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

[macshark]

xingu,

Thanks for your great reply. I cannot boot in os9, so I guess I can't try out PT Free.

I will continue to play with Reason, but it certainly is intimidating at first. So, you can program a drum track with Reason, and input it into Deck and combine with guitar tracks and vocal tracks? If so, that sounds like a good start.

Spark seems real easy to use, and I have already plugged into the computer for recording the guitar (through a Digitech processor).

Well, I will keep digging further. Thanks again for your help.