You can save a bit of cash by going with a Tascam US1800 that will give you 10 useable preamps out of the box. Add preamps for the other 4 analog channels and one with Spdif out for 16 input channels.
I moved up since the days with that setup, but all of the music on my website except for the KISSm stuff was recorded with the 1800. Expensive cables don't really make a difference other than strength and quality of connectors. HOSA cables are fine. No need to go high end there unless you have the money.
I highly recommend treating your control room with rockwool or OC703 bass traps, first reflection points from monitors (including ceiling). I record vocals in my control room using two hang-able panels forming a 'v' behing the mic, that are just pulled off the wall. There are some old pics of that setup on my site.
Here is a quick rundown of my gear now:
PC Win7-64-16G i7-2600 with two 1TB drives in RAID1 for OS. One 1TB drive for projects/audio. MSI HD5450 video card. 3 video monitors. Backup to Carbonite cloud storage nightly. Drives fail...
Cubase 7 32 bit. Haven't yet needed to go 64-bit yet as I do not use more than a few instrument channels. PC is powerful enough to mix a full 60 track album and still record vocals with less than 8ms of latency.
2-Steinberg UR824's + Behringer Ultragain Pro-8 for ADAT extra scratch tracks when needed. 24 input tracks total.
Monitors: KRK G2-8/Event TR8 monitors and a pair of Phillips computer speakers for reference.
Mackie Big Knob to select monitors/talkback/headphone sends.
Headphone amp: Behringer HA4700
3 snakes. 1 for each isolation room
1 Behringer Zenyx 802 just for drum room volume control or mixing of alternate mix.
Vocal mic: mostly SM7b
Kick: Shure D112 (I almost always blend the kick with Steven Slate Trigger so I don't care as much about the tone of the mic. If you want kick to sound like a basketball, D112 is your best bet. lol
Snare: Shure SM57
High toms:
Shure SM57's
Floor toms: CAD M179's
Ride:
Sennheiser MD421
HH: Samson CO1
Overheads: Shure KSM141's in cardioid.
Room mic:
Rode NT1a.
Bass: Direct and or through Eden Bass Preamp, Trace Elliot preamp, or will sometimes mic a 4x10 cab with SM57
Amped guitars: SM57,
MD421, or MXLR144
Acoustic guitars: Rode NT1a and or Shure KSM141's in Omni recorded in control room.
Sweet channel preamp: Vintech X73I used for snare, vocals, bass, kazoo...
Compression while recording on bass/vox: 1978 DBX160X.
Over $1200 of self made Roxul 80 bass traps and drum room ceiling fill/wall panels.
3 video cameras for isolation rooms.
A buttload of cables, mic stands, tuner, reamp box, direct boxes and one vintage mini Lava Lamp.
Maschine, CH and TP Steinberg controllers, a big ass PA system in control room and of course the beer fridge.
Much of this is not necessary to get you started, but that is where I am at at this point. Hope it helps.
Jimmy
