As an audio head, I have to say that Sound Forge and Acid Pro are almost all the audio software you'll ever need for most audio purposes. You can work with video, record music, midi, whatever you want. Acid is an amazing program, what used to take me days on samplers and sequencers, I can now do it in Acid in minutes, and it's perfect evertime. If money is an issue, then by all ,means get the cheap versions of Sound Forge and Acid, they still do everything you need them to do, but without some feaqtures. And you can pick up Acid music Cd's for about $35 at most music stores. And of course Premiere is a great tool for adding sound to Animation or Video, but it's not cheap. Good luck and welcome to another endless world of tech, audio can get very deep, but the basics are very easy to get startes and rolling aling.