I'm stuck in a rut - basically bored of playing other people's songs (and doing so badly), so I think it is about time I started trying to write some of my own stuff.

I own a macbook with garage band and I have a guitarport interface that plugs into the USB, but I wonder whether I could put together a better setup (cheaply). For example, the onboard mic on the mac is pretty bad, and an external mic would allow me to record my amphs directly. Anyhow, any suggestions for a budget level mac based recording set up?

Thanks!!