LMMS and reaper are both goof options. I would recommend LMMS for a beginner because it comes with a lot of free instruments and examples bundled with it.
Game Development
Welcome to the game development community! This is a place to talk about and post anything related to the field of game development.
Be careful with free music sites. Got music for my game from one but now the song is gone. Was able to find it on YouTube where it isn't licensed for free anymore. Now I'm in contact with the composer and asked them whether I should keep or remove the song.
Okay, I’ll be careful
Maybe Strudel:
https://strudel.cc/workshop/getting-started/
Can help with composingyour own tunes and I think its dev friendly being javascript based.
cool :0
Adding to the options people have already mentioned, if you decide you don't want to write the music yourself you could:
- Find someone to partner with to make custom music for you -- e.g. at in-person gamedev meet ups / club events, friends (or friends-of-friends), "I Need a Team" type forums, etc
- Hire someone to make custom music for you
- Use free music -- e.g. Creative Commons licensed music like Kevin MacLeod's, or free assets from itch.io, etc.
- Buy music that's explicitly sold for use in games -- try searching for asset packs associated with various popular tools like RPGMaker
- Use an AI music generator -- if you can live with people complaining about AI and are ok with the legal uncertainty around it
You can also buy a humble bundle, if the previews fit: https://www.humblebundle.com/software/audio-odyssey-vol-2-software
Trackers are a good fit for sample based music if you can get comfortable with the interface. OpenMPT and Renoise can even host VST plugins. You can get the samples on freesound.org and the plugins on plugins4free.
Reaper is a cheap DAW but it can be a bit overwhelming.
There's also BespokeSynth and SuperCollider although I don't know much about those.