Hey Dedman, I do all my crappy recordings using REAPER. Couldn't be happier with it. I must admit that I didn't find the learning curve too bad, but I haven't even scratched the surface yet, and probably never will. I just wanted a bog standard DAW.

You can Demo it for free, I think. It will give you a nag screen after a month or so. Their upgrade path is a bit hard to explain but for $60 you get 2 complete version upgrades. I bought mine at v4.8 (I think) about 3 years ago and it is now on v5.9, so at v6 I will have to fork out another $60, which I will do gladly. But v6 will be released shortly so if you can make do with the demo until then, and then buy v6 instead of v5.9 it should be good for several years.

Join the REAPER Forums. Next to BYOG Forums, they are the best, very friendly, and a goldmine of information.

You should also check out videos from Kenny Goiai - http://www.kennymania.com/reaper-videos/#latest-videos

A fully featured DAW for $60, its a no-brainer. Although I must admit I have spent too much on 3rd party plugins.

rob

p.s. I'm going to post my next sound demo shortly, it has been done with REAPER.