If you work with sound effects, Soundly is pure joy. It’s a cloud-based library and search engine that integrates right into your DAW. Need a door slam or thunder rumble? Type it in, audition instantly, and drag it straight into your session. It also manages your own samples beautifully. I’ve used it for quick sound design on tight deadlines, and it saves me so much time. Sleek interface, fast workflow — it’s one of those tools that quietly becomes essential.
Ever wanted to remove vocals from a song to make your own backing track? Or isolate the bass to learn it by ear? Moises.ai does that — and a lot more. It uses AI to split songs into individual stems (vocals, drums, bass, etc.), change pitch or tempo, and even detect chords. It’s super intuitive and runs right in your browser or app. For musicians, it’s like having a practice, remix, and production lab in one place.
There’s something incredibly satisfying about using real knobs and sliders again. Monogram Creative Console gives you a modular control surface you can arrange however you like — faders for volume, dials for panning, buttons for shortcuts. It works with DAWs, video editors, and design apps. I use it with Logic and Lightroom, and it feels like sculpting with your hands. It’s beautifully made and totally adaptable to your workflow.
Now, this is one of my favourites.
If you love composing orchestral music, Divisimate is a dream. It takes what you play on one MIDI keyboard and automatically splits it into different instruments — violins, brass, woodwinds, whatever you want — in real time. It makes mockups sound alive and human, not like a wall of MIDI notes. You feel like a conductor at your keyboard, shaping a real ensemble. For anyone writing cinematic or classical music, it’s a total game changer.
There’s something magical about playing live with people. Jamulus makes that possible online — and somehow, it actually works. It’s open-source, lightweight, and surprisingly low-latency, so you can rehearse, record, or just jam with friends around the world. I’ve had sessions where a drummer in Berlin and a guitarist in New York played like they were in the same room. It’s not fancy, it’s just honest, functional, and deeply musical. Definitely a hidden gem.
