Hi...I'm new to the forums and mostly new to recording. I have some questions that you guys can hopefully help me out on.

What I have is a Mackie 32x8 mixing console I bought about 5 years ago from one of my brother's guitar teachers...it came with the old Alesis Blackface ADAT's, but they don't really work, and I want to upgrade them to something newer. I also have a few lexicon effects processors, and some dbx compressors, as well as 3 patchbays.

Basically, I wan't to know different options I have as far as what I can record onto. I know about the Alesis HD24XR, but that's about it...I would like to be able to hook the board to a computer and use some kind of recording program like cubase, pro tools, DP, or Logic to record onto and use for mixing, but I'm not sure what the best option is for hooking this board to an Apple G5 computer, which I plan on buying shortly. You're help is greatly appreciated guys...please let me know of some different options. I really appreciate any help I get!

Well we just ordered one of these as an upgrade from our RME Fireface's - still have the Firefaces actually.

It's worth looking into further. If you do some searches on the web, you'll find a ton of reviews / opinions on it. We're using it with the FW card.Return for your dollar seems to be one of the biggest factors on why it's so popular. The sound is more on the neutral side as opposed to coloured, like say, Apogee.

I haven't been on one of those Mackies for years, so can't remember much about it.

I love my Alesis HD24, but if you go that route you'll want to do analog mixes and use outboard signal processing ("old-school") as the HD24s are fairly clunky about dumping files into computers and are really meant more to be standalone recorders like your tape ADATs.

If you want to interface that analog console with the computer directly so you can deep-edit and process tracks with software but have that mixer for lots of analog preamp and mixdown channels, you'd probably want an interface or interfaces totaling 24 channels in and out--others on this forum are much more well versed than I am with the many PC interfaces out there.

Your other option would be to just keep the mixer for the preamps and work fully in the computer for all processing and mixing in which case an interface with probably 8 channels in and out would suffice unless you're planning to record lots of tracks in and one time. In any event, I can recommend RME as quality products-

I use a 32.8, but I use a set of SSL converters and an RME HDPS9652 to interface with the DAW on the other side of the wall in the machine room. I have everything wired to patch bays so I can mix or track entirely ITB or OTB.

That's one way to go about it...there are others. Three Firepods daisy-chained together would work fine too.

Frank