New fun for me...

[Cirbuck]

Howdy folks,

I have been recording tracks directly into my laptop from my Taylor acoustic guitar just to make loops of various chordings and rhythms to put on a cd and play back through my Marshall amp to have someone to practice and innovate with. Now I would like to know if there is some decent (reasonably priced for non pros) software out there that I could record multiple tracks of myself playing different components of songs at different times and then go back and be able to edit each of the files and combine them to sound like an entire ensemble. I downloaded a fairly good one (for my purposes of filtering, cleaning, stretching, etc.) but it doesn't seem to allow for combining multiple tracks or files and mixing them together to create one file. Maybe I just don't know what I am doing with this one yet, but I don't believe it has that capability. Any advice?

[AlChuck]

What application are you using? Most stereo audio editors allow blending two existing files together into one.

The major PC multitrack recording applications have a lite version that's on the order of $100 or less:

Cakewalk Home Studio
Cubase SL 2.0

There are others in the same price range too:

nTrack Studio
PowerTracks Pro

[Cirbuck]

I have been using one called AVS Audio Utilities. It is a suite of programms for handling audio files in all sorts of ways. Compared to some of the other ones that I have looked at, it seemed to be fairly comprehensive and sophisticated enough to handle merging (mixing) 3 or 4 mono wav files into one stereo file.
All I really wanted to do was lay down enough basic background sounds to be able to practice leads with myself and eventually be able to record a good lead and put it with the others to make a cd for home and family use. (There is no threat of me becoming a professional musician at this time in my life.)

Maybe I am just not seeing something in this software or don't know enough about what I am doing yet but it doesn't look like I can get there from here with what I have got. (I've been around computers for over 30 years.)

I have downloaded a couple of your suggestions and will give them a good perusal this weekend. Thanks

[Moonrider]

Originally posted by Cirbuck
Now I would like to know if there is some decent (reasonably priced for non pros) software out there that I could record multiple tracks of myself playing different components of songs at different times and then go back and be able to edit each of the files and combine them to sound like an entire ensemble.

Audacity's easy to use, has multitrack capabilities, and it's free...
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

[Cirbuck]

My search has ended since you mentioned the Audacity program. It is everything I was looking for and more. It is a really nice piece of software that runs flawlessly and handles the final multi-track blending and final mix perfectly. My thanks for a good opinion.

I am still using the AVS Audio Editor for the first clean up edit of each individual track. I like its' graphical interface better. It has a better grid display for pinning down spots very closely and has many more filters and effects for getting the sound you want just right as a mono track. Then when they are all fine editted I fire up Audacity and import each one of the tracks. (So far I have handled up to 5 at one time) Then you can get the blending done real fast and generate the final stereo file effortlessly.

My thanks for the advice and directions. By the way, if you go to Audacity's web site, there is a url to a short little online demo that takes about 3 to 5 minutes and puts you mixing and using the program in about 10. Very user friendly.