Mark Singleton asked about recording directly to a PC.  Once you
have a sound input device such as a microphone, fed into a suitable
pre-amplifier or mixer, you can output this to a PC through a digitizer
unit such as "Edirol" ( http://www.roland.com/PRODUCTS/en/UA-1X/ ) via
a USB socket.

The PC's soundcard is bypassed altogether, and the WAV data is
deposited direct to the hard disk at CD quality.  Any sound-editing
software can be used for input [recording] on the PC.  I use "Goldwave"
( http://www.goldwave.com/ ).

I hope that helps.

John Page, UK