Artist Tools
These are some of the tools I use to help me with design, marketing, song writing, mixing, and mastering. Every title is a link to the site I use so go check it out!
Design
Canva is my favorite site to throw together some album artwork, create a promo video, or just do basic video/audio editing.
Microsoft has a free competitor to Canva. It's not as built out, but it does have some AI capabilities.
This site is free and similar to Canva with the exception that it's more intricate for creating videos.
So far this is the only free site that I've found where you can get hi-res background removal. It does require an account.
I use this to create YouTube videos that have some animation tied to the music. The editor is completely online and will export quality video without watermarks. I'm not sure how long this tool will be free.
It comes with a watermark for the free tier but allows you to create cool little motion videos for marketing purposes or whatever use you find for it.
Grab a variety of images no account needed.
Grab a variety of free video clips.
Create an account and get access to a great AI Image Generator. You'll get free credits to use each month.
If you're releasing music through distrokid, this is the same company. There's no limit or credits with this one. Have fun!
This is not free so there's very little value with using this service. Get an image using the above links and then give it some background motion. Export via GIF, MP4, etc...
Are you looking for a specific phrase to add to your video or song and wish there was an easy way to find all the movies or shows that contain that phrase? Well, you found it here. Check out playphrase.me and thank me later.
Say you have the Nike swoosh logo. You can then create an image with it artistically embedded. Try it out for free.
Say you have the Nike swoosh logo. You can then create an image with it artistically embedded. Try it out for free.
https://kaiber.ai/
Marketing
Distrokid allows me release songs to all the streaming services without hassle. The first tier is about $20 a year and comes with unlimited releases.
I use the free version of Buffer to schedule social media posts for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You select your 3 platforms, type some text, add a video/image, and then schedule it.
Copy AI is an artificial intelligence tool that helps you write social media posts, blog posts, etc... Type in a title and a little bit of what you're trying to say and BOOM! You have some ideas on what to say to your audience.
Yep, you're looking at it right now. This comes free with every google account. Google Sites lets you build your site using drag and drop web elements. The custom domain will run you about $12 dollars a year (super easy to get setup).
This is a no account needed, free QR code generator. You can embed a logo, use different shapes/colors, and get a hi res image. I use this to link to my site and create stickers/cards.
You've probably heard of this one, if not, what are you doing!? For marketing, you can ask the bot to create you a marketing strategy and then carry on a conversation if you have questions. It's free and a no brainer.
Song Writing
I use this tool to help me find the key of the song I'm working with. Ultimately, I'm identifying the key and then snapping all midi and vocal notes to the grid so I don't have any weird notes out there.
I think this comes with any google account. I use this to record my vocal/melody ideas on my phone and then review them later on my computer. It's a very quick and easy way to capture your ideas so you don't lose them!
This site has a ton of cool free tools but I mostly use it to quickly find the bpm of a song. The primary tool lets you split the vocal and music of a song.
My friend showed me bandlab and set up one for us to co-produce a song. You can collaborate online by recording directly into the site or adding tracks to the shared project. It's a great way to build a song with someone else online.
Alright so you have thousands of sound samples right? How the hell are you going to find what you're looking for. Waves has released a tool called Cosmos which evaluates your samples and organizes them for you. Definitely check it out. It used to be free, but definitely worth the money.
If your DAW doesn't do this or doesn't do it well, this site is great for extracting Midi from an audio clip. Why would you do this? I've used it to flip a sample I like but I want to switch it up a bit and use a different instrument or change the key. You can even record a melody yourself and translate it to midi. So many uses!
This AI tool does a pretty good job at grabbing a piece of a song you like. For example, you like some drums of a track that you want to sample. Just upload track, split it out, and use the Sampler google chrome extension to grab the audio (if you want to stay free). $15 will get you export capability.
This one actually does both STEMs and MIDI! The best of the both above. Of course, all software is a little different so you may have better results using a combination of all three.
This AI tool generates complete songs for you. This helps if you're having some writers block or you want to start writing a song outside of your typical genre. It's also just really fun to play around with.
Alex Bainter made a free tool to slow your song and add some reverb to create a cool remix of your existing songs. This tool also can be great for adjusting your song ideas to see if they sound better slowed! Definitely check it out.
If you don't use this, you're missing out! You can ask this chat bot to write you some lyrics with a theme, complete lyrics you give it, write you chord progressions, write drum patterns, the list goes on and on.
Look up popular songs to understand the chords and melody that was used. I use this to get inspiration from getting chords from a favorite song of mine and then changing a bunch of stuff to produce my own original song.
This site let's you explore radios across the world across time. For example, you can shuffle a Brazil radio during the 80s and grab some cools songs from it using other tools.
This site has a ton of user created presets for VSTs such as Vital, Serum, Massive, and more. Filter by VST, genre, and instrument to find what you're looking for.
This one is pretty cool. Record your own voice singing, tune the heck out of it, and then run it through an AI to have a better sounding vocal (if you're not a singer). This is free with limited "remixes".
This one is free. It's an AI by Google that can generate music based on prompts. Combine this with Fadr to get specific instrument samples out of it.
Alright this one is the craziest so far. Suno AI can generate some pretty great tracks just from lyrics. It's credit based though so pay up.
This was recommended from TikTok in order to avoid getting viruses from the most popular ones. I'm still skeptical, but nonetheless this is what I've found.
Mixing
This site allows you to review uploaded mix stems of songs to get a better idea and reference of other songs.
Pretty basic right? This has helped me capture my "To-Dos" per song. For example, I'm listening to a track in my car or headphones and hear something I need to fix/adjust. I make a quick note in Google Doc for later.
Mastering
I do my own mastering but if you're looking for a quick online master, bandlab is a great place to start.
This site let's you preview what your song will sound like on various streaming services. It will tell you how much your song will either be turned down or up depending on how loud your master is.