Many years ago, when I was a pro musician (rock, I'm afraid ) I spent a lot of time in studios where I was first introduced to the use of computers in recording music. Now I'm ready to take the plunge myself into home recording, encouraged by a friend (a bass guitarist) who is making some interesting recordings using ProTools LE.

I bought his copy of ProTools as he was upgrading but unfortunately I cannot get it to run on my home PC. It's a bit of a resource hog and rather fussy about the computer's setup, and I'm now thinking of trying something else. However, the initial cost and the steep learning curve associated with this sort of technology discourages the sensible buyer from just rushing in.

So, my question is - does anyone have any recommendations about which music software to buy? I have a PC (NOT a Mac) running XP with 4 Gb RAM, 1 Tb external HD, etc.

Thanks

Edward

If you want a cheap (FREE!!) multi-track recorder and editor to get started with, try Audacity.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

'Ableton Live' all the way - I've used lots of different packages over the last 20 years and nothing touches Ableton - it's fantastic.

There is a bit of a learning curve but there are so many resources out there on the web e.g. Youtube that you should be able to pick it up quite easily