where to start?

[mr_automatic]

hey guys. i've been hanging out on the site for a few weeks now and everyone here is amazing. no pretentious bs, just kind words of advice. enough of buttering everyone up, i'll get to the thread. i've been toying around with cool edit pro for about a year, starting out with my acoustic and a computer mic (yeah i know), just to see what i could do. i then bought myself a pod just to fool around with. now, i am inspired by you guys here to actually invest some money and start recording some stuff. i've seen some great setups listed here for relatively little bucks, so i actually do believe that you can do some great things for relatively little money (compared to what it used to cost). anyway, the question is this. where would i start if i wanted to expand my system and start getting more serious. i only record one track at a time. to help everyone out i'll list what i'm working with below:

1)Dell p3-933Mhz; 40 Gig HD; 128Mb DRAM; SB AudioPCI 64V sound card

2)Full version of Cool Edit Pro 1.2, with effects patch

3) POD Version 2.0

I'm currently just running my Les Paul into the pod, then from the pod to the soundcard and it works well. i'm more interested in being able to put some half decent sounding vocal tracks on my songs.
Thanks for everything

 

[Showdown]

How much do you want to spend? What end results are you looking for?

What about other instrumentation? Are you looking at MIDI or just multi-track recording? Microphones? Mastering? Effects?

 

[mr_automatic]

thanks for responding!
i'm certainly on a budget, but have no idea what to spend as i don't know what i need. i'll probably never use midi, and am looking to get the same quality on my vocal tracks as i'm getting on the guitar and bass tracks with the pod. i'll be sticking mainly with multi-track-recording. i have no microphones presently, and apply all effects through cool edit unless i'm 110% comfortable with the pre-recording effects through the pod.

 

[Showdown]

I'm new here, so I might be breaking some rules. But most of my software has been downloaded for free. Because of this, I haven't spent very much money in the way of software.

A microphone is a must, and I believe external amp/effects/preamps are essential for some recording. If you want to get into MIDI, a reliable keyboard is necessary, along with internal MIDI mapping.

I'm starting to sound old here, but in our day and age, HD recording can pull results which weren't possible 5 years ago. We no longer need to rely on a crappy TASCAM 4-track, bouncing tracks, and deal with tape noise. For a computer savy person, home recording is but a few downloads away!

 

[chessparov]

Here are a couple of relatively "bulletproof" gear suggestions;

1) A good mic pre like the Studio Projects VTB-1
2) The Fmr. Audio RNC compressor
3) Reverb units like the Roland SRV-330, Yamaha Rev500, Lexicon MPX500.

Chris

P.S. After you get the RNC, a Joe Meek compressor would be an
excellent counterpoint for "color"-when budget permits.