First of all.. welcome!
As far as setting up a rig, the possibilities are endless. I run one of the most typical "entry" level rigs which is (outside of mics) an Edirol UA5, which is a preamp (to boost the mic output levels to something that will talk to a recorder) and also an analog to digital converter. There are a lot of people who run seperate Pres and A/Ds, and some can get
relatively really expensive. Some people elect or cannot afford to run any A/D converter and run "line in" (analog) to their recorders. I guess I should mention that almost all of the recorders you'll find in use are digital, either hard drive or compact flash card storage. Many people prefer to go with an outside A/D because it typically is of a higher quality than what comes with most recorders, but anybody in their right mind will tell you that there are TONS of fantastic sounding recordings out there that use internal A/Ds.
My recorder is a Nomad Jukebox 3 by Creative. These aren't in production anymore, but can be had around these parts (in the yard sale thread) or on ebay pretty easily. It can take an analog signal and do the conversion internally, or you can send it an optical digital signal to make use of an outboard A/D. The iRiver recorders are really gaining in popularity though. They are basically a MP3 player that somebody wrote some code for to tailor it's performance and function for our purposes. They can also be had here and on ebay in abundance. There's also the MicroTracker, which has a greater bit depth (don't worry about that yet), but some people have experienced functionality issues and one person actually had a battery explode and a resulting fire!
Basically what I'm trying to say, is that you're going to need a preamp, possibly an A/D converter, and something to record to (hell, I didn't even mention DAT tape).
Set us up with your price range and you'll get 8,000 suggestions from everybody here. Keep in mind that you should take all opinions with a grain of salt, but there are quite a few people here who really know their shit too.
Finally, you can always download or stream shows from the etree section of the Live Music Archive (
www.archive.org ) to hear different gear. Just search for anything that you're interested in. Keep in mind that the things that will make a difference in your sound are your mics, preamp, cables (oh yeah... you need those too!), and your A/D.
Feel free to post any more questions and again, welcome!
Shane
