drums/piano..etc? and mixing it with a recording? tryin to help a friend make some music with as little $$$ possible.. lol thanks!

I have not had personal experience with it, but I hear Audacity is good (and free).
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

From the about page:
About Audacity

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:

* Record live audio.
* Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
* Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files.
* Cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together.
* Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
* And more!

Audacity is a software multi track recorder. I've used it some. It works pretty well but does take some figuring out. The documentation isn't all that helpful. Just what you can do with it also depends some on what sound card you have. It doesn't have any facilities to generate things like MIDI, MOD, or other sound sources.

Unless you are using a mixer, you have to lay down each track separately. Some sound cards let you access the master output from their on board mixer so you can record multiple inputs as one track. (The "What U Hear" feature of some Sound Blaster products for example.) That said, even when you have such a sound card you may have to make some special cables to use more than one Line Input at the same time.

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Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
(Jurassic Park)

The Ogre's Fiero Cave (It's also at the top of every forum page...)

thanks guys.. this is getting complicated.. I'm kinda finding things on my own just would like something better...