im planning on recording some of my music, and i was wonder which would be the best program to download/buy?
Sonar with Cakewalk is a really, really good one. But you'll have to have a bit of cash to throw down man. For an entry level thing, try GarageBand.
I've been testing out Mackie's Traktion, and it's awesome... I highly recommend! They've got a free download demo on their site up through the end of December... Before using that, I've been using both Cubase SX and Fruityloops Studio4... both do the job as well, but Traktion is so easy to use. Cubase is also extremely expensive if you're, uh... forced to buy it http://www.mackie.com/products/tracktion/index.html
I would suggest Reason if you play piano, also Reason is useful for many things, there's garenteed to be a time you could do with it. And ProTools. Both are so useful and SOO important. Blessings Sebbi
Reason is very easy to use (great sequencer!), and I'd recommend it if you're planning on doing entirely computer generated music, but it won't record live audio, so you can't run guitars straight in or hook a microphone to do "live" audio. It also doesn't allow vst's or vsti's (virtual instruments) which I guarantee you'll wish you had support for if you learn how to use it really well. ProTools is the industry standard, and priced for it too. I've yet to play with a protools hardware setup, I've only messed with the software; but I understand there's a *huge* difference. It still doesn't allow plugins though, which kind of sucks; there's some really awesome ones out there.
i downloaded traktion, and so far it looks really good! only probelm is that i cant find the button that allows me to start recording i will just look into it later...anyway, thank you guys.
If you have semi-professional ambitions and if you're willing to spend about 450$ I think you should get Digidesign MBox, an external USB soundcard that comes with ProTools LE. I think it's mainly for audio recording/editing and mixing though, the MIDI part isn't that great but I use other programs for that. It works on PC & MAC, I use it on my PC and it's perfect for me.
ProTools IS insanely expensive, but ProTools LE is really cheap in my opinion. The ProTools LE software is compatible with the professional recording studio ProTools, and sure, there are some limitations in comparison but PT LE is still a great program considering it's price. My (PC) PT Sessions works fine on MAC's too, which is great since a lot of musicians seem to favor MAC's... There are a number of excellent Plugins to use with ProTools, AS & RTAS, only problem is they are somewhat expensive to buy (not a lot of freeware here, compared to the VST Plugins that doesn't work in PT which is a pity since they are easier to come by). PS. I use a freeware sequencer program called Psycle to use VSTi's and samples, bounce the audio one "instrument" a time and then simply import it to ProTools LE. When I make a song demo, this is a quick and great way for me to create all the tracks I don't actually record myself (such as drums, percussion, bass etc). DS.
