Beginner! Need help getting started with recording music.

Question

I am the definition of 'new' at the moment. I want to record my own music at home and I've been told that using an Apple Mac is one of the better ways to go about it at home.
I have a number of questions, most of which have probably been asked before (apologies!) starting right from the beginning.
1. What type of Mac would be best suited as a dedicated tool for recording music? Obviously speed and memory are big factors, but are there any other considerations here (available inputs, drivers, sound cards etc)? I'm hoping to keep the cost below AUS$3000 if possible.
2. Do i need any other hardware for this application? (this is where you can tell how inexperienced I am haha) such as mixers etc? If I should need a mixer, is there a particular type or brand of mixer that works well with Macs?
3. Will plugging a guitar amp into the mac improve sound quality over plugging the guitar directly into the Mac? I bought a Griggin Garage Band guitar cable a while ago to record some background music for a friend's DVD, and I found it worked well, but I'm looking for the best quality sound now.
4. What would be the most effective software to use? I've briefly used Garage Band and found that to be simple and useful, but I've heard that there are better software packages available.
I'm hoping to be able to record guitar, bass and vocals directly on to the Mac, and create drum tracks using samples and loops. I know how to play music but as you can tell I know very little about recording it! Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!
Thanks..

Answer 1

I would presume one line level input will suffice?
Close, you need a Line Level AND Mic Level input since you'll want to record vocals.
Thanks for the link to your Q&A page, I found some very useful info there.
It's showing its age, and will hopeful get updated soon, but most of the info is good at least for a background.
Anyway, I think I might recommend this Presonus INSPIRE over the FireBox, it'll save you about $100 and since PreSonus makes excellent equipment (and we have an active member here that uses the Inspire), I'm confident that it offers great quality.
I think the firepod that you use looks great, but might be overkill
I agree, the FirePod would be serious overkill for your needs. Again, an awesome interface, but you'd be paying for all those Mic PREs, and using 1. That wouldn't make sense, and since the FP isn't cheap...
my talent and engineering knowledge is quite limited
Then I would strongly suggest GB as the software, and then do lots of reading. The weakest link in music production is your engineering skills. Mixing and Mastering (especially the latter) are art forms. A bad engineer using a $10,000 bit of software and hardware would make a fantastic performance sound like garbage. With good engineering skills you can make a pro recording with GB.
The learning curve with something like Logic is dramatically increased, and again, without the skills to take advantage of what it offers, your recordings are not going to sound any better. At the very least, start with GB to learn the skills of Recording/Editing/Mixing/Mastering. The "price of admission" is low enough that if in a year you find that you need a feature GB doesn't offer, your money will not have been wasted, it will have been valuable learning time.
Hope those more specific answers help
~~HangTIme [Will Compute for Food] %-)>
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