Yo Lothar, welcome to the board! Lots of bad recordings get played on the radio, it's just a matter of who you blow! But I think you mean you want to make good recordings...
All I can do is share what I've learned in a year of doing what you are talking about. I played for 30 years, 12 for money, and my (God I love her) wife said- Go! Spend the price of a good new car and make the best album you can. Well she said, "How much will it cost to master your first album and do the first run of production?" I answered $25,000, plus $5000 in high end guitars." She said- "We can do that. Go for it.!" (Did I say I love her?) And that's pretty much what I 've done for every free minute for a year.
You ask about gear, but here's what I did. First, before she changed her mind, I bought a couple of killer axes! Then I spent 3 months getting calluses and some old chops back. Meanwhile, I called up or tracked down every badass musician I've ever played with, and talked the entire "A" Team into doing it for residuals!! (Whoo hoo). Then, realizing that I knew shit about pro audio gear, I asked these music badasses who they use for tracking engineers, and talked to the engineers. Knowing that my hearing sucks, and not wanting to combine my learning curve with a serious project CD, I hired a nice tracking engineer as a consultant, to make room conditioning suggestions, help me with finding levels and mic placement so I could do basic tracks on my own. He'll also be handling the overdub sessions. Then I read a bunch of books, found an executive producer (my wife- the enabler/accountant- Did I say I love her?) to handle legal, mechanical royalties and recording contracts. She gets to consult with the nice lawyer and read a different pile of books. Then I found a good prospective mixing engineer, this board's own Littledog, and I lurked on this board and studied pro audio gear.
I lack the time and the knowledge to answer the hugeness of your gear questions, but I can offer suggestions in different price ranges for a couple of things I know a little about. I know diddly about computers for recording, so talk to many others here who do. All I can do is point out a few cool things to look at. I will only list middle priced things that cost, but *can* make the professional sounding recording you want, in time. These are just a few pieces of gear you should read up on.-
Mics- $1000 scratches the surface- more money here please. Shure SM57, SM7. AKG C414B-ULS,B.L.U.E. Dragonfly, Rode NTK, Studio Projects TB-1, C-3, Neumann TLM103 and KM184,
Sennheiser 421 and 424.
Preamps-Joemeek twinQcs, Davisound TB-10, Pendulum Audio MDP-1, read up on Great River, Avalon, DW Fearn, and Earthworks.
It all comes down to your signal chain, and the way you manage whatever money you have is critical. First, look at the room or rooms you have available and get the right people to help you plan some acoustic changes. Do the work yourself. Most people don't know it, but the mony is part of the signal chain. If you use good mics and good preamps to a good soundcard well, you will get high quality tracks. Don't worry about lots of effects hooey, let someone with $50,000 or more of gear do that. Just get a good simple recording of yourself that's clean. In the meantime, you can learn mixing and eventually do your own stuff. Recording is a trade and a profession. I wouldn't want to have you practice brain surgery on me. You want to make a good CD? Get a tracking engineer and a mixing engineer, learn everything you can from them, and hang around this board.-Richie
