I use Sonor Producers edition.
Always used the cakewalk series. I know a lot of people swear by Cubase etc but it took me long enough to get my head around CW without trying to learn to use another one.

I also use Native Instrument's Guitar Rig 2 for all my guitars plus various other plugins.

got rid of all my rack stuff, drum machine etc, just use BFD for drums, guitar rig 2 for guitars and bass and the cakewalk and sonitus plugins for compression, reverb, eq etc

I'm purely a hobbyist and not a recording engineer by any means lol

Cubase SX3 on a Windows XP PC by a country mile. If you get the M-Audio Delta 1010LT soundcard (around £100) you can record 8 tracks simultaneously too.

I personally record on an old Fostex A8 reel to reel and then master it (i.e. do all the mixing and adding effects, etc) on the PC in Cubase. Really adds a load of warmth to the recordings that no plugin can compare to.

Suppose it all depends on how much you want to spend and what you want to do with the final product.
I bought a £37 Soundblaster Audigy and acquired the software from a friend for nowt.
Run it on a modest 2.7Ghz processor with 2Gb Ram, XP with an 80Gb hdd and that's serves me well. I'm never gonna sell my stuff or anything, I just post it on myspace and send it to other fold to add bits or play about with it, so as long as it sound half decent, I'm happy.

Sorry meant to post the link so that you can have a listen.

www.myspace.com/scottbeveridge

Like I said, I'm no sound engineer but it'll give you an idea of the results you can get with a pretty basic knowledge of recording LOL

nowt wrong with a zoom multitracker- step up the ladder to a Boss multotrack - they are awesome!!!! br1600cd

I use Cakewalk Sonar 7 producer edition and to be honest I find it better than Cubase and more intuitive. I used to run a digital recording studio at my last place of work and we had Protools with an 002 and it was brilliant. Certainly it was the best digital recording system I have ever used. Unfortunately I can't afford one or a decent mac to run it on. Sonar is the next best thing.

I keep my set up really simple, I use a line 6 tone port and a mass of VST plug ins. Session Drummer from Sonar 6 onward is brilliant for drums and you can just add your own drum samples to make up the kits that you like. I also use Absynth 4, B4 II Organ, Hypersonic, Hyper Canvass, Super Quartet, and Edirol Orchestral.

All you need is a good fast PC and the software above and you have yourself a studio which is capable of producing professional CD's

All you need then is a bit of talent and your off

I use two old tape recorders nailed together and an tissue box with a cardboard kitchen roll inside some elastic bands for strings and there you go the complete fabs egg set up!!!!!

no talent tho!!

To be honest, you're probably wasting your money saving up for professional mastering, especially as there's some amazing plug-ins for Cubase that do a cracking job. Doing a decent mix is quite easy, depending how many tracks you have too. It's a case of if it sounds good, it is good.

With your genre of music, the most important aspect of the recording process is the actual recording itself, the warmth of the vocals and the instruments. You should concentrate your funds on getting a really, really good condenser microphone and little desk as they make all the difference.

Microphone is the most important- agreed!!

Get a Samson USB condenser for computer vocal recording- inexpensive but quite good really

I have an old condenser- don't know make - and it is ace- ebay??