what card/interface should I get?

[tsphillips]

I currently have a Pent III 600. I will move up to Pent IV in a few months.

I am currently using Cakewalk 9 and I recrod through a Mackie board that then goes to a Steinberg 18 bit Project Card.

It only has two stereo ins and two outs (plus a digital out)

What I want to be able to do ultimately is have a minumum of four ins (all XLR mikes) so I can have two stereo pairs of mikes for recording solo acoustic guitar.

If I could have five or six Ins so I could add vocals while playing the guitar too, that would be even better.

Can someone recommend some kind of sound card/interface box that would give me this, I would be very grateful.

I do have USB but not USB2. When I eventually upgrade PCs it will probably be a Micron with USB, USB2 and Firewire.

So I would like to buy something that will workwith what I have now and also what I will buy in the future.

I think most of those interface boxes that then lead to the card in the PC tend to have two XLRs. That should be ok so long as I can use two xlrs directly into that and then two via my mackie board.

 

[AlChuck]

The Delta 44 or 66 will do you a treat, in the neighborhood of $250-300. (They are essentially the same cards with the exception that the 66 includes a stereo S/PDIF digital port too, so if you have an S/PDIF source you can have up to six tracks recorded simultaneously.

Or the Delta 1010, which has eight analog ins/outs plus an S/PDIF port (also word clock and maybe a MIDI interface too? -- I'm not sure) in a rack-mount box, around $600 or so?

They also have a new card called the Delta1010LT that is significantly cheaper and includes a couple of mic preamps too.

Check them out at http://www.midiman.net/products/m-audio/delta.php