In reality, you don't really need anything fancy or sophisticated to make a great recording. Most PC's have sufficient audio cards to do the job, and the human ear cannot detect many of the differences some folks talke about in respect to frequency response. Here's a link to something I posted several months ago and most of the folks that have followed the procedure have said it worked just fine for them. I'll let you be the judge! http://psrtutorial.com/Lessons/L_Recording/LPR-MakeCD/lpr-makecd.htm

BTW: The program I use for recording is Cakewalk's Music Creator 2003, which sells for under $40 at Best Buy. It's a multitrack program that does everything you can do with Acid Pro, but costs a lot less.

Good Luck,

Gary