In the Kimberly Steele Studio, we record students regularly with Garageband. Garageband is one example of a type of software known as an audio creation program. Even though Garageband only works for Macs (Apple computers), there are many very inexpensive softwares that are very similiar to Garageband.
Thirty years ago, you would have had to have a million dollars to make the same quality of recording that you can make on basic digital audio workstations today. Because audio creation software is so affordable and fun, I encourage kids and parents to think about buying audio creation programs for the home computer.
is an open source (free) recording software for Mac or PC. Audacity is very easy to use and is a great introduction to digital audio recording.
FreeSound is a super fun place to begin your first audio project. Take sounds samples of everything from birds chirping to techno loops to distorted pianos to the sounds of a Japanese street festival and mess around.
Music creation programs are great on their own, but you might want to do cool stuff like record yourself singing or playing guitar. To record yourself singing, you will need a USB microphone.
At the Kimberly Steele Studio, we use a Blue Snowball USB Microphone to record directly to the computer.