I started with my old Korg G3 effects processor and Casio keyboard headphone jacks plugged into the mic input. Realized after fighting the messed up sound that I needed to go into the line input. I was and am still using Cool Edit Pro, and after coming up with several tracks for a zombie movie that sounded great when played through that software, but had some distortion issues when played through media player or whatever, that I needed to make it 44.1khz and 16bit. I was also using a little cheapo mic acoustic recording that came with my dads computer.
I finally got tired of dealing with the line input issues though, and got a Presonus Audiobox to plug into the USB. I also picked up a condensor mic set (vocal mic and an istrument mic). Recording quality got a lot better from the keyboard, mic, and guitar stuff, but the computers I'm using are kind of buggy sometimes. I was using Cool Edit to do the recording.
I have three office cubicle panels set up in my spare bedroom to cut down on noise when recording with the microphone.
Was still a PITA though going to computer, hitting record, going over to mic, sitting down, playing, going back to computer, listening to playback, finding some random crackle in a few spots, trying again, etc, so I bought a Zoom R8 multi-track recorder last week.
Now I can set that in front of me, and record with the acoustic guitar and playback without getting up, and use it's built in mics to record to one track, and my external condensor mic hooked up to record to another track, and get a nice full range stereo like recording. Can run off AA batteries too so it's nice and portable.
Next I'm going to try running my guitar amp into one input, and use a microphone in front of the amp going into the other input, and see what kind of sound I get with that setup.
After I get tracks recorded, I can hook it up to the computer and transfer the wav's over and do more editing from there.
I'm still learning how to use it for now. It has drum beat stuff that I need to figure out. My Yamaha keyboard (the replacement for the Casio) has drum beat/loop capabilities too.
Slowly getting it figured out. Still need to cut a hole in the wall and put the tower in the other room so I don't have noise from it. (it sits in the hallway at the moment with cable extensions for everything plugged into it.)