So I want to start recording some of my ideas, but I'm a little bit in the blue, and just doing some research, and I'm not fully knowledgeable of all important pro's and con's... I need help and advice on what a good purchase would be.

--my recording purpose: for myself, voice, and guitar, and ability to lay down a bass track and program a drum loop (i'm not too concerned with recording my whole band)

--my budget: hopefully not too much over $300, but $400 max

--my cpu specs: laptop, win xp pro, Pentium III @ 900Mhz, 256MB ram, no firewire

--dilemmas: good USB interface or console unit? which usb or which console?

>>> these are some of the units I've researched a little... if you have any other suggestions or strong opinions on these, please let me know

> console unit: Boss br-864 8 track unit (a little pricey for me, but ebay might help)... also a little worried editing on a console unit may be unfriendly without a nice monitor and mouse

> usb: M-Audio MobilePre (2 XLR, 2 line)

> usb: Tascam US 122 (2 XLR, 2 line, midi)

> usb: Digidesign mbox (out of my league... to expensive and demands too much of cpu)

> software: Cakewalk Guitar Tracks Pro 3 (supposed to work nicely with the usb units)

that's all I've researched. Is USB such a bad idea, is it worth it to get a firewire port? but please send your suggestions and opinions, I'm totally new at recording and want to get a quality unit, but good value.

thanks so much,
~Nicholás