Blah...some will say analog, some digital.
The economic reality of home recording, for most anyway, is that digital is the only viable option between a cassette 4-track and a 2" Studer.
Just record straight into a computer with a good sound card @ 24-bit. I recommend 88.2 kHz or CD-native 44.1 kHz sampling rate to minimize/eliminate the effects of SRC. Now keep your signal in the box as much as possible, I.E. don't do a lot of external processing, so you minimize the number of A/D conversions.
Do your mixing in any number of programs like Sonar, Cubase, etc., and mastering in Wavelab, Sound Forge, T-Racks, etc.