I have scored several films,produced and engineered quite a few albums and cut several radio and podcast spots using Presonus Firepods http://www.presonus.com/. It has just about all the IO you could ask for in an 8 (10 if you count spdif) channel box. You can also daisy chain 3 of them for a 24 channel stack. Also, it is rack mountable so you can readily take it on the road. Overall things just work and I, and my customers, have been very pleased with the sound quality. Not to mention, you get balanced and unbalanced capabilities. To keep things quiet I don't run anything unbalanced if there is more that 3 feet of cable.
If the firepod is a bit much they also offer cut down versions. The firebox, which is a 2 channel unit, and the inspire which has 4 channels.
Digidesign http://www.digidesign.com/, Echo http://www.echoaudio.com/ and Mackie http://www.mackie.com/ also have some really nice gear but can be a bit pricy. I do agree with staying away from m-audio. Their MIDI stuff is phenominal but the audio gear is lacking. I would say the same for lower level Alesis and anything from Behringer.
I also must echo earlier posts in saying that you shouldn't skimp on mics. Your end product is only as good as your source. I would recommend a good condenser from AudioTechnica or MXL for price/quality.
Also, your monitors (for you non-audio folks these are the speakers, not the video display) are also critical to getting a mix that translates well to other systems. You will find that if you use standard stereo speakers or, God forbid, computer speakers what you put out will sound extremely different from stereo to stereo as you listen in different environments.
I personally use Event TR8Ns with a KRK Rockit 10 subwoofer but these babies ain't cheap at $1000.00US per pair. I would recommend looking into KRK http://www.krksys.com/. I did some post work on the latest Stereofuge album with Mark Slaughter producing and we did the entire mix on them and it sounded fat-tastic. In any case, you will want a good near-field monitor that is self powered to eliminate transients.
Finally, clean up your power. You'll be amazed at the difference a $60.00US power conditioner can make to the quality of the sound you get. I use Furman http://www.furmansound.com/ conditioners. This is a good tip for anyone who has a home-theater or high-end gaming system as well.
A good set of reference books for audio newbs is a series of books by Bobby Owsinski. Starting with the recording engineers handbook (available at amazon) they will give you enough info to be extremely dangerous.
I didn't mean to be so verbose but I hope some of this is useful.
Slashdot Mirror
I have scored several films ,produced and engineered quite a few albums and cut several radio and podcast spots using Presonus Firepods http://www.presonus.com/. It has just about all the IO you could ask for in an 8 (10 if you count spdif) channel box. You can also daisy chain 3 of them for a 24 channel stack. Also, it is rack mountable so you can readily take it on the road. Overall things just work and I, and my customers, have been very pleased with the sound quality. Not to mention, you get balanced and unbalanced capabilities. To keep things quiet I don't run anything unbalanced if there is more that 3 feet of cable.
If the firepod is a bit much they also offer cut down versions. The firebox, which is a 2 channel unit, and the inspire which has 4 channels.
Digidesign http://www.digidesign.com/, Echo http://www.echoaudio.com/ and Mackie http://www.mackie.com/ also have some really nice gear but can be a bit pricy. I do agree with staying away from m-audio. Their MIDI stuff is phenominal but the audio gear is lacking. I would say the same for lower level Alesis and anything from Behringer.
I also must echo earlier posts in saying that you shouldn't skimp on mics. Your end product is only as good as your source. I would recommend a good condenser from AudioTechnica or MXL for price/quality.
Also, your monitors (for you non-audio folks these are the speakers, not the video display) are also critical to getting a mix that translates well to other systems. You will find that if you use standard stereo speakers or, God forbid, computer speakers what you put out will sound extremely different from stereo to stereo as you listen in different environments.
I personally use Event TR8Ns with a KRK Rockit 10 subwoofer but these babies ain't cheap at $1000.00US per pair. I would recommend looking into KRK http://www.krksys.com/. I did some post work on the latest Stereofuge album with Mark Slaughter producing and we did the entire mix on them and it sounded fat-tastic. In any case, you will want a good near-field monitor that is self powered to eliminate transients.
Finally, clean up your power. You'll be amazed at the difference a $60.00US power conditioner can make to the quality of the sound you get. I use Furman http://www.furmansound.com/ conditioners. This is a good tip for anyone who has a home-theater or high-end gaming system as well.
A good set of reference books for audio newbs is a series of books by Bobby Owsinski. Starting with the recording engineers handbook (available at amazon) they will give you enough info to be extremely dangerous.
I didn't mean to be so verbose but I hope some of this is useful.