Firewire Audio Interfaces For Os X, Which one to buy ? Options

[snuupy]

Hello everybody,

I just bought one of the new 800MHz iBooks (my first Mac) and I´m planning to buy a FIREWIRE Audio Interface that operates under OS X.

Is there anybody who could recommend a specific product and/or help me with my decision ?

This is what I want to get accomplished with my new "toy":

As a jazz-piano player I´d like to record rehearsals and demos with small ensembles and burn them on CD - I think that 8 audio input channels should be enough for this task. (?)
E.g. bass 1, piano 2, voc 1, sax 1, drums 3 channels.

I don´t expect true professional quality - I simply want to get things done/check things out on my own instead of depending on booking a studio all the time.

My budget allows for approximately 900$ / 900 EUROs.

Until now I took a look at the

- MOTU 828 and the
- M-Audio Delta 1010

MOTU828s two XLR jacks look pretty good to me, because I like to do things with as few technical stuff as possible... Looks to me like you could even just plug in two mics without any adaptors to record a piano/voice duo. Am I seriously mislead about that ???

OK - pretty long post

I´m looking forward to your experiences/suggestions.

snuupy

[damann]

a personal question: damann, do you use the 828 yourself ? in a live or studio situation ? do you know other frequent mac-music visitors who use their equipment for "live" (i mean on the road, mike the band and record a whole 50minute set) recordings ?

hi snuupy,
i do use an 828.
but not in a live situation.
i hate to say it, but to record a 50 minute set, 8 audio tracks, sounds like a potential disaster!
you'll certainly need a LARGE external hard drive for this.
and a solid mains supply(most unusual in venues).
also, you'll of course, need to feed outputs from the board into at least the 6 inputs of the 828 that don't have mic pre's.
this requires a fairly decent board that some venues might not have.
having said all this, it's conceptually, great!
as far as the sequencer question.
the issues for me, were related to 1. the cost of these things.
$800 for logic?
$700 for dp.
$700 for cubase?
basically, you need to double the price of the 828 if you intend to purchase one of these.
2. if you're using digidesign or not!
if you are, kinda forget about the 828 and look at their interfaces...