recording your music

ok i'm thinking of setting up a few mp3's featuring my voice and my piano/guitar with maybe a few friends but i wanna record my songs from home without going to some studio.

is this possible? if so, would i need any tools (programs) other than my computer? would any headset/mic work fine?

thanks :)

Sure, if your mic is okay... basically all you would need is MS Sound Recorder. Or, if you're picky, download Reaper to mix things together. Just see who has the best mic and record from there, then import into Reaper (if not already in there) and mix the tracks together. Piece 'o cake. ;)

For simple recording in MS Sound Recorder... just open it, hit record for a few seconds, then go to Edit and do the Decrease Speed or whatever it is, and that will just keep doubling the length until you have it long enough to record your song, then Save As a .wav file under CD Quality (that quality bit is importante!) ... then finally, record your song. Do this for every song, no problemo. Then you can use Reaper or any other program that will convert .wav to .mp3... you could even use a web utility, Media Convert or whatever it is called... I've never used it, it's probably slow, but will get the job done.

The above poster is completely right... if you want to make mediocre recordings. You'll need something a little bit better than a headset mic if you want to sound any good at all. And you'll need to be able to adjust the volume levels efficiently so you can balance the instruments. Audacity will be okay for what you want. You should look into some basic equalization and compression also.