Great free recording software

There's a lot of junk free recording software out there, but in order to make good recordings you need something good, right?

But what if you don't have $300-$600 to plunk down on a software program yet? Try looking at some free recording software. It's free, so you can try it out before you decide whether or not you need a better system. Hey, you might even find out that the free stuff does the job perfectly for you. Great!

The software used will not affect the quality of your sound, unless you apply DSP (digital signal processing) to it. The mic you use makes a difference in the sound, because it is in the analog domain. Your D/A converter has an impact as well, and anything else working on it in the analog world. The software simply takes digital audio and transcribes it to hard disk. Digital is digital, so it's not affecting it at all.

However, if you use processing like eq, reverb or compression, you will affect the sound. (Just something to keep in mind - audio processing plugins you buy will perform better than free versions.)

But, down to the free recording software - I recommend you try Audacity, an open source sound editing, multi track recording program. It's widely known, and open source so it's virus/spyware free.

It's available in Mac or Windows, so you should be able to run it. Do a Google search for Audacity or go to http://audacity.sourceforge.net to download.

Installation should be easy - just follow the prompts. Getting it to run with your recording equipment may be a little trickier, but if you have the latest drivers it should be easy as well.

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UPDATE: It looks like DigiDesign is no longer offering Pro Tools Free, at least for Mac. I'm not sure what this means, but be forewarned, it might not be available.
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You may have heard of DigiDesign, a big name in the recording industry. Maybe you've heard of their popular recording software, Pro Tools. Pro Tools is a high end recording system, geared for professionals with $$$ studios. Pro Tools is behind many pro recordings available today. And Pro Tools has their own free program!

It's also available for Mac or Windows, called Pro Tools Free. It's a free recording software program based on their best selling line of Pro Tools software, compatible with the main, full fledged software, and using the same infrastructure and plugin interface.

I recommend you check this (Pro Tools Free) out. Not only are you getting a lite version of a world class recording software, but you will be able to learn more about how audio recording programs work.
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Those are just 2 free recording software programs - there are more available. You can search online for them, but I don't think you'll need them - if you are serious about recording you will want to be thinking about upgrading to a semi-pro or pro grade system like Pro Tools or Digital Performer.

So, how do you use your new free recording software? Using computer recording programs is a subject in itself, and I'll have to do a section on this site about it soon.

Having problems getting some free recording software working? Let me know, and I'll try to help.

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