I got Soundblaster Live and later found that it is not really a good one for recording, although it gives good effects for those who like to play computer games. So don't get that one. There is a very good site: http://www.homerecording.com (I hope that's the right one) that has lots of info and there is a newbie's section which I found very helpful. I use a minidisk recorder (I'm just recording myself and a guitar, so I don't need a lot of tracks) and Cool Edit, and then burn songs onto a CD using Easy CD Creator 5, which also includes software for making the jewel cases and CD labels.