What's a good Audio Recorder Program?

[MacFan782040]

Here's the deal. My friend Joe goes to Juilliard. And he needs to put together a CD of him playing different mallet instruments, as well as various drums.
(He's in percussion). He asked me to help...so I'll be lugging my iMac into the city in January to do this.

He says he can get me mics and a mixer and stuff, but what will be my best option for recording? I'm assuming I can just go from the board quarter-inch out, put a 1/8" adapter on it and plug it into my Mac. What is a good, (preferably free or close to it) app that I can use to record. After I'm done, I would like to be able to EQ it... so make sure it sounds good. One thing I'm concerned of is having the drums sound too "boomy" on the recording.

Any ideas with this stuff? Thanks a ton!

 

[DXoverDY]

Here's the deal. My friend Joe goes to Juilliard. And he needs to put together a CD of him playing different mallet instruments, as well as various drums.
(He's in percussion). He asked me to help...so I'll be lugging my iMac into the city in January to do this.

He says he can get me mics and a mixer and stuff, but what will be my best option for recording? I'm assuming I can just go from the board quarter-inch out, put a 1/8" adapter on it and plug it into my Mac. What is a good, (preferably free or close to it) app that I can use to record. After I'm done, I would like to be able to EQ it... so make sure it sounds good. One thing I'm concerned of is having the drums sound too "boomy" on the recording.

Any ideas with this stuff? Thanks a ton!

this thing comes up so frequently i dare say something should be stickied for it.

You may want to try Audacity

 

[MacFan782040]

this thing comes up so frequently i dare say something should be stickied for it.

You may want to try Audacity

Oh my bad, yeah I prob. should have searched 1st

 

[CanadaRAM]

And GarageBand...

The key is you gotta get the drums sounding good going IN, because it's darned hard to fix it with eq. Go to the public library and look up some back issues of Recording, Sound on Sound, Electronic Musician, Keyboard, Mix magazines. They often have articles about micing and recording different instruments.

 

[WinterMute]

CanadaRAM has a point, there are some excellent books on recording out there.

Modern Recording Techniques by Huber and Runstien is excellent and a core text for the recording courses at the Uni.

Might be a good theme for a sticky....

 

[DDarkfire]

As CanadaRAM said, if you are going to use GarageBand, your sounds better be clean before going in. If you ask me, I would obviously recommend ProTools with one of the new MBoxes that came out, but that might take a bit more time to learn. For his application, it would also reduce the need for a mixer, because he can do all the mixing inside of the program.
Another source that you can get information from is, surprisingly, "Home Recording for Musicians for Dummies" . I have eyed that book and it has excellent tips for musicians looking to record and it also covers many programs.
I honestly am not too sure how well GarageBand will cut it for his percussion use, you will probably need an at least decent mic, and that might need Phantom Power, but if he says he can get the mics, he is probably aware of that.
Any questions feel free to ask,
Cheers