Music Editing Software

[Nickel]

My brother plays guitar and sings (amazingly well). So, for Christmas, I was thinking about purchasing some software so he can record and edit his own music. Not too expensive, since he's only 13 (I figure if it's something he wants to stick with he can upgrade later), but nothing cheesy or useless either.

What should I look for and what do I not need? Ease of use would be a plus too.

[Drummerob]

Originally Posted by Nickel

My brother plays guitar and sings (amazingly well). So, for Christmas, I was thinking about purchasing some software so he can record and edit his own music. Not too expensive, since he's only 13 (I figure if it's something he wants to stick with he can upgrade later), but nothing cheesy or useless either.

What should I look for and what do I not need? Ease of use would be a plus too.

well, you have 2 choices here for a beginner. you can purchase a program with high-end performance, like cakewalk, sonar, pro tools, etc. and let him learn the software the right/hard way, or simply download a free program off of the net called audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net), and that'll let him decide if he's interested in multi tracking software and can understand it, that way its free and nothing lost. it has a lot of features and its really easy to use, and it works great, be sure to download the lame.dll file to export tracks as an mp3 file. let me know how you make out. dr

[Sloan]

Pick him up a good audio interface and one or two microphones.

AUDIO INTERFACE
He probably already has USB ports on his computer, so stick with a USB interface.

I would recommend something like the M-Audio Fast Track USB:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FastTrackUSB/

MICROPHONE
Now, one could plug a guitar directly into the interface, but the results of running direct are far less sonically pleasing than that of a mic'ed up amp or guitar. I would strongly suggest a microphone for better results and you would kind of need one for vocals anyway.

If he's primarily an electric guitarist, check out the Sennheiser e609. I find to be a very versatile mic for mic'ing guitar amps/cabs and can be used for drums and vocals with great results as well. http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/E609Silver

If he's an acoustic player, I would suggest a condensor microphone, but you would need an interface/preamp with phantom power in order to power the mic.

AUDIO SOFTWARE
Just about all low-cost interfaces come with some sort of trail or stripped-down version of some software, but I highly recommend using the shareware audio application REAPER. This can be downloaded at http://www.cockos.com.