I use the
M-Audio Audiophile 2496. It's a vast improvement over any SB clone I've ever seen. If I didn't need the MIDI functionality, I would have gone with a
Delta 44 instead. Of course, with either of these cards, you'll also need mics and preamps.
For transferring tracks from your mt8x, you'd need to do
n tracks at a time, where
n is the number of channels of A/D you have. Connect the mt8x outs to the soundcard ins, start your multitrack software recording, and start
the mt8x playing. When that's finished, move to the next
n tracks, and repeat the process until all the tracks are transferred.
If you only have 2 channels of A/D, and 8 tracks of audio coming from the mt8x, that means you'd need 4 passes. And getting those 4 passes to synchronize properly might be impossible. That's where more $$$ buys you more convenience. Spend a bit more than the cost of the AP2496 or Delta 44, and you can have a
Delta 1010, which gives you 8 channels of A/D. No sync problems in that case.
For software, consider registering and using N-Track if you've tried it and like it. (If you were using Windows 98 instead of XP, I'd recommend giving ProTools FREE a try.)
Enough of my rambling for now. Have fun shopping, and keep asking questions!
Regards,
Don