I have an electronic tuner but I found that AP Tuner worked much better for me because of the sheer amount of options it presents you with, such as the ability to view and listen to a graph of musical notes and a library of sounds that can be customised by the user.

Download AP Tuner 3.08 in Softonic

Even if you're not a nostalgic, it's a fun way to make music by using airplanes, cars and characters from Super Mario Bros. You can create music only in MIDI but this simplicity and Mario theme makes it ideal for kids that just want to have some fun.

To create music, you simply insert characters along the timeline. The different characters represent different sounds in Mario Paint Composer. Images placed on top of the line are high notes and lower notes are placed on the bottom line. Some controls at the bottom give control over playback although they are mainly limited to basic commands and controlling the tempo.

Once you've completed experimenting, simply record your song. The results are very limited in MIDI and you can't export yout creations to play on anything other than Mario Paint Composer.

Mario Paint Composer is a fun app for kids or those nostalgic for it on SNES.

Download Mario Paint Composer 2.00 in Softonic

LMMS includes all the tools you need to create music from scratch (both melodies and background beats), mix and arrange samples and prefabricated sounds and finally producing and exporting the results. What's more, you can connect your MIDI keyboard to the computer and play with it and LMMS – or simply use the onscreen piano roll.

The program features a sleek dark interface that you will likely find overwhelming the first time you run the program. There are loads of menus, tools and other information to pay attention to. Fortunately LMMS is also extensively documented, including not only a complete wiki page about it but also dozens of tutorials and ready-made tracks to get you started.

LMMS features also a bunch of samples, drum loops and other creative material you can use on your compositions. The program is fully MIDI-compatible and its functionality can be easily expanded with plug-ins.

If you like composing, mixing, editing and playing with music on your computer, this is the application you're looking for.

Download LMMS 0.4.9 in Softonic

LimeWire Turbo Accelerator is an application that boosts your download speeds on LimeWire by between 200-400%, according to the developer. It aims to solve problems that LimeWire users experience such as slow downloads, disconnections, traffic congestion, and unreliability.

LimeWire Turbo Accelerator operates discreetly in your system tray and features several handy tools, such as deletion of erroneous files, automatically resuming of paused downloads, automatically searching for more sources at intervals you can specify, and saving configurations each time you close down LimeWire.

If you're a heavy LimeWire users and need more features and faster downloads, then
Limewire Turbo Accelerator could be your solution.

Download LimeWire Turbo Accelerator 4.3.8.0 in Softonic

For those getting into playing electric guitar, gear can get expensive very quickly. AmpliTube aims to provide the same experience of playing a gig with digital effects and equipment. You'll still need a guitar, digital foot pedal to control the program, and a MIDI controller, but that's it.

There are plenty of other guitar interfaces out there, like Guitar Rig but none are quite as beautiful and well laid out as AmpliTube. You can experiment with beautifully rendered amps and other vintage guitar equipment in AmpliTube's Custom Shop and can try out equipment in AmpliTube's store (which unfortunately uses a point system) before buying. Buying new gear can get expensive, especially with an already expensive application, but thankfully, you get a 10 day free trial.

If you're a guitarist who wants to star recording digitally, AmpliTube is a perfect solution. While expensive, this program delivers the most comprehensive set of digital tools for the guitarist.

Download AmpliTube 3.5 in Softonic

Once you've installed and registered with Mojo, it opens with a small messenger type window that will show all the friends libraries you can look through. On an intranet, they should show up automatically, and on the internet you can add any 'buddies' who you know on Mojo through the add buddies tool. This means it can be hard to find other users unless you agree with someone to use Mojo.

When you open a library, it looks a great deal like iTunes, and is easy to use. You can see all your tracks (in grey), protected songs (in red) and your contacts' songs. You can also see other iTunes sections like shows, movies or podcasts and even subscribe to others' playlists. Changes will be automatically downloaded to your library so you are always up to date.

You can listen to any unprotected song by highlighting it and pressing play on the basic Mojo player, or alternatively click download and it will swiftly be added to your own iTunes library (you can specify any destination folder).

Lacking a tool bar, Mojo can actually be intimidatingly simple to start off with, and this makes it feel a little awkward. That's unfortunate, as the application runs really well once you've got used to it, and is an easy and enjoyable way to listen to music.

Although it may be hard to find your friends, if you can this is an easy way to share eachother's music.

Download Mojo 2.2.2 in Softonic

RadioSure Portable allows you to browse through a huge variety of stations, sorting by language, country, genre and title. You can also add new stations and toggle a variety of configuration settings that run from enabling hotkeys to recording radio.

There are various ways of listen to RadioSure Portable - via the main interface, minimized to a smaller bar, or minimized completely to the taskbar. The taskbar option will let you carry out the majority of actions you need by right-clicking.

Even though RadioSure Portable has lots to recommend it, the problems Elena mentioned in version 1 still stand. Some radio connections are dropped and some won't connect at all. This is a common problem with streaming music apps, however, and RadioSure Portable has so many stations available that you won't be stuck for music to listen to. There's still no in-built payer to listen to your recordings though, and I felt that the search function wasn't as good as it could be.

Despite a few small problems, RadioSure Portable is still a great option for listening to internet radio.

Download RadioSure Portable 2.2.1022 in Softonic

The good thing is, it's a powerful but easy to use tool which enables you to navigate to your desired section instantly. The developers have obviously worked hard to ensure that the creative process remains simple. Everything related to what you are writing is a mouse click away - just type in the keyword or phrase you need inspiration with and MasterWriter throws up a whole host of ideas and suggestions.

One of the best things about this program is that you actually learn something. If you're not a native English speaker, it will certainly help expand your vocabulary and even general knowledge. However, I can't help feeling that this program removes the spontaneity of the creative process although it's a great cure for writers block.

Download MasterWriter in Softonic

Fortunately, applications such as iRip (formerly known as iPodRip) make this problem a thing of the past by unlocking your iPod so that you can use it as you want. iRip transfers music from your iPod back to your iTunes Library, allows you to listen to music directly on your iPod (thus saving valuable disk space) and it supports major formats: i.e. MP3, AAC, and Audible.com Content. iRip could be particularly useful in a situation where your Mac has crashed and your iPod remains the only place where you've saved all of your music.

When you start iRip, you're asked if you want to perform a manual or automatic transfer to iTunes. We opted for manual, and you simply select a track and then click the 'Import' button at the bottom of the interface. When the transfer is complete, a green tick appears next to the track. You can also play songs with the playback controls at the bottom of the interface. There are very few preferences but in an application as simple as this, you don't really need any.

The only annoying thing is that a nag screen floats permanently next to iRip asking you to register and telling you that you only have 100 song transfers left. It also tends to occasionally import ratings incorrectly so don't be surprised if some of your tracks appear downgraded when imported.

Simple to use and very fast, iRip is definitely a powerful unlocking solution for iPods.

Download iRip (iPodRip) 2.0.5 in Softonic

Some people will like the thought of downloading music this way, because as well as hiding possible dangers, P2P downloads are often illegal. The music2pc app is very easy to use, and won't cause you any problems at all. Type the music you want into the search box, choose from one or the other search provider and wait for the available downloads to appear.

Depending on the type of music you are looking for, music2pc can take a few minutes to return results. Once they display, you'll see the artist name, title, duration and bitrate of the song. There'll also be an option to download the song in MP3 format to whatever folder you choose. music2pc's configuration settings are very limited, and just allow you to use a proxy for finding music.

There are two problems with music2pc. Firstly, it's a very limited app. It just allows you to search and download, and there are no nice extras that will make the experience any smoother. Secondly, music2pc doesn't tell you exactly where the music is coming from, making it no safer than other ways of downloading music. On the upside, it's free, and the developer assures that music2pc is also legal.

It's not clear where music2pc's download's come from, but as an alternative source for free music, it's an interesting tool.

Download music2pc 2.13 in Softonic