Building a home recording studio for <$1000

[Gildwulf]

Hey all,

I'm looking into starting a home recording studio, mostly to lay down vocal tracks and possibly some piano and acoustic guitar. I don't want to spend a lot of money since I can just go to a studio for the day to record a demo, but I want to be able to lay down vocal tracks and play with them a bit on my computer.

I talked to a few of my friends in the music business and they say I need something like:
a) a large condenser vocal mic hooked up to
b)a preamp with phantom power with
c) a soundcard and
d) some kind of software like Protools


I looked into some options and some possibilities are:
mbox2: this looks like a good all-in-one solution with a preamp and Protools LE. It's around $450 and I would have to buy a mic on top of that.

maudio mobilepre -looks pretty cheap and a similar idea to an mbox, but no recording software which can cost $300+

some possible mics:

mxl990
studioprojects b1 -got good reviews

here's a preamp that good reviews in my price range:
studio projects vtb

I'm also supposed to get a soundcard (I think)??

I ideally would like a setup where I can plug some [censored] into my laptop (or desktop), load up software and sing into a decent condenser mike. Does anyone with more technical knowledge know anything or can someone provide more input? Or maybe I should take this to an audophile website...

gw