[Zeckson]

Hello professionals,

Okay, I know I am going to be bashed up for this. I have a few questions to ask which I think this forum has been discussing over and over again. I tried searching for the answers but everything is in piece and bits here and there and I am tired of gathering information from various sources. So I am going to post all my questions here. Please bear with me.

Who am I?
I am just an average guy next door who has a regular job in a global IT company. I am currently located in Bangkok, Thailand and have been staying there for 2 years. I love singing and I am looking for ways to have my voice recorded so that I can assess myself on the techniques and skills at intervals of my "not so rugged, not so strict and not so often training". Lazy? Yes, partly but another part is being very occupied with other things.

What do I wanna do?
I want to do my very own vocal recording and listen to it. If they are good, I can send them to my friends and family back home. If there is a chance, I want to be able to take singing as a career.

What do I want to record?
Mainly only the voice. I don't do acoustics, drums, guitars, keyboards but only the voice. I have karaoke backing tracks obtained from VCDs and DVDs. Most of them are not so good at source quality but still make good audio.

What place do I have to do recording?
Only my rented room in an apartment which is just beside a not so quiet road (depending on traffic flow at different times of the day). I live on the 3rd floor. No sound insulation on the walls. The room is about 30 square meters. I am not too particular about the ambience noise because I know I can reduce noise through editing software.

What is the quality of sound I wanna achieve?
Close to what you hear from audio CDs and enough to make ordinary people say, "Wow!"

Questions:

1. What specific hardware is needed to do this?
2. What specifications?
3. What components I must have?
4. How "professional" should these hardware be (I am not so rich)?
5. What software is needed (I heard that the Adobe Audition 1.5 is pretty good)?

If there are things that I have missed out and you needed to know before answering the questions, please do feel free to reply to this post and ask me. I will provide as much details as possible. Thanks a million!