Hi all,
 
I'm new here, howdy everyone!
 
I do my recording on a BOSS BR800. Recently I've been playing around with Reaper into an MAudio Firewire 410 I inherited from a friend, but now thinking of making the plunge to Sonar and also investing in some hardware to go with it.
 
From a HW perspective I was looking for something that can act as a control surface and an audio interface in one hit. My reasoning is that it just seems clunky to have BOTH an audio interface and a second piece of hardware as a control surface (although I'm open to having my mind changed if anyone disagrees).
 
So far I've not found alot of stuff that fits the bill - the MAudio ProjectMix IO seemed perfect but is now obsolete. I love the fact that the Projectmix gives you some basic recording, tweaking of the input record tracks, without barely touching the PC (in theory). Also it seems a nice control surface. I need min 4 simultaneous recording inputs so its good for that. However, even if it wasn't obsolete, I'm not sure I want to stick to Firewire. Maybe USB 2.0 is the more accepted way forward nowadays?
 
Behringer makes something called a Xenyx UFX1024 that also seems to fit the bill, but I don't know how much confidence I have in a Behringer product to act as a reliable audio interface (again, maybe this is a little unfair).
 
To add another curve ball, seems that using your iPad as a control surface these days is a good option.
 
I just wanted to throw it out there to see if anyone has some helpful suggestions to narrow down the field a little?
 
Cheers!

i used the Project Mix I/O to engineer/record a local band here, for their first cd release...
 
a wonderful board, it sounded excellent.
 
you have to realize, that is a 10 year old piece of kit, 
 
the TASCAM DM-3200 is a good spot to start.
 
 

I use the Behringer XR-18. It has MIDAS Preamps in it and is very clean.  It is also an 18 Channel digital mixer that is about the size of a lunch box.  18 Inputs (16 of them have those nice preamps!).
 
I am just getting used to it, but so far it has been good to me.  The forum at Behringer is starting to gain momentum and the $699 price tag is not bad either.
 
 

Thanks for the replies.
 
I agree, the ProjectMix IO is 10yo and seems a bit silly to me to consider as an option unless it's a great 2nd hand deal.
 
The Behringer Xerex UFX1204 continues to get great reviews and I'm struggling to pick faults with it other than:
 
1) Its a Behringer - their is a stigma about build quality that Behringer is struggling to shake off. Not sure whether it applies to this product or not
 
2) It's unknown to me whether I'd be sacrificing a bit of quality in the A/D conversion and/or preamp side of things compared to better products. Also not sure if I have the quality of mics and instruments to really appreciate the difference in quality anyway. So, this is a bit of a grey area to me.
 
3) Some people are not happy with it because the faders don't adjust the recording levels (ie adjust the faders and the input levels through USB/firewire into Sonar would remain unchanged). Actually, I like this fact so it's not a problem for me, but ideally you'd like a switch that can turn that on/off.
 
I have also looked at a Mackie 1620, but that's 12yo!!! Maybe I'm not looking hard enough - there must be more of these on the market, or maybe the Behringer is the one for me!
 
The Tascam DM-3200 seems a bit of overkill for my home studio, if I googled the right one it's got 48 channels!!!