This is a bit long, as I'm including some pertinent background with the question. . .
I do all of my recording to my laptop. My recording philosophy is to work with the tools I can afford, and not wait for "the perfect setup" or a particular piece of gear or software before I do any recording. Currently that means I am recording and doing individual track editing in Goldwave, and mixing/mastering in Audacity. So yes - the free options (edit: oh yeah, Goldwave isn't "free" software, whoops), although I have purchased the license for Goldwave since I have gotten so much usage out of it. And I imagine my concepts of mixing and mastering are stunted, but I do my best. I use a rather modest (and perhaps inappropriate) Samson Go Mic to capture the audio, and recently, I've added an 8-channel mixer to my tools that I use while actually performing/recording.
This set-up seems to work for me and provides all the options I think I need and what I've seemed to learn about recording, especially from TapeOp, is "There are few, if any, rules. Do what works best for you." There are features of GW & Audacity I don't even use. But when I read about recording, it seems a much more complicated beast than I understand it to be. And I read or hear about DAWs like Cubase and ProTools, and I wonder what I am missing out on.
When I consider it, I feel like the best way to improve my recording is through better microphones and other gear going into the laptop, not through switching from Goldwave & Audacity to things like Cubase or ProTools. Am I misunderstanding? What do I do next, when I have the opportunity to upgrade? Is there something about those programs that are actually better than the ones I am using?
Thank you for reading and for any input you may have.
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