Now our DAWs are more powerful than ever, and they offer more features than we need to create great music from home. Yet sometimes we still stumble upon tools that can make our lives a bit easier:
In this week’s Instagram post, we’re focusing on these utility tools that can help you get the job done !
Check them out below and hopefully you will discover some new helpful tools !

SPAN
Ok this one isn’t really a surprise.. Combining a spectrum analyzer, a correlation meter, a level meter and more, SPAN is probably the most recommended free plugin out there, and a must have for any music producer or musician !
S(M)EXOSCOPE
Whether it be for sound design or mixing, an oscilloscope is a very useful monitoring tool: From observing how a compressor shape transients to checking low frequencies phases interactions, this freeware will get you covered.


SAMPLE MANAGER
Managing your sample pool can be tedious: This free plugin aims to help you in this task by providing an all-in-one solution for organizing, searching and browsing the indexed sample content.
PROJECTTIME
Keep an eye on the time spent on your project with ProjectTime: It runs as long as your project is loaded, can be paused when needed and can generate a commented log.


MIDICHORDANALYZER
This neat little plugin guesses chord names based on MIDI input or clicked notes: Although the developer seems inactive, luckily this plugin is open source and can still be found out there.
GON / 2BUSCONTROL
Both developed by MAAT, 2BusControl is a universal L/R or Mono/Diff monitor control that also features a correlation meter, while GON is a free goniometer that replicates an analog oscilloscope with a simple and straightforward visual interface.


VIRTUAL STUDIO
If you mix with headphones and ever wondered how you mix will sound in a different environment like your car, a recording studio, a big venue or a 5.1 surround speaker system, just throw this plugin on your master and check it out !
GROUND CONTROL
Ginger Audio’s Virtual Audio Driver isn’t a plugin, but more a utility tool that can pass any audio signal to other applications without any latency: Useful for streamers, engineers, podcasters, educators
Unfortunately it’s currently available for Mac only…
