Mac Newbie, I Want To Switch!, Some concerns about audio hardware. Options

[poochie]

Here's the dealio. I'm moving soon, and I think I'll take the opportunity to buy a new computer and set up some recording hardware. I want it to be based around a shiny new 20" iMac.

I'm going to use Garageband, and I just need to know what extra hardware I need to record using an electric guitar, a bass guitar, a MIDI keyboard, and maybe a mic.
The $2000 computer is going to leave me hurting, so I hope I don't have to spend a bajillion dollars to set all this up.

I'll be playing my guitar through a Line6 POD.

My keybaord is an M-Audio Radium 49, and I usually plug it in to my PC's USB port.

Don't have a mic yet, but would like the support.

This post has been edited by poochie: Wed 15 Jun 2005, 21:29

[jaffi]

I personally have a MOTU Traveler. It is a firewire interface that has 4 mic pre's with phantom power. The pre's also double as a DI. It also offers 4 line ins, 8 line outs, S/PDIF, AES/EBU, wordclock, TOSLink, MIDI. It can be bus powered, DC powered or external battery pack powered. The sound is great and it can be expandable. It also offers Cuemix which allows 4 bus mixes within the Traveler itself and zero latency monitoring. They also provide a simple recording program called AudioDesk. I personally didn't install it because I use Logic. Give it a good look.