[ChapinFan]

So, I want to make some backing tracks for my band to practice to.

I lay down a simple drum loop using garage band (because I know how to use it) and it is a steady beat -- 120 BPM 4/4 time.

Now I want to lay down a rhythm guitar track to help hear the beat.

And here is where I about lose my mind.

What I would love to do is have a guitar loop creator like I do for the drums. Set up strum pattern, and tell it when to change chords, and let some sound loop do the "stay perfectly in beat" job. But I can't find that. (I see all kinds of ways to play a guitar sound with a keyboard, but that's not what I need. If I want to "play a guitar-like sound", I will just play a guitar and let it make sound.)

But recording my guitar seems tremendously complicated.

My Macbook is sort of low end, so I don't want to use it for recording and playing. I play the drumtrack through the mac, but I want to record on a different computer. (or a different something.)

I have a PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL. The AudioBox is attached to an Asus Laptop. Pretty good specs though, it is one of their high end gaming systems. The AudioBox's Main out is fed into a Yamaha Analog mixer which is running an EV speaker set.

How do I record the guitar in? I hear it through the speakers fine. But how do I record it?

I try to set up a simple Audacity session on the Asus laptop. I open the audio settings and it seems impossibly complicated now that the AudioBox is in the mix. There are all kinds of options, none of them seem to be what I want.

Frustrated, I decide to run an audio out of the Yamaha mixer to the import jack of another computer (an Alienware R14 -- this thing is a beast.) And I can barely get it to record. The volume seems incredibly low. I can boost the input on my Alienware R14, but now I am picking up noise.

This seems like it should be really easy to do... but things here are complicated. I spend hours unplugging this and putting in that, and click this button on the Yamaha, or try this setting on the AudioBox... and at the end of the day, no dice.

What do you use? Are you recording a simple audiofile in Audacity, or Adobe Audition? Or are you bringing it right into a DAW?