the Sound Bank pop-up menu to play that sound.
Note that not all SoundFonts are compatible with the Mac OS. I’ve also found that GarageBand is happier if the SoundFont extension is spelled .sf2 rather than .SF2.
Also note that SoundFont files are often compressed in the RAR format. You can expand them using a tool such as the donation-ware UnRarX.
The Best Free Instrument for GarageBand
Over 20 unique, pro quality software instrument sounds captured in one of London’smost prestigious sound stages.
A dedicated App and Plugin with fully featured, clutter free and focussed controls.
Presets and sounds sculpted by some of the brightest and best composers, engineers and musicians on the planet.
Sounds pretty good, right? How much would you be willing to pay for something like that?
Free Garageband Vst Instruments
This is LABS from Spitfire Audio, An infinite series of free software instruments, made by musicians and sampling experts in London, for anyone, anywhere.
It is, in my opinion, essential and the best free instrument plugin for any GarageBand music maker. The best part about LABS? It’s completely free.
In the video below, discover how to install LABS, how to use it in GarageBand and some of my favourite free instrument sounds.