What is a good program for high-quality recording on a pc?

Sure there are many!! If you want something simple, theres Acoustica Mixcraft. If you want something a little more feature-wise, you could go for Steinberg Cubase/Ableton Live/Mackie Tracktion/Cakewalk Sonar, etc.

IMHO Cubase has the best UI and is very stable. I’ve been using it for years…

Reaper is a great one to check out, and it’s 100% free for 30 days I believe (it’s been a while).

Reaper is pretty good and at an amazing price for the product you get, well worth checking out and as @torchingigloos says you do get a free trial before you need to decide on buying it, and at $40 it’s a steal.

I like Cubase for PC DAW’s, but Reaper is pretty good for the price.

However, there’s only a certain amount of quality boost that you’ll get recording into a better program, eventually you’ll have to pony up for an audio interface and not adapter cords for higher quality. Cubase/Reaper can only help so much.

If the trade-off is quality of recording versus money spent, you might be better off with so-so software & putting your real $$ into professional microphones & mike preamps. Consult online tutorials for recording engineering to learn optimal placement when recording piano.

I agree with dverhey and gasman… if you’re on a budget, software like Reaper is great but if you can save up some money, a good interface and especially a good mic and GREAT pre-amp is the way to go. Slightly off topic, for anyone wanting a great vocal Pre sound but you’re on a budget and can’t afford a good pre. Just do what the old-schoolers did and triplicate the vocal track, pan one left, another right, and one center. Bring the right/left levels down in the mix so they’re at about 35% (maybe less, just listen) and slowly bring them inward a bit in the pan spectrum (try listening with a good pair of headphones instead of your studio monitors) if done correctly, you can achieve a HUGE vocal sound that’s comparable to some of the best pre-amps out there (API, SSL, Neve, Avalon). If you go listen to Michael Jackson’s “Off The Wall” album, you can hear where Quincy Jones has done this on some of the choruses to give them a really fat vocal presence. I used to do this all the time back before I could afford a good mic pre, and to this day, those vocal tracks still hang with anything I’ve done since. (kind of unrelated to the question, but just some advice for anyone interested).