What would be the best music recording software for me?

[Richarcala]

I'm not very educated when it comes to recording software for music and such. I can learn easily. I just want some software that I can do vocals on from an mp3. Is there anything out that will let me play the mp3 I have of an existing song and let me record lyrics over it as it's playing

[Banksia]

Audacity will do it. Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder

[gpower]

Yep, Audacity is the way to go. And, it's free.

[jcayer]

You can also take a look at Reaper.

[TheCaffeinatedOne]

I'm in the Reaper club as well. It is intuitive to use, is remarkably powerful and is pretty efficient in its use of your computer's resources, meaning you can get better performance from an older or smaller system than with many other applications. Plus, although not free, its cheap as all getout and gets updated several times a week.

So you're in a pretty good spot - try each and settle on what feels best to you.

[strumcat]

+1 for Audacity if you're doing only multitrack audio. And it's free.

+1 for Reaper if you're also doing MIDI tracks. It's free to try out.

I like and use the very inexpensive (around $40) Cakewalk Music Creator. It's like a stripped-down version of Cakewalk Sonar (which I also have, but find annoying). I find that Music Creator does everything I need to do just as well. It has similar capabilities to Reaper.

There are also a lot of free software digital fx, amp models, and instrument samples available online, in the form of "VST plugins". Some of them are very good.

[Les Harris]

Another vote for Audacity. Haven't checked out Reaper...

[Vihar]

Another vote for Reaper. It's great.

[cosmic gumbo]

Audacity for free. If I had to pay, it would be for Cakewalk Music Creator because it's built on the same platform as Sonar.