computer based multi-track recorder

hi i want to record about 5 tracks over the top of eachother, not at the same time, i was gonna get a 4 track recorder but a descent one: £309, im too much of a cheapskate.

can someone advise me to a free download on the internet which will let me do that (record more than 1 track over the top of each other)

please give me some advice.

Cakewalk is actually pretty good, but it has soooo many hurdels to over come, and the frustration can affect your creativity... but after a while, you get to know your way around, and use what you need, and it's cool..

I think the newer version's of sound forge can also do multi tracking, I mean the early version were fantastic, they had loads of options, and you could easily reverse pieces and stuff like that...
All the above are not free (i know you said you wanted to know of anyfree ones... but I dont know of any :()

I use a program called Goldwave to layer tracks like that. It's shareware (30 days I think) and it's easy to use. Basically you record the different tracks, copy - then mix into the final track. You may have to play with it a little but it's not too hard to figure out. I definitely recommend it.

http://www.goldwave.com

I downloaded a free version of Pro-Tools not long ago. You should see if you can find that.

I like tracker programs like Modplug. It's better than Cakewalk no matter what some people may say. Oh yeah, and Modplug is free. You don't have to pay anything. It's freeware.

When you start using it you're going to be confused. There are up to 64 different channels which pretty much solves your problem. All you do is get a few samples. If you want some background drums you can either use individual samples of drum beats and play the drums with your keyboard or you can create a drumbeat yourself and make it loop.

After that you can do the same process with bass. With your guitar work you can either make loops of your playing (it saves space) or you can go crazy and do a 10 minute solo. You can just put it in there as one of the samples.

Go download the program over at http://www.modplug.com

Here's how to begin using it:

After you create a new file, File ----> New ----> IT, hit the Pattern tab that you see. Modplug's music interface takes a little while to figure out. Just remember it's kind of like Microsoft Excel. There are columns that go downward. There is a long line that goes all the way across the rows and as it goes down it plays your musical notes. Musical notes are represented by a letter and a number like C-4 . That's a C note that's in the 4th octave. Ok, at the top of a row double click in one of the white boxes with dots in it and select the C-4 note. Close that little box and goto the samples tab. Put any wav file that's on your computer in it. Double click on the C-4 note you just made. Hit the dropdown box that is beside Instrument. Select that wav file. qwertyuiop[]\ <---all of those buttons that this arrow is pointing to are your musical notes. You can play them like a piano. Click on your C-4 note once. Press the play button up there near the top of the window and go crazy. Start playing your keyboard like a piano.

(BTW, there's a whole lot more to it than that. The loops you can make with your samples, etc. It seems kind of complicated but once you get the hang of it you won't use anything else except other programs to record your loops and samples to use with Modplug).

http://www.digidesign.com

Look for Pro-Tools free there. If your computer is capable of handling the program, it's the best program you'll find, for free.

Originally posted by trendkillah
http://www.digidesign.com

Look for Pro-Tools free there. If your computer is capable of handling the program, it's the best program you'll find, for free.

"Pro-Tools: Powerful enough to make Kittie sound like they can play together!"

I don't think you guys completely get how IT, XM, and MOD files work. If you realized it I think you would never bother with using another method again (that is if you're on a 56k modem like me and need a way to make your songs take up the least space as possible). In these files you put in pre-existing samples that you create, like the guitars of a song. You make one good catchy melody for your guitar that is about 5 seconds long. Ok, you make a drumbeat that is 5 seconds long. You do a bass tune that is 5 seconds long. You create a loop for them (within the sound file so it's stored data. If you take it to another tracker program it knows where the loop is located). Your actual song is going to be 10 minutes long.

Ok, it's 10 minutes long. Man, file is going to be about 10 megs. That will take almost 30 minutes to upload or download on my internet connection! Yeah, if it was an MP3 but these are MOD files. What a MOD file does is that it stores the samples only and your musical note instructions with its database style interface. What does that mean? There is really only 15 seconds of real sound data in a mod file. Do you catch what I'm saying? That means the file is more like 500k to 1 meg. If you go crazy you can get them up to 2 megs with really long guitar solos added.

It's just more efficient and you can transfer your completed songs faster than you ever could with an MP3 or WAV file. I need to see what Pro Tools is but I'm pretty sure its output is either going to be MP3 or WAV.

Okay ZackyH, I'm sure that program does for you what it has to do. But, my reply was to the original poster, who was asking for a piece of software that will let him record multiple tracks. He didn't mention anything about it having to be a small file size or something like that.

When I'm thinking of recording multiple tracks I'm thinking of having different audio channels and being able to put that all together to make a song. BTW, I don't know much about recording on the guitar so I may be talking about something completely different from what he really wants.

I'm just saying you could record your guitar playing in sound recorder and just use Modplug to put it together.

[Edited by ZackyH on 04-13-2002 at 06:01 PM]

I've always wanted to record my own stuff too, used a couple of old tape recorders to build a track then play it back through the jam-along jack on my RP-3 and record on another tape recorder. Then i went to Best Buy and found Magix Audio Studio software for around $10.00. I use the headphone out jack of my pedal to the mic in on the pc. I also use the Fruity Loops drum sequencer to build the drum and bass lines.May not be pro stuff, but has opened a door to a whole new area of creativity actually have the "rest of the band" so to speak.By the way, this software is brutally easy to navigate. Later!

ZackyH, with a multitrack recording program, you just build up a song track by track so to speak. Then in the end you bounce it all down to 2-tracks(stereo), which you then can convert to any filetype you want it to be. If you want it to be small, and easy to send over the internet, mp3 is most commonly used I guess. Which is only 1mb at 128kbps/44.1kHz I think, so not that big.

trendkillah, use Modplug before you judge it. You'll be suprised what you can do with it. It can also convert your songs over to MP3 or WAV. You don't have you use the MOD files if you don't want to.

I just downloaded that Pro-Tools program and I have no earthly idea how to use it. The interface seems kind of complicate (and I can't read any of the text in the program either. It's too small).

Originally posted by ZackyH
trendkillah, use Modplug before you judge it.

I didn't judge anything. Just trying to give advice about recording. If you want to do a proper job at it, use either Pro-Tools, Cakewalk(or whatever their new name is), Logic or Cubase. These are the industry standard. If you just want to mess around, other stuff will do too.

It would be cool if someone could do a big comparison of all these programs to see which one is the best. A big review. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of all the programs. I think it needs to be on another post about that is completely about reviews. Maybe it could even be on the guitartricks website in a section all its own. This is how we could do it. We could get one person to try out all the programs and create a different song with each. As the person goes through, he/she writes down the likes and dislikes of that particular program. Maybe a rating system as well for usability, audio quality, etc.

Maybe.

It all depends on their being Mac drivers or not.

Most [u]pro[/u] level audio software and hardware is available for the Mac platform though.

According to this site there is no Mac driver for the U-8

http://www.edirol.com/support/drivers.html

I'd look around a little more if I were you, though. Someone may have created a driver for it somewhere.

BTW, A driver is a file/program that allows you to run a piece of hardware on your computer.

[Edited by ZackyH on 04-15-2002 at 10:55 PM]

You wanna download something like Logic Audio Platinum.It's pretty damn good.Try and use Kazaa or any good p2p.

Logic Audio is crap. (at least the ones that you download off the P2P networks) It blue-screened my 'puter as soon as I ran it. You have been warned.

Originally posted by Christoph

Logic Audio is crap. (at least the ones that you download off the P2P networks) It blue-screened my 'puter as soon as I ran it. You have been warned.

That's what ya get for downloading poorly cracked versions. ;)
It's a perfectly fine program.