I tried adding effects while messing around, and it added the effect to all my tracks. Can anyone give me info on how to add different effects to different tracks independently? Also, can you add more than one effect to a track? I couldn’t find this info in the manual, but then again, I could have mess it or not understood it, as this is my first foray into computer recording. Any help would be appreciated. 
The little black arrow to the left of your tracks is hiding some track management information. You should split up your tracks into the granularity you need for post production. If you need multiple stereo tracks, then that’s what you have to produce. If you need multiple mono tracks, then things like “Split Stereo Track” might be handy. If you have one, single 4-channel performance, then the splitting up thing is for you.
Audacity will naturally try to play everything at once. The MUTE and SOLO buttons to the left of each track will hide or reveal each performance.
Select one whole single track by clicking just above the MUTE button and then effects and filters will only apply to that one track. You can also drag-select a small portion of a track and just apply effects to that selection.
This monolog goes for pages. Let us know when you get stuck.
Koz