Well I'm no expert but I was in the same boat as you were a few months ago. Just in the learning stages. This might seem like obvious advice but the most important thing is to do the proper research on each device before you buy it. Took me a long time to decide on my set up, and like many many other people... I wasted a little bit of money on items that I had to eventualy replace for expansion or quality reasons.
Here are things I had to think about...
Do you need a full on mixer? or just a Digital Audio interface to record on to your computer?
It seemed to me... (and I could be wrong as I am still a newbie to recording) that for Computer based recording... the mixer was Redundant. Today's recording Software such as CuBase (which I use) have their own Equalizers and Effects plug-ins. So I didn't feel I needed an extra set of effects and equalizers on a mixer.
We wanted to be able to have multiple tracks all recording at once in order to get my friends drums on individual tracks and be able to adjust levels, EQ's and effects after the fact. Most mixers only have the two outputs for a stereo signal which means you have to pre-mix the levels of each drum and instrument. (For me it was like... then why do I have this awesome recording software with all the bells and whistles when I have to spend all this money duplicating those bells and whistles on a mixer!)
For me, the solution was a Digital Audio interface that could take multiple channels and put them all onto the computer at once. The interface I bought has no effects processing or EQ's - just a bunch of Pre-Amps and hooks up to my PC via FIrewire. So it enables me to record 8 simulatnious and individual tracks into the comptuer all at once and I didn't have to pay extra on duplicate effects processing.
At first I was like.. why doesn't everyone just do Computer based recording with an interface instead of mixers??!!?! and I think it is because of a couple of factors.... For example, I can see the computer based mixing being a real pain for Live aplications. PC based mixing can still be used for Live no problem except you need to deal with things like Monitor Latency if your computer is not fast enough.
and lets face it... having the Knobs and buttons all laid out on a mxing board is wayyyy easier to use live then a silly Mouse and a scroll bar!
So make sure you know what you want to do with it and how many tracks you want to be able to record simultaniously before you buy anything.. or you'll end up like me... with an old mixer collecting dust on the shelf while my PC does all the work... lol
But it just shows the types of things you really need to consider when purchaseing recording equipment... specially computer based recording equipment.