While playing around on my mac, I mostly use free software. However, I'm a big proponent of GarageBand Jampacks (assuming you're using GarageBand of course). But without further ado, my software list:
  • GarageBand - Probably the world's most famous sequencer, GarageBand, is an amazing tool for playing around. You can author songs, sequence in loops, export mp3s, and generally have a good time. I mostly use it to record whatever I'm playing, and for the onscreen keyboard. It's a great tool for helping figure out notes, and as a bonus, it even produces sheet music. Suffice it to say, I'm a fan!
  • Logic - Well, for years I'd been using GarageBand, until I finally moved over to Logic Pro. What a difference! First off, Logic can support multiple live channels. It has significantly more software instruments and loops, and it supports all GarageBand formatted loops. Logic is an unbelievable piece of software.
  • Finale Notepad - This is the free edition of Finale's music notation software. Unfortunately it's missing quite a few useful features (right now I'm struggling with the fact that I can't have multiple tempos). Its other great limitation to me) is that it only supports English text on music sheets. On the plus side, it's free, and quite useful. Lay out your sheet music, and have the app play it back to you. Notepad even supports multiple instruments on a single score. Quite nice for free software!
  • DoggieBox - DoggieBox is an amazing application for creating drum tracks. It supports add-on drum kits (much like GarageBand), but is significantly easier to use for this need. DoggieBox will happily export mp3s, and plenty of other formats. At only $39USD, it's easily the best music software related purchase I have ever made.
Next: GarageBand Loops, DoggieBox beats