Powerbook Recording Questions, Advice Needed Options

[achates1]

Hi Everyone,

I'm not sure whether this is the right forum for this.

Here's my situation: I need to be able to record a decent demo of my band to distribute to clubs in order to play paying gigs. We're a basic five piece band (vocals, guitar, bass, drums, keyboard). I'm using a Powerbook G4 (see signature for specs), a basic MIDI controller, and GarageBand at the moment. I plan on buying GarageBand 2 as soon as possible in order to add multi-tracking and other stuff.

What should I buy (on a budget)? I'm looking at the M-Audio MobilePre or Audiophile USB, but I'm not sure what to do in terms of buying a mixer, an extra drive, etc.

Also, what are good resources for recording? For instance, how should I record the drums? What order should we record in? Should we multi-track?

Thanks a lot, I'm just getting into this stuff.

Achates

[editbrain]

those are 2 channel input devices. there wouldn't be a reason to buy garageband 2. just because GB2 can record 8 tracks at once doessn't meant that you can unless you have an input device that supports 8 inputs.

if you are going for this. i would recomend the presonus 8 input firewire device they have. it comese with cubase that will record 8 tracks at once. you will be happier with that. even though i have had and heard that cubase runs sluggish, but not everybody says this.

happy recording,
editbrain