Reddit reviews CAD GXL2200SP Studio Condenser Mic Recording Pack

Reaper is fine. Learn the tools. I've been a pro audio guy, and now a hobbyist with plenty of money to spend, and I chose Reaper for recording. Not because it's cheap, but because it's awesome (and cheap). I've used ProTools, among others. There's very little you can't do in Reaper that you could do in any other tool, and the workflow is really good.

To be very clear: You will be wasting money if you spend money on software before getting good microphones and good hardware for monitoring. You cannot possibly improve your recordings by prioritizing software at this point. Reaper can make pro quality recordings, but your current hardware cannot.

Spend the money on a decent audio interface, with a decent mic preamp built-in, a good set of headphones, and the best microphone(s) your money leaves room for.

The right mic for acoustic guitar is usually a combination of a small diaphragm condenser and a large diaphragm condenser. Sound hole or body gets an off-axis large diaphragm and the neck gets the small.

Vocals are usually very well served by a large diaphragm condenser. But for rock, a dynamic mic might be better.

A piano is pretty complicated to mic up well. Usually using three or four mics. A stereo XY pair of small diaphragm condensers in the room, facing the open lid, and a big diaphragm inside somewhere, perhaps. Consoles are similar, but more difficult to find the "sweet spot" where the mics should point and be placed. But, a minimum of a small and a large diaphragm combo would be OK.

AKG makes a good mid-priced set of the C1000 plus the C3000 which are great mics at a fair price, but it's not in your price range (if you're buying all the other stuff), so maybe an MXL or CAD bundle:

http://www.amazon.com/MXL-550-551R-Microphone-Ensemble/dp/B002LASBS0/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1344659431&sr=8-14&keywords=condenser+microphone+studio+pack

http://www.amazon.com/CAD-GXL2200SP-Studio-Condenser-Recording/dp/B0009K94L2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344659431&sr=8-1&keywords=condenser+microphone+studio+pack

The MXL bundle seems better reviewed. I've had mixed results with MXL; some are great, some are awful, and the model number is no indicator for which is which...they just have bad quality control. CAD mics are consistently decent. But, more expensive, so it might be worth starting with MXL.

Oh, wait, nevermind those, go with an Audio Technica bundle:

http://www.amazon.com/Technica-AT2041-Studio-Microphone-Package/dp/B000AQDSMQ/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1344659652&sr=8-6&keywords=audio+technica+microphone+pack

Cheap, awesome, from a good company with good QC. Those mics will serve you forever, and you won't ever grow out of them...you'll grow your mic collection, but good mics will always be good for something.

Anyway, the transducers (monitors/headphones, and microphones) are the most important factors in making good recordings, by far, followed by the room in which you are recording. Almost everything else is picking nits, and a good engineer can work around limitations. But if you can't hear what you're working with, you can't make good recordings, and if you're recording through a trashy mic, it'll never sound good. Garbage in, garbage out.

It's like... one cheap microphone stuck in front of my amp? These are the microphones I have, and I really only use the diaphragm mic (mostly out of laziness and the fact that I only have one input on my preamp). But yeah, I just position the mic somewhere around the edge of the speaker cone and that's about it. Nothing special!