Hi Johnathon!

Congratulations on your microrecorder...must be fun to record sounds out in the natural enviroment, and its probably great for jamming out with yoour friends.

In regards to your looping...do you plan to use software? or hardware?
I have a couple loop devices that are really fun right now. I have a jamman loop pedal, very cool for live keyboards and situations where you're making music as it comes to you. The main sampler/looping hardware I use is an AKAI MPC 1000, which is _INCREDIBLE_ for looping! the possibilities with this machine are endless, I highly suggest the mpc series.

In regards to microphones, it really depends what situation you are recording in the most. There are a lot of good mics out there for specific purposes. The one that I would suggest, affordable, rugged, and very utilitarian, is the Shure SM57. Best all around mic that can be bought for around 100$.

for the software, logic is fun and many things can be done with it...I do find it a bit involved, and much prefer ableton live for my looping (so simple to use, and many many options for creating sounds), and for everything else, I swear by protools. By far the best program out there!

Acid is a little too simple for me, and Sound Forge is just a wave editor, can't really sequence anything with it.

Have fun :)