The question you have posed has more to do with what preamps you wish than what DAW you can afford. Budget your preamps first, compromise on your DAW... you can always upgrade it.
Whenever people hereabouts get into discussions regarding mics and preamps there are always those who are willing to trash the recommendations made by others. Thus someone will praise the pres on the Digi 002 while others will (and have) panned them as... at best... mediocre.
In all things YMMV.
Given your statement that you need at least two channels and have a (regrettably) modest budget I would suggest you start with a
FMR RNP (Real Nice Preamp). With two channels it only costs (roughly) $475, enjoys lots of advocates, and has precious few detractors. This is the marketing blurb from mercenary.com, widely regarded as being pretty darn honest about their offerings.
Somewhere around 1997 this guy named Mark McQuilken started showing up on the Usenet group rec.audio.pro . He kept talking about this little compressor of his that was under $200 and sounded great. Remember, this was 1997, when there was even less "affordable" gear on the market that was close to useable than there is today (and there ain't bloody much of it available now either). So, being the loud mouthed jerk he is... Fletcher asked Mark to send him one of these "really nice compressors" up to the shop so we could give it a whirl.
Fully expecting it to be complete shit, we plugged it in on a 2 buss application. It didn't suck. We tried it on a vocal, it didn't suck. We tried it on some guitars... it didn't suck!! In fact, there was damn little we could do to get it to suck [it can be done, but you'll have to find out on your own how to do it].
The compressor not only worked well as a compression device, but it could also be used effectively as an envelop shaping effect device. This led to a myriad of potential uses, which led to the RNC becoming a favorite amongst the staff. It's funny, we have all kinds of high class, high faluten, big ticket compressors around the shop... but very often, the RNC is indeed the compressor of choice.
In 1999 Mercenary became a dealer for the FMR line [funny thing was, we didn't know they had dealers or we'd have been one earlier]. We were using the thing for a solid year or two before we knew we could pimp it... which is a rarity around these parts.
In the fall of 2002 FMR added the RNP [Really Nice Preamp] to their roster. The 2 channel unit features stepped attenuation on the input [like a GML or Great River ], output mute, a polarity reverse switch, and perhaps the coolest feature; an insert point. Because the RNP can work as a "O gain" amplifier it can be used as a 'balance box' for the RNC [should you decide you'd like to use your RNC as a balanced unit]. It also allows for the easy addition of an equalizer or compressor [or both] to the signal path.
Overall, there are very few bargains in professional audio that compare to the innovative products from FMR, and Mercenary Audio is proud to represent this line of cost effective solutions.
If you choose to go with this pre (and no question you could do worse) then you would have approx. $1.5K for you DAW.
Now, I'll be blunt, $1.5K will carry you a hell of long way when building a DAW. The best advice I can give you here is
don't buy a hot processor because processor prices
always drop like a rock over the course of a year. The way you go about this is to pick a mobo that will
support the processor you want, but use another processor that is relatively affordable until the prices drop, whereupon your (formerly) hot processor will be attainable and your computer easily upgradable.
The next tip is to look at mobos that have
integrated video. These are usually (not always) MicroATX boards and are often
cheaper than the video adapters that are integrated into them are when sold as stand alone display adapters! Most integrated video adapter mobos support two monitors.
Next, DON'T SKIMP ON YOUR KEYBOARD AND MOUSE. Next to your monitor there is NOTHING that is going to make your experience more pleasureable than your keyboard and mouse.
Hope this helps, hang in there.
