ive got one of those myself.  nice cheap little mixer, very pleased with it and easily comprable to my mackie 1604 (sound and feature wise, obviously fewer channels)

to record an amp, you can do it a couple ways.  most people prefer to mic the amp because the whole amp, speaker included, is part of a guitarists desired tone.  but many folks record direct as well.  direct is when you take the signal from the "pre amp out" on the amp (if it has one) and run it to the mixer.  you NEVER want to take the power amp signal (i.e. unplug the speaker and take a line from the speaker jack to the mixer)  so it really depends on the sound you want.  

as for drums, id start out with the less is more philosophy and use that one mixer for the whole band.  by limiting the number of mics you can use on drums youll get more experience in how much you can really do with each mic.  good learning time.  also since youre just going straight to cassette youll have less to worry about when mixing.  

when you dont have enough mic inputs on a mixer you have to either buy a mic preamp or go direct.  you can pick up cheap but decent mic pres these days for under $200 (presonus and behringer) thatll give you two more mic preamps for the 5th and 6th channel on that mixer.  or you can go direct.  either use the pre-amp out like i said above or with a "direct box" (or DI).  a DI can be had for about $30-50.  what it does is bring a guitar or other instrument signal up to a reasonable level to go into a "line in" on the mixer.  (line ins are designed for things like keyboards which have a different output than a guitar)

so ... using that mixer for a normal band (guitar, drums, bass vocals, second guitar) id set it up like this:

(the first four channels have mic preamps so you want to use them for the most critical or necessary mic'd instruments)

channel 1 - vocals
channel 2 - bass drum
channel 3 - drum overhead
channel 4 - guitar amp

(channels 5 & 6 are stereo "line" channels, and dont have mic preamps)

channel 5 - second guitar (direct record)
channel 6 - bass (direct record)

if you want another track, cut the drums down to 1 channel and just experiment with mic placement to get the most well rounded kit sound with one mic.  it can be done    

the manual that comes with that mixer is pretty good.  itll show you how to hook up stuff like record decks and reverbs etc.  

have fun!!!  

Mark, you rule, thx for the tips!

Felix: Currently i use an old stereo with a casette deck to record onto, my "short term" goal is to get a casette deck with a line out so i can drag it to my PC and use the line in on my soundcard to record back to the PC. Longer term plan would be to buy an old PC that i can use to record onto for the rehearsal room.

( I cant put my PC in my rehearsal room because it literaly is at the other side of the house)

Hmm, how much do the mackie boards you speak of cost?

-im really new to all this-

doesn't matter, get a 1202 "brick" on ebay if you want

actually it's ok that you want to get into it but I played at least 10 years before I started wasting my time with recording.  In college they used to record all of our performances and man, I wasn't the slightest bit interested, can you believe that?  Then I started making demo's with my friend in 88 and I was hooked.  It's ok to learn the basics but if I was in your shoes and hindsight being 20/20 I would concentrate on other things.  Get a little rig going to make demos if you want but man I would spend time getting my poo together with a band and then pay some guy like me 100 bucks to give you a great demo recording and let you and your band worry about the music...seriously, it's the way to go.  I wish someone would have told me that.  But do what you have to.

ya think? duh

this one is 20 bucks on ebay


can you do 4 tracks at once on the sound blaster?

I believe everyone should learn the basics first before making the jump to digital- but I'm old school

as for software N-Track is every bit as good as cool edit pro and only like $40 (last i checked) ive used both and was happier with the interface on N-Track, easier trasition for my old school background.  but id go with the free version of protools before any of 'em.  1 - its free.  2 - protools is the studio norm and the education will help in the future.  3 - its free.

the mackie / behringer debate is pointless really.  mackies may be better, but they cost more.  behringers arent bad, and cost less.  so really its about budget and priorites.  need as much as possible for as little as possible? behringer.  want to spend more on something that may be more flexible and longer lasting? buy mackie.  fact is, small mixers like that are limited period.  id say start cheap, learn the basics, enjoy it.  then when you want more get more and invest more.  

and the 4 track cassette thing aint a bad idea at all.  they are cheap and easy to deal with.  great learners.  (i remember my old AMR, with a big a$$ deck and seperate mixer ... mew ...)

-noobism mode engaged-

what exactly is a four track recorder ?

Sorry for the lack of knowledge guys

Its just that I used a (my brother's) mixer to record some stuff, and it worked pretty nice, so hence my train of thought to get a decent mixer myself.

Back to the mixer...

A suggestion that I think works well on these Behringer boards for recording is to connect the cassette player in (record) to one of the aux send channels (aux 1, for example).  This allows you to set the level of each channel on the board via the aux control for that channel.

I was not happy with the recording level of the cassette deck when I hooked it up to the dedicated RCA tape hook-ups on our 32-channel Behringer Eurodesk.

Tom