Have a gander at my equipment page:

http://s93744050.onlinehome.us/SchmangeOnline/Soundtrackst0964.htm

Out of most of that stuff, the equpment that gets used the most is the computer, Cubase, the Guitar Synth and MIDI keyboard, behringer mixer and Boss ME-5. Everything else is pretty much software based.
If you're going to be doing multitracking, concentrate your money on VST stuff and get some decent plug-ins, VSTi synths, and mastering software.

Like seriously, you don't even need to do squat to put a whole song together just by holding down a few chords.

http://s93744050.onlinehome.us/SchmangeOnline/DarkBattle.mp3

On that tune, all I did was load up drum loop, then play A chords all the way through. Then you just tell the software to play a dozen different instruments and it sounds like an orchestra.

Hell.... My computer was $500. Cubase was $500 about 3 years ago.
SampleTank I got for free for doing a review. The behringer mixer was a coupla hundred. The guitar was $300 and the ME-5 I got used for $150.
The loops I got off eBay for $10 or free from PLP. And t-Racks was a few hundred.

For a song like this one:
http://s93744050.onlinehome.us/SchmangeOnline/Maya.mp3

I just used VSTi instruments like Absynth and a whole bunch of royalty free loop CD's. If you want to customize the loops so that they're all in the same beat, buy ReCycle.

Like, the whole setup for this song (and the other 30 on my PhaseIV CD - http://cdbaby.com/all/schmange) was probably just a coupla thousand bucks...and only took a coupla months to put together.