i want to be able to produce and record electronic music from my home computer... but i dont know anything about anything.
Learning to play an instrument is the hard bit. It won't take anything like as long to get into the computer stuff.
Maybe spend some of your budget on bribing a local keyboard player (with a set-up) to show you the ropes - what the current software can do.
"Guerrilla Home Recording" by Karl Coryat. The most recent edition.
If you post the spec of your Mac hopefully one of the Mac people will post some inexpensive suggestions for software and add on hardware to get you going.
$1000 would get you a complete set-up on an up to date PC - I'll bet it's the same on an up to date Mac.
Mic + preamp (for acoustic stuff and vocals)
Budget DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)
Powered monitors
Cabling.
You get keyboards that connect directly to your computer via USB or a hardware interface that has audio ins/outs and MIDI ins/outs. The Mac people can (hopefully) give you some pointers. M-Audio do one with really stable drivers for the pc on a PCI card called the 2496 audiophile. There's a USB version that should work with the Mac. Less than $100 second hand?
Mic - I suppose a Shure SM57 if you're only buying one.
Preamp - maybe one of the focusrite voice channel ones or an old Joe Meek?
Good luck, that's the end of my (extended) tuppence worth.
