Starting out (gearwise)

[layneness]

Okay, so I have been trying to find out what to shop for as far as building my own little recording set-up, mainly for making quality-demos of whatever musical endeavor tickles my fancy at the time.

My current "set-up" consists of various microphones (7-piece drum mic kit w/2 condensers, 1 diaphragm, and a hodgepodge of whatever else I've collected over the years) a lame 4-track Beringer preamp/mixer dealio running into my laptop, which in turn would be running Adobe Audition 2.0 (formerly Cool Edit Pro) My laptop has a regular audio-in, 2 USB ports, and a Firewire port.

I want to upgrade pretty hardcore. Firstly, I'd like to be able to dust off the ole drum mic kit. I really don't know what to run it through, however. for drum tracking prior, I just borrowed a cheap-o mixer from a guy I know. But I've been looking for a better solution; some sort of multi-XLR preamp or something I can run to my laptop. I record a lot of stuff, but mostly rock-oriented music; guitar, bass, drums, vocals, occasional piano.

I have no idea what to get. I have limited-to-no know-how regarding anything outside of plugging stuff into my audio-in on my laptop, and tweaking my shitty little preamp. I have decent microphones and as far as actually capturing sound I'm pretty savvy. it's the technical side of it that I am more or less retarded.

So if anyone could kind of talk me through this or make suggestions, that would help a bunch. I am looking to stay fairly cost effective, but I don't mind spending the money if it's an important item. I really just want neccesities, and plan to move my set-up around a lot. Like, a rack set-up that I could mount in a rack unit at take wherever I need to be.

Thanks!

[themusicblogger]

Sorry, to sum it up, you're looking for advice on the whole 'drum' setup, or just in general? (i.e. basic studio startup, & what equipment to buy)

[layneness]

well, both. I want a well-rounded set-up. If I have to have two different systems to pull it off, then that's alright.