There is provided a mixing recorder which enables the user to readily
produce music using overdubbing and/or other recording techniques while
suppressing degradation of sound quality to the minimum and enables the
user to easily find out his/her desired mixing result from a large number
of mixing results obtained in the process of mixing. An audio signal is
input, and a source file is read out from a memory card and an audio
signal is reproduced based on the source file. The input audio signal and
the reproduced audio signal are mixed into a mixed signal, which is then
stored as a new source file in the memory card. The source file stored in
advance in the memory card is backed up before the new source file is
stored in the memory card, and in the back-up, the source file is
automatically backed up by generating a file given a new name associated
with a name of a source file to be backed up and having the same contents
as the contents of the source file.