I'm going to start this up. It sort of falls under "gear" but is unique enough that it should have its own thread.
This is about Recording. Not which guitar/pickup/amp/effect sounds like what with each different song.
This will be about how you get that sound from the source, laid down into a digital track and subsequently Rendered into an MP3 that all can listen to.
There are several of these that I have been exposed to.
First off, there is/was "Audacity". This is a freeware product from Sourceforge and quite good. If simple recording of one track at a time is all your needs call for, you will be hard pressed to justify expending hard-earned money on anything else.
Secondly, we will hopefully discuss "Reaper". This one is the first step up from the freebie "Audacity" I'd guess. It is fully featured. I really can't see why any home recording Geek would want anything more than this. It uses VSTs which can be found out on the Internet both free and as packaged bundles. VSTs are the "effects" like Delay, Chorus, Distortion, Comp and pretty much anything else you might find in anyone's pedal collection. Of course they are digital and not analog and a good analog pedal will blow them away. But they are handy for someone who is just playing around.
The other DAWs that I cannot fully address are Sonar, Ableton, Cakewalk and Pro-Tools. Those are the ones that range anywhere from a Couple of Hundred (Sonar and Cakewalk) to Thousands for Pro Tools depending on the plug-ins you add.
Anyway, this new thread should let us keep things "sorted out" so people interested just in guitars and other hardware can go to GearHeads and not have to wade through interspersed volumes of DAW talk. We already have the Soundclips thread for sample recordings and videos. I will be putting clips in here showing samples of what these DAWs can produce once you learn to use them.
I'm going to ask Nancy to copy the last few posts in GearHead over here if I haven't figured out how to do it....some of that Administrator Magic she wields.
Maybe we can start out in GEARHEADS and move the following posts over here:
537
538
540
521
517
515
512
I know there are some others buried in that Gearhead thread that I posted a long time ago...particularly about Audacity. But this will get a good start on the new thread.'
Thanks in advance Nanc