Suggestions Please, What hardware/software Options

[BobAdamson]

Hello musicmakers,

I have a few questions before I get into the meat of the subject. I am a long time Mac user (][e). My wife has a 17" Powerbook. My kids all have iMacs or Ibooks. The house is wireless. I purchased iLife to play around with GarageBand. Just as I was starting to get into it, my wife complains that she can no longer get on her Mac. See, I have my office at home and unfortunately, MY computer is a Dell. So, to keep the peace (and avoid buying another Mac for now), can anyone suggest something that might work well (I know that is redundant) on Windows?

I am a long time amatuer guitarist/keyboardist/singer/songwriter. My wife is a teacher. What I want is some kind of setup that allows me to record a few back up tracks to accompany live playing. It doesn't have to be elaborate, but I might want to do more than that, who knows? So, any suggestions?

[ghess]

An analogy to the argument that more people use PCs than Macs is that far more people own Chevys than Mercedes, but that doesn't make them better. To take the analogy further, which car would you rather have when it's five years old. For that matter, I'd rather have a five year old Mercedes than a NEW Chevy. Just my $.02