Let's make a home studio?!

[Bobeobi]

I'd be very pleased if you tell me your opinions about my problem.
I've got a Celeron 300A at 450 + 128mb ram +
good Quantum UDMA-66.
What I want is to do some demo recordings to CD at 44khz,16bit. Songs usually consist of
5-6 digital tracks & 5-6 MIDI tracks drived by Gigasampler (eh, It's the best!), so soundcard must be able to play 12 digital tracks simultaneously.
Probably, i'd invite some my friends to play some parts together, so multi-channel input would be nice, but if it is 2times more expansive we'll play them one after one and then mix in Cakewalk as well. All input are from microphone (voice or guitar amps). I don't think I need digital output, because all output will be written to CDR, but I'm afraid, that all that line-ins are too noisy and probably it's better to get card with digital input & plug some more or less professional digital mixer/preamp into it...
What I also need is MIDI input to play my favorite keyboard...

So could you be so kind to suggest me:
1. Soundcard
2. Digital (?) mixer or preamp
3. Microphone

Sorry for a long letter, but I tried to explain what I really want. I'll appreciate all answers. Sorry for my english.

 

[cwillu]

Most software multitrackers (including cakewalk) will mix down multiple tracks to a stereo output on playback. Translation: the soundcard doesn't have to do the work. That's why people can do multitrack recording with a 20 dollar soundcard. Many (most?) soundcards will have midi ports built in, so you should be able to take care of your soundcard and midi interface in one shot.

As far as recommendations are concerned, I haven't used enough different equipment to be of much value... somebody else want to cover that? : )

Hope this is useful

William Underwood