Recording software provides the opportunity to take instrument playing to the next level and experiment with different sounds.

Cakewalk Guitar Tracks Pro 3 is designed, unsurprisingly, for the guitarist and offers just about everything needed for recording high quality tracks.

Guitar Tracks can handle up to 32 tracks with eight buses for grouping tracks together for ease of use. Each track can have multiple effects applied to it.

The intensity of these effects and the volume of the track can be varied during a song.

Guitar Tracks checks the capabilities of your soundcard on the first run to hunt down any settings likely cause any problems.

Unfortunately, this is as far as the interactive help goes - there is, however, plenty of information in the manual and online.

The main view can show all the tracks or divide the screen into more manageable sections.

A tuner and a metronome are also provided - these become more important when loops are used.

You can record as many tracks as you have inputs, although most people will just have the one.

It is possible to record the same input to several tracks, which is particularly useful if one is to remain 'clean' and the other will have effects applied to it.

A range of guitar effects are provided, including one called Amplitube, which simulates a guitar amp and speakers.

These effects can all be applied in real time to tracks with up to 32 used simultaneously.

The ability to experiment with effects non-destructively is almost reason enough to use this software.

Guitar Tracks Pro 3 can use loops to add drums or other instruments. A variety of loops are supplied on CD, including drums, bass and electric guitar.

Guitar Tracks automatically adjusts the tempo for you and the loop can be stretched to fit.

It's obviously not a mass market product, but for guitarists wanting to make professional demo tracks or just experiment itís well worth the asking price.

System requirements:
800MHz processor
128MB of Ram
100MB hard disk
Windows-compatible soundcard
Windows-compatible MIDI interface