Multi-track Recording Software, Software that is simple and works in OSX Options

[Dadoo]

I'm just getting into the fascinating world of digital music recording. My wife and I play music together for small and large group things. I would like to be able to add some fullness to our sound by creating our own accompaniment CD's so that we can play along with a "full band", so to speak.

I just got the M-Audio Audiophile USB and it came with a "lite" version of Ableton DELTA Live. I've played around with it some and have recorded a couple of things. I find it rather complicated for what I'm doing, as I think it is more of a looping/sequencing instrument that just happens to have recording capabilities. I also find it frustrating to get sound consistently in and out of the program as I seem to have to quit and restart the program for it to recognize that I have an audio input for it. But this may be beside the point because I think it is not the right program for what I want to do.

I have hear a little about a shareware program for OS X called Jasmine. I see that I can download a demo of it. Does anyone have any experience with this program? Basically what I want to do is to plug in my bass, guitar, keyboard, drum machine, maybe some backing vocals, and record them on different tracks and then make them into an AIFF file that can be burned onto a CD. I want it to be simple and able to produce good digital quality sound. Will Jasmine work for me? Is there another simple and basic program that works in OS X that I should look at?

I'm doing my recording on a 600 MHz iMac, running OS 10.2.8, with 512 MB of RAM.

Thanks for your replies. I know I have much to learn!

[Dadoo]

I've looked at some of the other Steinberg software you mention and even downloaded the demo for Cubasis VST. I found it complicated, as some have mentioned. I also found out that it cannot save recorded stuff as AIFF files, only mp3 and WAV, which is not too helpful for burning your own stuff and playing it on regular CD players.

As for Garageband, I was very excited seeing it come out at the Macworld Expo last week. Unfortunately after checking the system requirements at Apple, I figured it wouldn't be the one. These are the requirements:

Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor
600MHz G3 or faster required for GarageBand
G4 or faster required for GarageBand software instruments
733MHz G4 or faster required for iDVD
256MB of physical RAM
Mac OS X v10.2.6 or later (Mac OS X v10.2.8 or later recommended)
QuickTime 6.4 or later (QuickTime 6.5 included)
Display with at least 1024-by-768-pixel resolution
DVD drive required to install GarageBand and iDVD
4.3GB of disk space required to install GarageBand, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD; or 250MB to install iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie only.

From that I get that my 600 mHz iMac would just barely run GarageBand, but not any of the software instruments. I would also not be able to use iDVD since I have neither the processor requirements nor a DVD playing drive. Also it appears that I would not even be able to install GarageBand as it says that a DVD drive is required for installing it.

So, as of now, it seems that my options are down to continuing to use the "lite" version of Delta Live 1.5, or trying out the demos of Metro SE, Intuem, and Jasmine. Still have not heard of anyone's experience with Jasmine!