If you ask ten different people what brand gear you should buy you will probably get 10 different answers.
First of all, figure out the type of music and the kind of "sound" you want. I find roland keyboards have pretty good real instrument sounds, eg pianos, violins, acoustic guitars, but some of their anolog synth sounds are a little thin and cheezy(
XP30). Some of the anolog modeling synths such as
the Korg MS2000 sound heaps better in this department but have no piano's or violins etc. Maybe you could buy a really good sampler instead (either software or hardware).
For recording you can use your computer, which I think is a good way to go or just use a stand alone hard disk recorder - Korg just brought out a new 16 track digital recorder. If your using a computer to record audio you'll need a really good audio card. There are heaps of options, but think about the number of tracks you want to record simultanously, eg 1 or 8 and buy a card that will meet your needs, make sure it has a range of different digital connectors including S/PDIF and MIDI in/out.
For mixing you could buy a digital or analog mixer - I'd probably buy a digital mixer like a Yamaha O1v, because when your recording digital audio its better to keep all your processing in the digital domain than to keep sending it through A/D converters all the time.
I hope this is a bit of a help, just remember to talk to different people who actually OWN the gear you are thinking of buying, don't just buy a piece of gear because the sales guy at the music shop told you it was good, or the glossy brochure said it's product is "the best available on the market today". Remember to plan ahead, its better to buy good gear than to be unhappy 6 months latter with the cheap gear you thought was "a good place to start" because you will be suprised at how fast you out grow it.