im not being a dick to be a dick im hoping this person will consider where there money has gone and what they have goten for there 7,500 investment if anything it will cause them to see what they need next and perhaps to listen to the advice of the forum members before wasting money just to waste it
If your goal truly is to help, and not just to make yourself feel smarter by putting other people down for their choices, then you need to work on your people skills a bit (not to mention your typing skills: using proper grammar, spelling, and capitalization/punctuation can go quite a long way). What sort of reaction do you expect from the OP after reading your rant about how he's stupid for purchasing the equipment he has (which, by the way, is a very decent start, regardless of your opinion)? I made a lot of my band's record on somewhat similar equipment, some of which is actually a little worse than what he purchased (
link).
While many pieces of DAW software are arguably better than Pro Tools, my decision to use it allowed me to intern at a decent studio for several months in order to save up the studio time to record the drums for the record I linked to. Because it was all Pro Tools, all I had to do was open it up on my 002-powered PTLE rig and it was ready to go. I recorded all of the guitars and vocals with that rig, and borrowed a couple of pieces of equipment from my buddy to record bass DI. I tracked and mixed a lot of it on a pair of KRK RP5's in my untreated basement.
Anyway, I'm ranting and going off on somewhat of a tangent, but the point is that the equipment he bought won't be holding him back any time soon. It's significantly better than what most people start out with, and he's clearly willing to spend the money without all that much deliberation for what exactly to buy, which leads me to believe his spending power is not insignificant. By the time he's "out-grown" the equipment he purchased, he'll no doubt be able to afford some of the things you mentioned, like a nice channel strip or two, and some better monitors. All you would have had to have said in order to get your point across without being such a dick is something like:
"Although I personally would have gone a slightly different route on some of the equipment you bought, it looks like you're mostly on the right track. Once you've got some skill to back it up, and are ready to upgrade some stuff, you should consider getting some nicer pre-amps and/or a channel strip. The preamps in the 003 are decent and quite flat/clear, don't get me wrong, but you'll eventually find that having some different preamps with different "colors" can go a long way to livening up your recordings and giving you some different textures to work with.
The other thing I would recommend that you upgrade is your monitors. They are your "window to your mix," and thus directly affect the outcome of your sessions. For now, take as much time as you can to "learn" the monitors you've got. I find that listening to a bunch of different CD's that are familiar to me will help this process, and will make it easier to identify your monitors' strengths and drawbacks, and then compensate for those when mixing. Once you're ready to upgrade, try to get something with a flat frequency response. While different "colors" are nice for pre-amps, you generally want the flattest, clearest speakers you can afford.
All-in-all, there's really no limit to how much you can spend on this stuff, and especially in an economy like this, and especially especially when you're just starting off, you'll likely find that your dollar(s) will go quite a long way if you take the time to talk your purchases over with this community first. We've got everything from complete beginners using Windows Sound Recorder or Garageband with the built-in mic on their laptops, to professional mixing and mastering engineers with single pieces of equipment worth more than the entire rig you just purchased. The awesome thing is that you'll get a HUGE range of points of view, and a lot of really good advice (as well as some bad, which is usually pointed out pretty swiftly). I'm not saying that what you purchased was bad stuff! But you might have gotten more and better stuff for your money if you'd have just let us help That said, have fun with this stuff, don't let us get you down, and always remember that 99% of the time, YOU are the only thing holding YOU back!"
This would've gotten your point across, while actually providing helpful, insightful advice. You clearly know a little bit about recording (although recommending Reaper as a professional solution smacks of a bit of unwarranted "anti-Pro Tools-ism"), but if you're truly trying to help, please take the time to listen to yourself talk (or type) and decide if the tone of your responses is completely obscuring the point of your responses. Right now, it is.