PC Recording Software Question

Is there free (legal) recording software out there for use on PCs?

Serious question. I'm considering doing some recording for a project sometime next year. Just the basics: capturing voice and maybe screwing with it a bit, making it into mp3s. Nothing fancy, not studio quality.

obviously, I'll need to buy something to hook up to the pc to record, a microphone of some kind. recommendations along those lines also appreciated. i'm totally clueless when it comes to this stuff!

i haven't used it but Audacity is the usual answer to this, right?

xp

Theres's Audacity (really basic), Kristal (a bit more features) and probably a few others, but these are the ones I remember now.
Check out the DAW page in Wikipedia (especially the "Free and open source" section).

I'll need to buy something to hook up to the pc to record, a microphone of some kind

If you just want to record your voice for something like a podcast and you don't mind a lot background noise and, in general, crappy quality, you can just plug in any cheap computer microphone into the mic input of your PC. If your going to do something like singing, you'll want an audio interface or a pre-amp. The cheapest one is around $100 plus a real microphone (cheapest one also ~$100, maybe a bit less).

thanks!
i really appreciate this.

also check Reaper and MuLab for software.
there are also cheap ass USB microphones....

capturing voice and maybe screwing with it a bit

REAPER comes with a lot of effects built in, including pitch shift, vocoder, delay, and a lot of others suitable for manipulating voice.

Nothing fancy, not studio quality.

A cheap (less than 10 pounds/dollars/euros) PC mic should be fine for voice, at least to get started.