DigiDesign MBox, or 8-track and Sonar?

[Knightshade]

I'll be building a home studio in my new house (including sound-proof booth) that will be primarily used for rap music. I've recorded on a friends setup before that consisted of a Roland 8-track recorder and a PCI card that came with it (if anyone knows the Roland model number please fill me in) and it sounded incredibly good considering its simplicity. My question is... is this a good route to go, or would the MBox and ProTools be a better buy? Does anyone know what Roland hardware I'm talking about, or can you recommend something similar? Thanks!

 

[manning1]

heres an approach i'm happy with.
get an amd based pc with 512 ram two fast hard drives - preferably an amd 64 if you can afford it. put a decent sound card in it. then just add muiltitracksoftware. i use powertracks (29 bucks). if you dont believe how great it is just go to pgmusic.com forums and ask lots of users. its the most affordable 48 track 24 bit software i know of. . also i use magix music studio.
you will also need some decent standalone preamps or a mixer to feed the sound card and all the other usual things like monitors.
if 48 tracks isnt enough - you can always mixdown and add another bunch of tracks.