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I wish to more fully develop some music I've roughly sketched out. I have an idea for the kind of program I'd like to use - if such a program already exists, I'll use that, otherwise, I may write my own. Consider the following work flow.

You open the program, make a new project, put on headphones, and hit start. The program begins recording, and is intended to continue recording for the full duration of your, say, 2 hour session. At any moment, you may hit (e.g.) "back 30 seconds", and the software will begin playing the audio from 30 seconds ago into your headphones, and continue to record both from the mic and from the playback. So, for instance, you sing a few measures, go back 30, sing a harmony (while hearing the melody), hit "jump to present" and then back (or just wait for the playback to catch up with the overlaid second recording), sing a second harmony. "No, that sounds weird", you say, so you hit "back 30" and try it again. If you were to listen to the entire project, then, you'd hear one voice sing a section, then the same section with two voices, then the same section with three voices but a mistake, then the same section with three voices correctly.

The core requirement is that it A) allow playback but continue recording at the same time, and B) record any playback as well as mic input.

Should preferably have a clean "mic" track, with the one or more "playback" tracks recorded alongside it. Bonus points if it keeps multiple layerings of playback separate (so you could mute/alter individual voices in the end), and further bonus points if it allows you to tag points in the session so you can come back later.

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  • I think you may have just created a market for a piece of software called a 'DAW'.
    – Simon Bosley
    Jan 30, 2018 at 15:57
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    @SimonBosley Oh, good; now to go tell everybody to give my royalties for my Original Idea Do-Not-Steal. ;P
    – Erhannis
    Jan 30, 2018 at 18:06

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Yes, many DAWs have the ability to overdub and loop a section of bars while creating a new track for each loop. And also to mark a certain bar and recall to that position from a Hot Key.

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  • Oh, good. Any particular ones come to mind, matching the above scenario as closely as possible? I'd rather not have to test 5 of them before finding one that kindof fits.
    – Erhannis
    Jan 30, 2018 at 18:07
  • Loop Example. this video shows how to create a loop recording in pro tools and I am sure other programs have a similar function. I know logic does also. but this is if you already know where you want to record multiple tracks or takes. your proposal seems like you want to be able to improv and just randomly throw in harmony at places which doesn't seem to be a proper way to record songs.
    – Timinycricket
    Jan 30, 2018 at 21:20
  • Oh, yeah; I know it's not good for making final recordings - but like you said, I basically want to improv. If you know any DAWs equipped specifically for that, that'd be cool.
    – Erhannis
    Feb 7, 2018 at 15:04

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