$310

I'm helping a friend set up a small recording studio at home and he's thinking he'd like to pick up a small mixer to run mics, line-level amp signals, and a portable drum machine into his PC for recording. Do you guys have any advice on products that are out there that would work for him?

Is he using USB? Alesis and Yamaha have some relatively inexpensive USB Mixers, either 4- or 8-track, that should work. Mackie also has a few, but a sound tech friend said the new Mackie boards are not as good as the old ones. The Alesis MultiMix 8USB looks good for less than $200.

I would also recommend he look into Tascam if he doesn't need more than 4 channels. They still do the 4-channel recorder thing pretty well. I've heard the same thing about Mackie boards lately, but nobody has said anything to me as to why they sound worse or what about them makes them worse.

That Alesis USB board sounds fantastic. If he isn't running USB however, and he can use XLR outputs instead, the Behringer EuroRack series is something he NEEDS to look at. I usually don't care for Behringer, but those boards are pretty darn solid.

Does he already have an A-D converter/interface or does he need a board that can do that as well?

I noticed on Craigslist, there is a Behringer Xenyx 2442FX for $300 cash. 24 input. Might be a good place to start.