Overall looks pretty good. I'm not sure Sony acid would be the best DAW for you, as it's mostly electronic based. Maybe give reaper a trial. And for a vocal mic I'd swap he mxhell for an sm 58. Its a much better product overall for the same price.

You'll need some speakers so you can hear what your doing Yamaha krk and Alesis have good speakers in the budget range of around 2-300$

Also just make sure any computer related stuff is on the same page as far as updates and drivers, and that its all compatible.

kmetal, post: 420644, member: 37533 wrote: Overall looks pretty good. I'm not sure Sony acid would be the best DAW for you, as it's mostly electronic based. Maybe give reaper a trial. And for a vocal mic I'd swap he mxhell for an sm 58. Its a much better product overall for the same price.

You'll need some speakers so you can hear what your doing Yamaha krk and Alesis have good speakers in the budget range of around 2-300$.

Thank you very much for the quick reply and I will gladly try your suggestions, but I will mostly be doing all this solo to start so instead of buying speakers right away could I just the m40s until I feel confident enough to start upgrading?

Your list looks good, for an absolute cheapest.
if you just want to put down ideas before going to the studio, you could easily do that with the 5 pre of the mackie.
but for 200$ you could go for http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UMC1820

If quality is not a issue, yes you can use headphones..

I agree KMetal, if you work in an unthreated room, you want to close mic as much as possible and for the vocals, a dynamic mic will be better.
So the sm58 or the sm57(which can also go on the snare and guitar cabs) are good choice.

I have no experience with Sony Acid as a multi track production platform, so I can't comment.

Everything else is about on par for a cheap, entry level home recording rig. You're not concerned with fidelity, so for just getting ideas down, the items you've listed will do the job. You won't get professional results, but then again you're not expecting or looking for this, so you'll be fine.

You will need a multi track preamp/Audio I-O to get your drum mics into your DAW. Cheap, entry level 8 channel USB I/O's are available for around $200 or so. These aren't professional grade, but will do the job in letting you get your tracks to your DAW.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UMC1820

Again, if you aren't concerned with quality, go ahead and mix through headphones. The way you've explained it, you're not planning on using this recording setup for anything other than pre-production anyway - getting rough ideas into the DAW, where you can tweak arrangements and such, with the intent of then going to a pro studio to record them for real, once you are comfortable with the arrangements of the songs.

Your expectations for sonic quality are low, which actually frees you up to get what you need without worrying about your projects sounding professional.

There's nothing wrong with this approach, either. It's actually refreshing. I'd rather help someone like yourself who is being realistic about their expectations, as opposed to someone who posts questions here wanting to know how they can open up a "pro studio" for $1000.

So, keep your costs low, use the studio exactly how you intend to, and then go to a pro room to do it for real when you are comfortable with the arrangements of the songs.

There's not a thing wrong with that plan.

DonnyThompson, post: 420650, member: 46114 wrote:
There's nothing wrong with this approach, either. It's actually refreshing. I'd rather help someone like yourself who is being realistic about their expectations, as opposed to someone who posts questions here wanting to know how they can open up a "pro studio" for $1000.

No no, I'm sure I can sound pro for 50$ :ROFLMAO:

DonnyThompson, post: 420650, member: 46114 wrote:

Your expectations for sonic quality are low, which actually frees you up to get what you need without worrying about your projects sounding professional.

There's nothing wrong with this approach, either. It's actually refreshing. I'd rather help someone like yourself who is being realistic about their expectations, as opposed to someone who posts questions here wanting to know how they can open up a "pro studio" for $1000.

.

Thank you for the help an positive feedback. Yes my expectations are not high what so ever, this is a completely new craft to me and I do not want to waste anyone time holding my hand through. If throughout the process I find out that this is something I like to do then yes absolutely I will care about sound and all the bells and whistles but thats also the same exact reason Im not putting the bar high because I dont wanna amp myself up into thinking this is a new hobby Im going to take on and become a prefectionist so for once in my career of music Im going to take it slow, see how I like it and we'll go from there but AGAIN thank you all very much for the help.