Ok, cool..... thanks, guys. That was one of the things that appealed to me was having the mic pres built-in, as I have come to be doing my mixing and 99% of my effects within Cubase/plug-ins, etc. At the moment, I'm using a Behringer 802 mixer and a Delta 44. Even if I had a half-decent hardware mixer, I would lose the luxury of automation, saving all the parameters within the song, etc. Not that I'd be against trying things out as options...
What I'm looking for is a pro (or more realistically, near-pro) system with at least eight simultaneous ins (or more), and maybe eight outs. I was considering (and still am....) the Delta 1010, as I've heard good things about it. But, then, I'd need a bunch more pre-amps.... perhaps a good quality mixer, or some dedicated mic pres, or some combination thereof for variety. I realize that this COULD get VERY expensive. I want to do better than Mackie - not that I think Mackie is bad, but I just want to go more "pro-level" than that. At this point, the Aardvark starts sounding like a REALLY good option.
Perhaps a sixteen channel mixer with a Delta 1010 would be nice, to give me eight channels going into the 1010, and eight coming back from the Delta.... but then again, I kinda like software mixing.
I could go Motu 828 or something like that, but I'd still need pres.
Any other suggestions, or any other comments on the Aardvark? That may well be the direction I go, as the price/performance seems to be good. I could also use my Behringer as a sub-mixer/router of sorts, too, perhaps, but with 8 outputs, I might not need anything else.
Chris