For just audio recording - you can't go wrong with the opensource and free
Audacity. It has a very tacky and dated interface but is updated regularly and has many (if not most) of the same features as you'd find in a super expensive platform like Adobe's
Audition (which is top notch and really great; I used to use it when I had the Adobe Suite license from work 2 jobs ago)
If you want to get into loops and beats and stuff, then you're moving into the world of DAW (digital audio workstation) software. A common and affordable choice is Fruity Loops (recently renamed "FL Studio" after Kellog's felt people might confuse their cereal with music software)
https://www.image-line.com/flstudio/ I only used the trial of it once and its pretty good but I prefer something thats really meant for music production. Cakewalk was a leader for decades but surprisingly and suddenly went out of business a few years ago which is when I switched to
PreSonus Studio One. There is a free "light" version that is probably your best bet to get into the world of DAW/Recording/Production. I have the mid-priced "Artists" edition plus a couple hundred dollars worth of plugins and extensions. The nice thing about them is unlike Abelton and ProTools (other industry leaders) you can just buy it and own it, with out a subscription like Adobe. I'm ok with subscription software if you live in it everyday for work - but for hobbies, I feel like your throwing your money away.
With the DAW, while it has a TON of functionality built in, it's audio editing is meant more for non-destructive modification in a production (think layers in photoshop) -- so I find myself recording and cleaning up audio tracks in Audacity and then importing them into Studio One. So like, I remove background noise, normalize levels and edit phrasing etc in Audacity, then drag the file into the DAW as a layered track where I can then tweak it a thousands ways with effects and pitch corrections etc.
Anything is going to have a high learning curve but there are thousands of tutorials for every software and the more you enjoy doing it, the more fun it is to learn. I can't even imagine how many thousands of hours I've spent since I was a teenage playing with this sort of thing.
Here's an example of my most recent project. I started it in the summer, got all vocals, effects, and stuff set just right, but never finished all the instrumentation. Here's what I've got so far though....
https://youtu.be/LI4uYhOif5E
