Dave-
I'm glad you liked the tracks. The only thing I sequenced was the drums. Everything else is just me. I programmed the drums, though. I used an
MAudio Delta 1010 interface, a Behringer mixer,
Cakewalk Pro Audio 9.0, Jammer Pro for some of the drum sequences, and
Event 20/20bas monitors for the mix, and an AKG D690 mic and an
SM57 mic. I mastered with Sound Forge 4.0.
The main thing you want in an audio computer is reliable throughput, on the PCI bus, to the memory, and on the IDE port to the disk. The primary driver for this requirement is resources. There are only 15 IRQ's in a PC, and very few of them are free for dedicated audio resources. There are several choke points on a motherboard when it comes to data throughput for audio applications. Without going into a lot of detail, your best bet is to build a dedicated system for audio that is focused on no IRQ sharing, a dedicated audio hard drive, and no extraneous stuff. RAID is a resource hog, so I'd stay away from it. I can't imagine a reliable audio computer that is also a server.....
The mixer is the heart of your studio. It provides all of your signal routing and monitoring options, as well as you mic pre amps and EQ. The thing I like about using a mixer is the flexibility for monitoring and signal routing. Yeah, you can do it in the software on most systems, but I prefer a mixer with real faders and knobs. I use a Behringer UB
1622 FX Pro mixer. Great bang for the buck.
Reference monitors are a must being able to reliably turn out a decent mix. These
MAudio BX5 monitors are getting good reviews:
Hope this helps. 8)