Home Recording Studio

So Julie and I are venturing on to something new. We are going to attempt to record the songs that she wrote onto CD. So I went to a music store that sells everything a person needs to be a rock star, and I picked up a few things. The first thing a person needs is a mic to sing into. So the PVi2 was the one that I purchased for $50 to try out.

Then you need a basic mic stand, $40.
 For Julies guitar I needed to buy a pickup, so I purchased the Dean Markley for $79.  So I tried recording with these items to my computer using the mic input, and had background noise.  Went back to the music store and they told me that it is probably my computers fault.  So of course they wanted to sell me yet another thing to get rid of the noise.
So I bought the PV6USB mixing board for $129.99.  The good thing is that it actually took the noise away, and I like it.  It seems to work great.  I can plug the mic and the pickup into it and still have room for two more things.  So once we get a song recorded I will try and post it somehow.
If anyone has a suggestion or two for me on recording music with my computer, please comment on this post.  Thanks!