an alternative
before laying out a couple of hundred dollars, and at the risk of repeating myself, before you make a major purchase try all the demoes then try the powertracks demo from pgmusic.com
(i just got a flyer from them , 29 dollars for christmas to purchase),
or magix audio studio magix.de 49 dollars i paid for mine.. both packages include great audio multitrack and midi sequencers. both packages i use. they have received awards from computer music mags.
powertracks lets you do 48 digital audio tracks.
if you doubt me try the demos and compare.
cool edit, cubase and many others are very good packages too.
but you might consider what i use for a total outlay of 80 dollars.
i have to say ive found the pgmusic.com user forum very friendly,
and ive found a lot of good unbiased opinion on there from folks
who use powertracks plus many other multitrack software products. some other popular inexpensive multitrack software is n track, traktion with a growing fan base, and multitrack studio at multitrackstudio.com also an exceptionally capable software in my opinion.