Hi Joan,

I tried Reaper a couple of years ago and liked it so much that I bought a license and I use it all the time. However, it is a powerful program and requires a lot of study to get the most out of it. The nice thing about it is that the demo is fully functional in every way so you can try it free. The thing is, you don't really need it unless you just want the added features it provides. (I'm assuming you have RealBand or Cakewalk or some other daw already.)

Quote/I'm still looking for a way to record and play back../endGuote

If you still have Akoustik Piano, you can use it to learn how to record and play back using your daw. In other words, don't use the built in capabilities-just pretend it doesn't have them. Or for that matter, use biab and using help, set it up so that you can record a bass sound or piano sound as midi or audio, using whatever synth you already have assigned there. Once you learn how to do it, it's the same for every thing (except for finding the action you want in the different menus lol)

If you haven't downloaded the free library for Kontakt yet, it's well worth downloading. Another free player and free lab that is well worth downloading is SampleTank. http://www.ikmultimedia.com/sampletank/download/ If you do download ST and need help with it, I might be able to help as I use it more than any other synth I have.
Hope this helps and feel free to pm me if you want. I'll try to help but I'm not very good at explaining things. lol

Later,
Jim

I'd be completely happy if I had just one more guitar.