I recommend Vision DSP from the Opcode Web site (www.opcode.com). I personally liked it a lot better than Cakewalk, and it has about 10 times as many features ... and the learning curve wasn't quite as steep. I just don't think they've got as great of a PR department as Cakewalk does.
If you're just digitizing audio and not using MIDI, there's a lot of stuff on the program you wouldn't even use, so your learning headaches would be minimized. Vision can get you limitless tracks (since you can "bounce tracks to hard disk" and free up tracks) ... and on my iMac 233 mHz, with 160 MBs of RAM, I've been getting 18 STEREO tracks playing simultaneously with minimal headache. Plus, each audio track has a four-band EQ and spaces for up to four VST plugs, and the output fader also has an EQ and the space for plugs. It's a great audio multi-track program, and the download price from Opcode is $56 (which means you don't get a master disk or hard copy manuals or any tech support) ... but I'm cheap (grin!). You can download a bunch of PDF instruction manuals for the program from their site as well, and Opcode has a sub-site devoted entirely to the program.