Yo Amber, welcome to the board! First of all, let me say that I'm presuming because you sign "Amber", that you are of the female persuasion. God knows this testosterone-based hobby needs more women, so pleeeeease stick around!
You have already gotten some very good advice here. Here's mine. First, don't buy a pile of the wrong stuff because you are in a rush to get going. Stick around here and wait until you can get 3 or 4 good engineers to admit you have a plan. There are a lot of peripherals, ranging from useful stuff to necessary stuff that you either don't know about yet, or haven't thought of. Power conditioners, mic stands, cables, pop filters, microphones, preamps, lots of stuff.
Let's start at the beginning. What do you intend to record, and where do you intend to record it? If you're recording just yourself and a guitar or keyboard at home, that's very different from recording a band practice across town. What kind of music will you be recording, violins, grunge? What do you intend to do with the recordings? Personal enjoyment, demos, commercial release?
What kind of budget do you have? It sounds like you have some, but you need to plan it out, right down to the chair you're sitting in, and the strings on your guitar. What kind of room do you have available? Recording will make you hear things in a room you never heard before, right down to the ticking of your watch. How high is the ceiling? Are there windows, carpet? Do people give you a hard time when you make noise? Listen-- can you hear an ambulence siren, or crickets, the refrigerator upstairs? All of that will affect your gear choices.
What are the capabilities of your laptop? Many laptops can't really cut it, and there may be, as suggested above, better ways to meet your needs, or not. Once you have answered my questions, the people here, including myself, will be able to help you much better.
Until then, start to think this way- The recording signal chain starts at the beginning, and goes to the end, in this order: The musician(s), the instrument(s), the room, the mic(s), the cable, the preamp, more cables, then the recorder/sound card/effects. If you buy a lot of expensive processing, but the room sucks, your recording will suck. Rooms can be modified, and good recording space can usually be created inexpensively, if you have- knowledge. You can get that here, if you don't blow all your money before you know what you need. First, answer my questions, and we'll go to work to help you.
Be advised, though, this can be bewildering, because you're going to find that there's more than one way to skin this cat, and there are experts and professional engineers here who completely disagree. There are also a few useless trolls you have to learn to ignore. You'll have to stick around for a while to find out who to believe. If you do, I promise it will be worth the wait.-Richie
