I've been browsing here a while, but I couldn't find much on specific brands/types of recording equipment. I've been feeling rather glum over my attempts thus far; I've been trying to record songs using Audacity as my program, a Radioshack $20 microphone, and a musciciansfriend.com $80 pre-amp. I think Audacity might be a little screwed up in itself, since recording channel-by-channel gives me a slight time lag towards the beginning of the layers. Plus, the mike is fairly unreliable and fluctuates the sound like you wouldn't believe. I am able, through multiple amplifications and then normalizations, get a fairly uniform volume, but then the sound quality is scratchy and there's a perpetual buzzing in the background.
Now that I'm finished complaining, I would like to get some recomendations for good equipment, particularly a mike and recording program.