Essential Stuff? Options

[macshark]

Hello all. My name is Scott, and I am a newbie. Hello, Scott...

Okay, now that's out of the way, let me say that I have dug thorough this entire site as well as others, and I am still a little (lot) confused about the necessary equipment.

I have used/demo'd - Ableton Live, Bias Peak and Deck, Spark ME, Storm, Reason, and Metro. Haven't tried PT or Logic yet. I am on a G3 slot-loading iMac, OSX 10.2.4. I may be upgrading the computer w/in the next year if necessary.

All I want to do is record electric guitar and vocals into my imac, and do multitrack and editing on the computer. Also, I need some type of drum machine, beats, etc. Basically just looking to record my own songs for my own use (for now).

I don't have any other hardware (keyboard or midi-controller), but would consider getting an inexpensive one.

After all that, finally to the question at hand. What do I need to effectively do this? Live, Deck, and Metro seem to be the same to me in that they will let you multi-track. I like Spark a lot, and don't see where Peak is any better as a pure recorder. I could not figure out Storm or Reason. Not sure I really need all the midi-synth stuff. But I do NEED drum tracks.

Any suggestions, on software and hardware that I should look into?

Sorry for such a long request. Thanks.

Scott

[xingu]

No, the Oxygen8 only sends MIDI. There's quite a few audio interfaces out there - Tascam, Edirol, M-Audio, etc. For a low cost, multi-in solution, you might want to have a look at the Tascam US-122, which gives you 2 simultaneous ins between 2 line inputs and 2 XLRs with phantom power, plus a MIDI in/out - not a bad combo for $199 (expected retail). It should be available in a few weeks. But, if you're only going to record one track at a time, the iMac's line in should do ok for you in the meantime.