Hello SynthZone friends,

I posted this at the MOTIForum but thought I'd post here too since this is really just a recording question, and this happens to be a recording forum, so here goes:

Right now, if I want to share my music, I have (what I'm sure you will agree is) a sloppy way of doing it; I got a SoundBlaster card to resolve some MIDI latency issues with my PC -- the soundblaster came with "Creative Recorder", so I use my PHONES out from my Motif6 into my SoundBlaster (setting the Motif6 volume at about 60% seems good but I'm still experimenting) to record a .WAV file, which I then convert to MP3 with a freeware utility I got off the net.

So on to my point... what can I do to make better recordings? Guessing at levels, and such doesnt work so well... I see there are software compressors on the net too, which might help even out the levels. Is there anything else free or low-rent I can do to improve my recordings?

Also (and this is a very important part of my qestion), what is the "next level" from here? A solid-state mixing board? I was drooling on some of the gear that's out these days (I used to be into sound/light for recording/stage what seems like ages ago, now) and so I'm impressed with where the gear has come, but the price tags have me choking... Is there a happy medium between where I'm at and another mortgage?

Thanks!!!

-Shaz