"m-audio Firewire 410" Or "egosys Hexa-fire"?, audio recording Options

[connstellation]

Hi,

I'm very much new to audio-recording. So my question is: "What do I need to record a full Bigband?" (+-18 musicians) I already have a Powerbook 1,25 Ghz and Cubase SX.
But now... "M-Audio Firewire 410" or "Egosys Hexa-fire"?
Do I need 16 channels in from the Hexa-fire, to record the bigband or is 2 enough from the M-Audio? I did read something about "Behringer ADA8000 Ultragain Pro 8-Channel A/D D/A Converter" but don't know what to do...

Thx for the help

Brecht

[boze]

you can record any band- big or otherwise- with either of those soundcards. how many mics do you have / want to use to record?

i don't have specific bigband recording experience, but i've recorded an old jazz combo i used to play in and we just used two condenser mics ortf style (like spacing and angling them to simulate two ears on a head).

when i was in music school they'd use a similar setup to record recitals, sometimes i could see a third mic pointing straight at the performers as well.

your soundcard choice will be based mainly on your i/o needs, driver compatibility (with osx in this case- that's reason enough for me to hold off on the hexa-fire until ppl know how stable the drivers are), and price. i like the idea of a fw soundcard for a pbook, but i wish the m-audio fw410 had more inputs even if it only had two xlr's.