I don't mind helping you in anyway I can with knowledge / advice, if there is anything you need, just ask, I will PM you my contact details.
1 thing, in my opinion, that is really really important when producing, get good speakers (active monitors), I am using KRK 5's (G2) I was using 6's but they were too powerful for my apartment so I traded them back and downsized a little.
To explain this as short as possible and briefly, monitors are on a "flat frequency" so you can really listen to all the sounds, imo there is no sound quality better than with these type of speakers for listening also, but that's me.
To get the most processing power when producing, use a PC that is ONLY for music, I found when using the computer for games and other things, it really really slowed it down when adding multiple VST's etc.
All I have on my other PC is Nuendo, Samples, VST's, SoundForge, Reason, nothing else, it works like a dream, and it only cost me £120, and it's perfect for this.