Can Someone Point Me In The Right Direction Here? Options

[Percussion_Is_Fr...]

Let me give you a little background so your advice can be somewhat personalized... I'm 21 years old, been a musician since I was 6, I love music, its my life. I play piano/keyboard, drums, and guitar mainly, with a little clarinet left over from high school concert band. I've finally landed a good job and saved up some money, and am in the process of putting together a digital audio workstation to record/create music.

My goals are as follows: I'd first and foremost like to be able to sit in my room, laying down chord progressions on my keyboard or drums, then put on headphones and solo or sing over them, as put my drumset in there too. I'm also interested in getting into electronic music, I really like Fischerspooner and the Faint, that sort of thing, and would like my set-up to allow me to be really creative in that respect. Thirdly, I would like to be able to record my four-person band (standard setup... drumkit, bass, guitar, keyboard, vocals).

Here's where I stand so far: I got a used dual 1.5gig powermac G4 with a gig of memory, two 40 gig harddrives. I've got a general midi keyboard (Casio WK-1800). I'm planning on getting Logic Express, although I'm not 100% solid on this (and any input there would be appreciated too). I figure I'll get some sort of active monitors, I'm not really worrying about them yet.

Here's where I need your help. I'm new at this, and am having trouble understanding the specs of the various interfaces available. Essentially I want to get the least expensive interface, be it firewire or USB, that will allow me to record my band effectively. I've never recorded with a band before, so I'm not sure if I need to be able to get us playing live, or if we could have the drummer and bassist lay down their tracks together, and then add guitar, vocals, keyboard on subsequent takes. Would that work? If so, I could get an interface with less inputs
I'm looking at the MOTU 828mkII. I'm assuming that would allow us to play together, but I don't like the actual appearance/set-up. (I want to have something that looks like a mixing board, with faders, etc., though this isn't a necesity, just a sort of recording-studio fantasy ) The Tascam 1884 would be ideal, but its out of my price range.

So that brings me to the Tascam US428. At 300 bucks, its very affordable. Its got the tactile controls that I like, and I'm assuming it would work with logic express. I just can't make sense of the specifications, they're in a highly unfamiliar language to such a newb.

SO help me guys, I'm just exploding here waiting to make music, help me clinch this decision and order my sheit!

[Riverdog]

- The answer is "yes" for both...
The US428 may only have one (I believe) Headphone output... But, I would think that would work well for what you're trying to do...

Remember that when you record though that you will have two "mono" channels... If you try to record a "stereo" guitar effect - You'll have to use both channels to get the true effect in there...

As for your "any problems" question...
Please take this with a grain of salt... But, I too was extremely excited when this unit first came out - Only to get it home and realize that it had no drivers for Mac... This was RIGHT when it came out... Since then, I believe drivers are available and some people are getting good results with this unit... I also know through using Logic Pro 7 that it has a specific interface for using this unit with Logic... AND - I took the liberty of checking the Tascam site last night for you and there is an environment for it in Logic as well...

It may be a good buy for you - But You'll need to decide that for yourself...

Good Luck