well...if you listen to MP3's on your computer,
everything *should* be good to go.
you'll need to locate the "MIC in" on your soundcard.
this will be a 1/8, so you'll need a radio shack adapter
to 1/4 in.(like a guitar cord) for the next item, a microphone.
one of those cheap goosenecks that "comes with" vid cams,
ect. will do for starters. that won't need an adapter.
we're after routing at this point, making the VU's jump,
not pristine sound.
next, you'll need a sequencer to "capture" the audio,
present .wavs as a graphic. vax mentioned garageband
that's included w/ the latest servicepack.
getting this as an add on is amazing.
moses' "audacity"suggestion looks good for a beginner.
nice simple interface, small cpu requirements.
depending on your computing power, there's also options
like the FREE protools LE available at
http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/mac/
pc users- there's a pc version also. 8 tracks of audio...
128 midi tracks plus effects...you can't beat the price.
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as far as kbs goes, size doesn't matter on the collaboration end.
truncation occurs when compressing files to mp3, zip ect.
fr'instance- the files on my computer are .wavs to be made
into a cd file. i encode as needed, in the moon's case, @192kbs.
all audio files in the sequencer are originally recorded as 1114k
.wav files.
it's a question of how long an up/download takes, a patience/convenience issue.
a dialup may take hours to upload a 192k file, where dsl takes a couple of minutes.
from experience, that beats the crap out of creativity when things are rolling,
so dialup users can send smaller files, replace them say, before going to bed w/ .wavs.
quality's worth sacrificing for speed at this stage.
all files are "traded out" to full .wavs in the final product.
on a pc, it's simply "save as..."choose "windows wav" from
the list. the file has to be converted by the original person,
an mp3 can't be reconverted to a full .wav.
clear as mud?