Hi Glen,

There are a number of audio cards which will do this -

the best thing for $500 is one of the M-audio cards - they have 
many software bundled.

What your son basically needs, is AUDIO-MIDI recorder like 
cubase VST or Emagic logic audio - where logic is one of the 
bundled software systems.

Another good source is Marian/SEK'D www.sekd.de

their Sienna card has 8 wav channels + 2 midi and comes with 
samplitude - a profesional like tool !

Now, these progams deal with both midi and audio phrases -
where the midis might go to an external soundmodule
(has to be rerecorded then by e.g. sienna) or of course also
your korg ...

or they might go to a softsynthesizer 7 ram sampler - like the 
gigasampler.

YOu will work as follows :

When preparing the setup and adjusting and editing - 
you will use midi and wav simultaneously using korg or sampler 
going to an  analog mixer / or using the internal mixer of the sound 
card, whereby in both cases, the analog output of the wave 
channels will be added. You might add effect modules too.

Finally , when beeing ready :
You first process all midisetups channel wise and rerecord them 
offline into your system.

In this way,  you have all tracks prepared as wave files.

then you might do the final mix using suitable loudness 
adjustments for the tracks :

1) Normal :

just do a track bounce, and compress to wav standard
(around -6 dB to - 10 dB avarage level of loudness)


2) MP3 : increase loudnes of vocals + 3dB
and maybe reduce loudness of pads -3dB

do trackbouncing then and compress stronger
(-3 to -6 dB average leven)

3) do the "car mix"
please refer to one of my large letters of mixing before

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you also will have to have a carefull look on the stereo positions 
and the amount of reverb / ambient sound to locate / place the 
individual tracks.

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i would advise to check out the free win version of prootools 
digidesign anyway.  www.digidesign.com

this is my professional tool and this freeware works with normal 
soundcards.

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an add :  if your son intends to use many tracks and effects -
think of a DSP card !

Sorry for stoping here - but it is hard to explain all relevant things in 
just one mail.

ask for more any time ...

jürgen