Is there an alternative to Garage band for Windows 10?

Aside from running OSX in a virtual machine on Windows, there is no way to run Garage band on Windows 10. Garage band is only available as Software for OSX and iOS and unlike iTunes, Safari or QuickTime there hasn’t been a version developed specifically for Windows. 

Apple changed the world with their Mac and mobile devices, and in the field of home recording, Garage band was groundbreaking, in fact, it’s hard to imagine the explosion in home recording that happened in the early 2000’s without it. So, in a sense, it’s understandable that Apple would rather have you contained in their own ecosystem, given the time, effort and money that’s gone into making it great.

That’s not to say I agree with that, and while I have owned and used several Apple devices over the years, given their cost, limitations on freedom of use, proprietary cables, transfer methods etc. these days I’m firmly in the Windows & Linux camp.

So is there a real alternative to Garage band? a Garage band for Windows 10 if you will. Thankfully the answer is a solid yes and in 2002 a small company called Acoustica, based in the foothills of Yosemite Valley, started work on a piece of software called Mixcraft. Their core philosophy was simple, software should be easy to use. And over several iterations of Mixcraft (version 9 now at the time of writing) that has remained true.

The interfaces are remarkably similar, as  is the workflow, so if, for example, you found yourself unable to afford a new Mac, as I was when mine died, and having to move to Windows. Then, being familiar with Garage band, you’d find it intuitive and remarkably easy to use Mixcraft, as I did. If you are new to recording altogether and you were to install Mixcraft on your PC you’d soon be up and running and again as it’s designed to be easy to use and very much like Garage band you’d be up and running in no time at all.

But that’s not all, where Garage band finishes and the expectation is that for more professional functionality that you would need to purchase Logic Pro, Mixcraft has a lot of that functionality under its belt. So, as you become more skilled the tools are available if you need them, if not, it still functions perfectly as a musical note pad.