Regarding the comparison with commercial cds, one thing I always bear in mind is the notorious 'sound wars' ie the increasing compression that producers add to the recordings to make them louder. Commercial cds always sound louder than my mixes, but when I open my aif file in waveburner and see the top and bottom of the wave pattern (not a solid bar like most commercial releases) I get a smug sense of satisfaction.

A recent edition of either Computer Music or Sound on Sound had an article about some research in America that showed that people did not react more favourably to recordings that were louder.

Just starting out but; BR 900, Richwood guitar and mic on the way

Ooo, equpiment is soo much fun I record all in my room, and have cubase 5 (saving for 6), a røde mic, a little mixer I picked up off ebay for £16!! and a good sound card (M-Audio 2497 or something). And instruments, lots of instruments!

Heya bro, my first post here I hope all is well!
For drums I will use a local studio and a drummer
Then guitars and bass will go down here
quad core PC, Toneport Ux2. Squire Bass, fender strats, RJ struts, heritage 575, afri-can guitar!
Percussion here too - shakers, tambourines etc
Vocals back to proper studio and maybe djembe/congas.

Mixdown here, Cubase 5 with a series of waves plug ins.
Its good because I can do pretty much full demos with all the kit I have, just for the "proper" version I like to have a decent room for drums and vocals.

Mr.Will

Welcome to the forum Mr Will - glad to have you on board.

Do you fancy heading over to the introductions forum and telling us a little about yourslelf?

Good man

I use a Fostex MR8 8track recorder, a Yamaha 88 key digital keyboard and I have a guitar and a recorder (as in the musical instrument) lying around.

There are 2 ways to transfer a song (having recorded the required up to 8 tracks) to computer. The first and probably more usual method is to convert the song to wave files using the Fostex's own inbuilt facility, then transfer the wave files to the computer & MP3 via the USB port.

Whereas I prefer to connect the Fostex outputs to the computer soundcard line-in and use Audacity to convert the song to wave files then MP3. This actually works better for me personally. I can then edit further using Audacity.

I have no desire as yet to experiment with recording directly to the PC at all.

Ipad

In terms of instruments, Takemine G series guitar & Yamaha DGX 300 keyboard

Thats it!

I use Reason and Record on my PC which I am starting to get used to.  I have found it quite user friendly and it's good for a beginner like me.

I use an akai mpk 88 keyboard, this has quite a heavy action though but it's still good.  A Presonus Audiobox usb and a Shure sm58 mic which I would like to replace with a condensor mic at some point when I can afford it!

I Monitor with nEar 05 ESI speakers.  I am learning the acoustic guitar at the moment and that just about wraps it all up!

An embarassment of riches really - but this what happens when you've been buying stuff for the last 25 years...

Ageing Athlon PC running Cubase 4 SE and some VSTs (in particular Emu Proteus, Jamstix, NI B4)
M Audio Delta 1010 soundcard and Midisport 8x8 midi interface
B4D hardware controller, Phillip Rees C16 midi controller
Soundcraft Compact 10 Mixer, Fostex PM0.5 Monitors
Focusrite Penta Mic pre-amp, Behringer Vamp 2,  Zoom 1202
Yamaha MU128 with PLG VL, AN1X and DX cards, Novation KS Rack, Alesis Nanosynth, Nano Bass and Nano Piano
Yamaha PSR5700 Keyboard, M-Audio Trigger Finger and Behringer FB1010 for midi input
A few mics (Rode NT1A, Rode M3, sE Electronics X1, Blue Ball Condenser, Prodipe  A1, T-Bone SC400), SE Electronics Reflexion Filter – Project Studio
Line 6 Electric Variax 300 modelling guitar, Martin acoustic and a bunch of other stringed things

All sitting in the spare room with some attemps at acoustic treatment

I use:

What makes the magic possible:
an iMac
Logic 9 Pro
Motu 8 Pre Audio Interface

Mics:
Shure SM57
Shure SM57Beta
MXL990
MXL991
MXL V63M

I have an array of amps (Marshall, Crate, Fender, Smokey) and guitars (Rogue, Jackson, Ibanez) that I use to capture a solid authentic sound.  I also use a full size StudioLogic Midi Controller for midi and sample work!