Earlier this year I started playing around with some tunes on my guitar. I have composed a few small things, but nothing major.

For my birthday, my mom and dad gave me a Platronics .Audio 10 Microphone. It's really nice, considering it was under twenty dollars. The sound quality is very good, also.

I have had a hard time trying to find a nice recording program that was free. I found one called Power Sound Editor (Free). It works fairly easily, especially for the beginner, and had an easy-to-navigate interface. This program has alot of effects to edit your tracks with and it allows you to record from a microphone, stereo mix(records from computer speakers), cds, and import mp3 audio tracks. You can also save your audio as a project and an mp3. However, there are quite a few downsides. First of all, it does not let you work with multiple tracks. This causes a problem when you sing to a track, and when you mix other tracks. Second, the screen does not have a horizontal scroll, so it crams the audio (Is it 'spectrum'?) into a small screen, making it hard to find specific areas in the track, which is hard to deal with when it comes to adding effects. Then a friend told me about another program called Audacity that has all the same features as Power Sound Editor. I downloaded the 1.3.7Beta version and gave it a try. It was better, even though it didn't have as many effects. The screen has a horizontal scroll, and you can mix multiple tracks. This comes in handy when you sing. As, you record the singing part (put on headphones), the first audio track will play, allowing you to sing with the instrumental track.

So, this recording was made with Audacity. I had a hard time naming it, but I will take suggestions. I hope you enjoy it!